Full opinion text
OPINION D.W. NELSON, Senior Circuit Judge. Jeanne Woodford, Warden of California’s San Quentin State Prison (“California”), appeals the district court’s conditional grant of habeas relief to petitioner Rodney J. Alcala. Alcala was sentenced to death following his conviction for first-degree murder. He is currently in prison. California argues that the district court (1) incorrectly found that Alcala’s trial counsel had been constitutionally ineffective in presenting Alcala’s alibi, (2) improperly found that the state trial court committed constitutional error in excluding the testimony of defense witness Dr. Ray London, (3) erred in concluding that the state trial court’s denial of Alcala’s request for an independent medical examination of prosecution witness Dana Crappa violated the Sixth Amendment, and (4) erroneously aggregated non-constitutional errors in its cumulative error analysis. Alcala cross-appeals, challenging the district court’s conclusions that (1) Alcala’s constitutional rights were not violated when the state trial court admitted Crap-pa’s prior testimony; (2) the exclusion of defense witnesses Tim Fallen, Gerald Crawford, and Raul Vasquez did not deny Alcala a fair trial; (3) the admission of the two sets of knives seized from Alcala’s home did not deny him a fair trial; (4) trial counsel did not render ineffective assistance in failing to investigate and rebut crime scene evidence, failing to investigate and present evidence of the value of a pair of earrings found in Alcala’s possession, and calling David Vogel as a witness without preparation; and (5) these failures to investigate were not constitutional deficiencies that could be included in the cumulative error analysis. We conclude that Alcala’s trial suffered from multiple constitutional errors that had a substantial and injurious effect on the jury’s determination of guilt. Accordingly, we affirm the district court’s conditional grant of Alcala’s habeas petition. Factual and Procedural Background This case concerns the 1979 death of twelve-year-old Robin Samsoe after her sudden disappearance in the area of Huntington Beach, California. Samsoe left the Huntington Beach apartment of her friend, Bridget Wilvert, just after 3:00 p.m. on June 20, 1979, to attend a ballet lesson. She never arrived at her dance class and none of her family or friends saw her alive again. Police discovered Samsoe’s partially decomposed body in a remote mountain ravine about fifty miles away from her home almost two weeks after she disappeared. The state of her remains prevented the coroner from determining the cause of death or whether Samsoe suffered sexual molestation. Police also found Samsoe’s beach towel within a mile of where authorities recovered her remains. A criminalist testified that blood stains on the towel indicated “wipe marks,” suggesting that someone had used the towel to wipe clean a bloody instrument such as a straight-edged weapon. Detectives also uncovered a knife caked with mud and covered in debris in the same general location as Samsoe’s body; the criminalist found a very small spot of human blood on the knife. The test for human blood consumed the entire sample of blood, precluding more specific blood typing. Various pieces of circumstantial evidence prompted police to arrest Alcala on July 24, 1979, a little more than one month after Samsoe’s disappearance. Alcala was convicted of first degree murder and sentenced to death. The California Supreme Court reversed this conviction based on the erroneous admission of Alcala’s prior offenses and granted Alcala a new trial. People v. Alcala (“Alcala I”), 36 Cal.3d 604, 205 Cal.Rptr. 775, 685 P.2d 1126 (1984). In 1986, nearly seven years after Sam-soe disappeared, California retried Alcala before a different judge. It is this trial that is at issue before us. Again a jury convicted Alcala of first degree murder; he again was sentenced to death. The Supreme Court of California affirmed his conviction. People v. Alcala (“Alcala II”), 4 Cal.4th 742, 15 Cal.Rptr.2d 432, 842 P.2d 1192 (1992), cert. denied, 510 U.S. 877, 114 S.Ct. 215, 126 L.Ed.2d 171 (1993). The prosecutor relied on various forms of circumstantial evidence in securing both of Alcala’s convictions; no physical evidence directly connected him to Samsoe’s death. This circumstantial evidence that Alcala murdered Samsoe included various eyewitness identifications. Two young women, Lorraine Werts and Patty Elmen-dorf, testified that on the afternoon of June 20, 1979, a man approached them at Sunset Beach, a few miles north of Huntington Beach, and asked if he could photograph them for a class contest. Werts consented. Police later discovered a slide photo of Werts in a Seattle storage locker that Alcala rented a few weeks after Sam-soe disappeared. At trial, Elmendorf identified Alcala as the Sunset Beach photographer. Samsoe and Wilvert also spent June 20, 1979, at the beach. They were at Huntington Beach at approximately 2:00 or 3:00 that afternoon when a man asked if he could take their pictures for a school contest. They agreed, and he took one photo each of Samsoe and Wilvert and one of the two of them together. As the man photographed them, an adult neighbor, Jackelyn Young, mistook Samsoe for her niece and approached the group. The man hurried away as Young got close. Wilvert and Young helped police prepare a composite sketch, which, according to the district court, bore a “moderate resemblance to Alcala.” Wilvert never identified Alcala as the man at Huntington Beach. Although Young could not identify Alcala in a photographic lineup just one week after Sam-soe’s disappearance, she unhesitatingly identified him as the Huntington Beach photographer at trial seven years later. She testified that he was wearing a striped, collarless shirt, and at the first trial she also had stated, in addition to this description, that it was a long-sleeved shirt. In addition, Richard Sillett, a city surveyor, contacted police after Samsoe’s disappearance. He informed them that he, too, had been at Huntington Beach on June 20, 1979. After Alcala was arrested, Sillett identified him as the man he saw taking photographs there that day. Before this identification, Sillett had seen the composite sketch created with the help of Wilvert and Young, as well as pictures of Alcala in the local media and in a police interview. He testified that he was certain that the man had been wearing a blue Hawaiian shirt and had the impression that the man had on cut-off shorts and sandals. Two other young women, Joanne Murchland and Toni Esparza, testified at trial that they were at Huntington Beach the day before Samsoe’s disappearance, when a man sought their permission to take photographs of them for an alleged bikini-of-the-month contest. The man left when the young women declined to give him their phone numbers. Both Murch-land and Esparza told police that the composite drawing of the suspect in Samsoe’s disappearance depicted the man who took their pictures. Only Murchland selected Alcala’s photograph out of a photo lineup. At trial, however, both women positively identified Alcala as the man from the beach. Neither woman could remember what Alcala’s car looked like when they testified at the second trial. A police officer who interviewed the women during the investigation testified that Murchland described Alcala’s car as “an older red car” and Esparza said it was “an older bigger car,” unlike Alcala’s one-year-old blue Dat-sun F-10. The prosecution also introduced evidence that Alcala straightened his hair three days after Samsoe’s disappearance, cut his hair a few days after that, and planned to move away from the Southern California area. In defense, Alcala presented evidence that his girlfriend had been pressuring him to change his hairstyle consistently for about a month before he straightened his hair. He also offered testimony that he had purchased the necessary products for straightening his hair before Samsoe disappeared. In the Seattle storage locker that Alcala rented after Samsoe disappeared, police found, in addition to the slide photo of Werts, a pair of gold-ball earrings that Samsoe’s mother testified belonged to her. The defense rebutted with evidence that Alcala usually wore one earring that a coworker identified as “exactly like” the ones police found in the locker. Also at trial, jailhouse informant Freddie Williams testified that Alcala claimed to have kidnapped and killed Samsoe. The defense attempted to rebut this contention with the testimony of David Vogel, who also had been in jail with Williams. Vogel testified that Williams was desperate to testify against someone — anyone—in order to secure a deal with the prosecutor. Vo-gel significantly undermined his own credibility, however, when he admitted that he, too, once had told police that Alcala confessed to kidnapping and murdering Sam-soe. The testimony of prosecution witness Dana Crappa proved most damaging to Alcala’s case. Crappa, a twenty-year-old forest service worker, met with the authorities twelve times before testifying at Alca-la’s first trial. During this time period, her knowledge about the crime evolved from volunteering nothing at all about the murder to placing Alcala at the crime scene with Samsoe, visiting the decomposing body twice at night, and “interacting” with the corpse twice before the police discovered the remains. At Alcala’s second trial, Crappa testified that she did not recall the kidnapping, her visits to the crime scene and Samsoe’s body, or even testifying against Alcala at his first trial. The trial court denied Alca-la’s motion for a court-appointed, independent psychiatric evaluation of Crappa, found Crappa unavailable as a witness, and allowed the prosecutor to read Crappa’s prior testimony into the record. The trial court then refused to allow Alcala to put on Dr. Ray London, who would have testified that Crappa’s knowledge of the murder may have been the product of suggestive interview techniques. After his second conviction and death sentence, Alcala unsuccessfully pursued direct appeals and state post-conviction remedies. In 1994, Alcala sought federal habeas corpus relief. The district court conducted an evidentiary hearing on his claims, and in 2001 conditionally granted his petition, issuing a writ ordering California to release him or grant him a new trial. Standard of Review Because Alcala filed his federal ha-beas petition in 1994, the Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (AEDPA) does not apply to his petition. See Lindh v. Murphy, 521 U.S. 320, 327, 336, 117 S.Ct. 2059, 138 L.Ed.2d 481 (1997) (holding that in general AEDPA applies only to habeas petitions filed after the statute’s effective date of April 24, 1996, and noting that AEDPA’s special procedures for 28 U.S.C. § 2254 petitions in capital cases apply also to petitions pending on April 24, 1996). We review de novo the district court’s decision to grant Alca-la’s 28 U.S.C. § 2254 habeas petition. Benn v. Lambert, 283 F.3d 1040, 1051 (9th Cir.2002). We stated the standard of review for ineffective assistance of counsel and for district and state court findings of fact in the pre-AEDPA case Silva v. Woodford, 279 F.3d 825 (9th Cir.2002): [C]laims alleging ineffective assistance of counsel are mixed questions of law and fact and are reviewed de novo. To the extent it is necessary to review findings of fact made in the district court, the clearly erroneous standard applies. Our review for clear error is significantly deferential, in that we must accept the district court’s factual findings absent a definite and firm conviction that a mistake has been committed. Although less deference to state court factual findings is required under the pre-AEDPA law which governs this case, such factual findings are nonetheless entitled to a presumption of correctness unless they are not fairly supported by the record. Id. at 835 (citations and internal quotation marks omitted). We may affirm the decision to grant a petition “on any ground supported by the record, even if it differs from the rationale of the district court.” Paradis v. Arave, 240 F.3d 1169, 1175-76 (9th Cir.2001). Discussion I. Alcala’s Trial Counsel’s Presentation of the Knott’s Berry Farm Alibi The district court found merit in Alcala’s claim that his counsel provided ineffective assistance in failing to present an alibi defense adequately, determining that this error both prejudiced Alcala and should be included in the cumulative error analysis. To show ineffective assistance, Alcala first “must show that counsel’s performance was deficient.... Second, [he] must show that the deficient performance prejudiced the defense.” Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668, 687, 104 S.Ct. 2052, 80 L.Ed.2d 674 (1984). Alcala must prove all facts underlying his claims of ineffective assistance by a preponderance of the evidence. See, e.g., McKenzie v. McCormick, 27 F.3d 1415, 1418-19 (9th Cir.1994). We agree that Alcala has met his burden and that deficiency and prejudice are both present here. A Facts Alcala’s trial counsel attempted to show that, on the afternoon of June 20, 1979, Alcala was seeking freelance photography work at Knott’s Berry Farm, a theme park in Buena Park, California, and therefore could not have been in Huntington Beach at that time. Trial counsel presented the testimony of four witnesses, all employees of Knott’s Berry Farm, who established only that Alcala had visited their office sometime in the afternoon of a day in late June, around the middle of the week. One of these witnesses, Carolyn Carey, testified that she would have seen anyone who entered the office, and that she did not see Alcala, but that on a day that she “assume[d]” was June 20 she and other managers left Knott’s Berry Farm between 2:30 and 3:30 p.m. for a tour of other local theme parks. In closing argument, the prosecutor made every effort to highlight the alibi witnesses’ failure to establish the time or date of the Knott’s Berry Farm visit: [Defense counsel] told you that people put him, the defendant, at Knott’s Berry Farm on June 20th of 1979. And it absolutely is not true.... I kept waiting. We had four people.... [T]hree live people, and one stipulated witness where we agreed what she would say about Knott’s Berry Farm.... But recall what the testimony was? Four people came in here and talked about Knott’s Berry Farm. People who have worked there. And counsel wrote it up there on his chart as a proven fact. The defendant was at Knott’s Berry Farm, I think, at 3:15 to 3:45, on the afternoon of June 20th, 1979. He wrote that up as if: Hey, that’s proven, four people. Terry McDowell was here in person, Robin Humphrey was a stipulation, Joanne Sutch was here in person, Carolyn Carey was here in person. Carolyn Carey and Joanne Sutch add zero to the alibi.... They never saw Rodney Alcala in their life at anytime before they came to court.... I am left scratching my head: What the heck are they calling them as defense witnesses for? They don’t know anything about this case. They never saw this man before. Robin Humphrey, who wasn’t here, but again we stipulated to what she would say — -she worked at Knott’s Berry Farm. Sometime during the week of June 20th, which is the 18th, 19th, 20th, 21st, and 22nd, sometime during that week, she saw somebody who looked something like the defendant. No time of day, no date.... The last one, Terry McDowell. And I think she’s the one counsel said puts him there. She said he was there — she’s pretty sure this was the guy, and he was there sometime during the week. Now, what kind of alibi is that? That he was at Knott’s Berry Farm? They are assuming that that’s been proven.... * * * There’s nothing. There’s not a doggone thing in terms of alibi at Knott’s Berry Farm.... And those are the only four people who came in here and told you anything about Knott’s Berry Farm. And they don’t help him a bit. There’s no evidence that he was at Knott’s Berry Farm on June 20th, 1979. There is zero evidence of that. The California Supreme Court also noted the lack of a specific date and time for the alibi: [Alcala] presented an alibi defense, attempting to establish that he was at Knott’s Berry Farm in Buena Park during the early to midafternoon of Robin’s disappearance, seeking employment as a photographer .... [S]everal employees of Knott’s Berry Farm testified that they remembered seeing [Alcala] at the park near the date of Robin’s disappearance, although none could testify specifically to having seen him there on June 20. Alcala II, 15 Cal.Rptr.2d 432, 842 P.2d at 1201 (emphasis added). We doubt that the alibi helped Alcala’s case. Alcala’s counsel did in fact have access to evidence of the date and time, which would have placed Alcala at Knott’s Berry Farm on the afternoon of June 20, 1979. At the evidentiary hearing before the district court, Alcala introduced the statements of Tina Dodwell, another Knott’s employee, and various business records in Carey’s possession. Dodwell told police that Alcala arrived at her office in Knott’s Berry Farm on the day of the managers’ tour around 2:30 or 3:00 p.m. and that the tour departed around 3:00 or 3:30 p.m. She gave the same information to a defense investigator, who tape-recorded the interview with her consent. After the interview, she called the investigator and stated that Alcala might have been there at 1:30 p.m. Carey’s records established that the managers’ tour occurred on June 20, sometime after 2:10 p.m. The district court found that the failure to introduce this evidence constituted ineffective assistance of counsel. B. Deficient Performance Alcala’s trial counsel’s presentation of the alibi was plainly deficient; Alcala has “show[n] that counsel’s representation fell below an objective standard of reasonableness.” Strickland, 466 U.S. at 688, 104 S.Ct. 2052. Even when we “indulge a strong presumption that counsel’s conduct. falls within the wide range of reasonable professional assistance,” we conclude that Alcala has “overcome the presumption that, under the circumstances, the challenged action ‘might be considered sound trial strategy.’ ” Id. at 689, 104 S.Ct. 2052 (quoting Michel v. Louisiana, 350 U.S. 91, 101, 76 S.Ct. 158, 100 L.Ed. 83 (1955)). Trial counsel made a sound strategic choice to present an alibi defense, but nonetheless failed in his duty to present that defense reasonably and competently. The district court found that Dodwell’s testimony and Carey’s records would have been far more helpful than the testimony of the alibi witnesses who did testify. This finding is not clearly erroneous, and it compels the conclusion that a competent attorney would have presented this evidence unless the attorney was unaware of its existence or had a reasonable strategic reason for not doing so. We recognize that “[f]ew decisions a lawyer makes draw so heavily on professional judgment as whether or not to proffer a witness at trial,” Lord v. Wood, 184 F.3d 1083, 1095 (9th Cir.1999), but trial counsel here offered no strategic reason for failing to call Dodwell or to present Carey’s records. The record shows that trial counsel identified Dodwell as a trial witness and intended to call her. At the evidentiary hearing, he reaffirmed that “we fully intended to call her,” but could not recall why she was not called. The record also discloses that Carey told a defense investigator that her personal calendar, one of the documents submitted at the evidentiary hearing, might be of use in establishing the date of the managers’ tour at Knott’s Berry Farm. Although trial counsel’s lack of recollection as to why he did not present this evidence does not, in and of itself, rebut the presumption that counsel acted reasonably, see Harris v. Pulley, 885 F.2d 1354, 1368 (9th Cir.1988), neither does it compel us to conclude that his actions were reasonable where all of the other record evidence suggests otherwise. See Ainsworth v. Calderon, 138 F.3d 787, 791 (9th Cir.1998). California suggests that Dodwell’s equivocation about Alcala’s arrival time at Knott’s motivated trial counsel’s decision not to call her, and that we must therefore defer to the decision as a strategic choice. Not only is this argument contrary to our caselaw, because it would have us find a strategic basis for trial counsel’s actions in the absence of any evidence, it is inconsistent with the evidence in the record. Dod-well’s alleged “recantation” occurred long before Alcala’s second trial and long before trial counsel told the trial court that he intended to call Dodwell. Further, even if she had testified that Alcala was in the office around 1:30 p.m., her prior identification of the time as 3:00 p.m. would have been admissible under California law as a prior inconsistent statement, see Cal. Evid. Code § 1235, and her testimony still would have been far more useful than that of the witnesses who did testify. Finally, this argument does not address the failure to introduce Carey’s business records. We will not assume facts not in the record in order to manufacture a reasonable strategic decision for Alcala’s trial counsel. Even if Alcala’s trial counsel did offer a basis for his decision not to present alibi evidence, that basis would be unreasonable if it were unsupported by objective evidence because Dodwell’s testimony and Carey’s records were consistent with the alibi defense that counsel chose. See Lord, 184 F.3d at 1095 (holding that counsel’s decision not to call witnesses was unreasonable because counsel’s stated reasons for disputing the witnesses’ credibility were not supported by objective evidence). Absent an objectively reasonable basis to undermine the credibility or utility of Dod-well’s testimony and Carey’s records, “a competent attorney would not have failed to put” on this evidence. Id. When defense counsel undertakes to establish an alibi, but does not present available evidence of the time or even the date of the alibi, or offer a strategic reason for failing to do so, his actions are unreasonable. Alcala has overcome the presumption that his trial counsel’s actions were reasonable strategic decisions. Trial counsel’s failure to call Dodwell or to present information regarding the date and time of the managers’ tour was deficient. C. Prejudice We agree with the district court that Alcala was prejudiced by trial counsel’s deficient presentation of his alibi because the alibi would have challenged the eyewitness identification placing Alcala with Samsoe. Following Strickland, we find prejudice because “there is a reasonable probability that, but for counsel’s unprofessional errors, the result of the proceeding would have been different”; the deficient presentation of the alibi “undermine[s our] confidence in the outcome.” Strickland, 466 U.S. at 694, 104 S.Ct. 2052. Considering “the totality of the evidence” before the jury, id. at 695, 104 S.Ct. 2052, we conclude that the case against Alcala was “only weakly supported by the record” and therefore “more likely to have been affected by errors than one with overwhelming record support.” Id. at 696, 104 S.Ct. 2052. We agree with the district court that the prosecution’s case was far from compelling. The evidence that Alcala murdered Samsoe was entirely circumstantial. In Rios v. Rocha, 299 F.3d 796 (9th Cir.2002), we found that “the State’s case ... was at best a close one” where there was no physical evidence linking the defendant to the crime: “There was no weapon found, no fingerprints, no gunpowder residue, no DNA evidence.” Id. at 810. Similarly, here, there was no evidence linking Alcala to a murder weapon, no matching fingerprints or hair, no DNA. Apart from the dubious testimony of Dana Crappa, discussed at length below, the only eyewitness to testify that she saw Alcala with Samsoe was Jackelyn Young, who said that she saw them at Huntington Beach around 3:00 p.m. on June 20, 1979. Alcala has met his burden of proving that the absence of the alibi evidence prejudiced his case. The fact that Dodwell was under subpoena to testify is sufficient to establish, by a preponderance of the evidence, that she could have been called to testify, and the interviews submitted at the evidentiary hearing were sufficient to establish what her testimony would have been. If this testimony had been presented along with Carey’s records, the alibi defense would have accounted for Alcala’s whereabouts during a critical period of time. The travel time between Huntington Beach and Buena Park would have required at least a half-hour each way, in addition to any time actually spent at the Knott’s Berry Farm office. Dodwell’s statements and Carey’s records suggest that Alcala was present at Knott’s Berry Farm around 2:30 or 3:00 p.m., and thus would not have been able to return to Huntington Beach until after 3:00 p.m. at the earliest. In contrast, Young stated that she saw Alcala on the beach with Samsoe around 3:00 p.m., and Bridget Wil-vert stated that Samsoe left her house around 3:10 p.m. The alibi evidence would have given the jury a choice between believing the testimony of apparently disinterested employees of Knott’s Berry Farm or that of Young. Although Young’s identification was confident at trial, it was not unimpeachable. Prior to the first trial, Young had been unable to identify Alcala from a photo lineup, and Young’s description of Alcala’s clothing was inconsistent with other witnesses’ testimony. Furthermore, Wilvert, who was present with Samsoe when Young allegedly saw the girls with Alcala, never identified him. If trial counsel had presented the evidence establishing that Alcala was at Knott’s Berry Farm, in Buena Park, on June 20, 1979, around 3:00 p.m., there is a reasonable likelihood that the jury would have discounted Young’s testimony and concluded that Alcala could not have encountered Samsoe as she left Wilvert’s house at 3:10 p.m. Such conclusions would have significantly weakened, if not wholly undermined, the prosecution’s case. Not only was the deficient presentation of the alibi far less helpful than a competent presentation would have been, it was probably actually harmful to Alcala’s case. Trial counsel told the jurors that he would prove that Alcala was at Knott’s Berry Farm on the afternoon of June 20, 1979, and utterly failed to do so, harming the credibility of Alcala’s entire defense. The prosecutor’s rebuttal highlighted the weakness of the alibi evidence; indeed, the prosecutor devoted more of his closing argument to the alibi than Alcala’s trial counsel did. The district court did not err in finding prejudice from the deficient presentation of the alibi and in granting the writ on this basis. II. The Exclusion of Dr. Ray London’s Testimony The trial court also found constitutional error in the exclusion of defense expert Dr. Ray London, a psychologist who would have testified that Crappa had been hypnotically influenced in various interviews with police investigators. We agree that the exclusion of Dr. London’s testimony violated Alcala’s due process right to a fundamentally fair trial and to present crucial witnesses in his defense. A. Facts Dana Crappa was the prosecution’s key witness. In 1979, she was a twenty-year-old firefighter with the United States Forest Service. Her knowledge and memory of the murder continuously evolved. Crappa’s Forest Service crew discovered Samsoe’s body on July 2, 1979, near Mile Marker 11 on Santa Anita Canyon Road. Crappa volunteered nothing about the crime or the corpse at that time. One month later on August 2, 1979, after being shown photographs of Alcala, Samsoe, and Alcala’s Datsun F-10, Crappa told the police that she did not recognize either Alca-la or Samsoe. She claimed that she had nearly collided with the Datsun while driving near Mile Marker 11 between 9:30 and 10:00 p.m. on the night that another firefighter had prepared a pizza dinner, either June 7 or June 14. Five days later, she revised her story, asserting that she had seen the vehicle on the evening of June 21. At the preliminary hearing in September 1979, Crappa revised her story a third time, testifying that she saw the Datsun parked on the side of the road around 10:00 or 10:30 p.m. Crappa testified that she did not see anyone in or near the car. Five months later on February 7, 1980, Crappa was introduced to Art Droz, who unbeknownst to her was a police detective trained in hypnosis. Droz claimed that he could help Crappa deal with the incredible stress she was experiencing if she told him her dreams and anxieties. Crappa related a similar story about seeing the Datsun on June 21, 1979, adding that there was a full moon that night and that her dreams were like movies that she saw a little more of each time she awakened. Crappa told Droz that in one of her dreams she saw a man, who may have been wearing Levis and a white shirt, sitting on a wall near the Datsun F-10. She emphasized, however, that she did not “know if I really saw it or if I just think I saw it.” Crappa also told Droz that on the night of June 29, 1979, she had seen the decomposed body of a child near Mile Marker 11, with clothes strewn about the area, a “crusty” knife in a hole, and six .22 caliber bullet casings on the ground that she picked up and threw away. During this interview, Crappa was under the misimpression that the police had established the cause of death. Four days later, on February 11, 1980, Crappa again met with Droz, who was accompanied this time by psychologist Larry Blum. Both men encouraged Crappa to discuss her “feelings,” “impressions,” and “dreams.” In doing so, she could not recall seeing a child near the Datsun F-10 or having seen Samsoe and remained unsure about whether she had seen a man next to the car. Crappa confirmed, however, that she saw six .22 shells that were still “pretty” and not rusted next to the body and a knife “in the hole” near the body. When Crappa insisted that she could not recall anything further, Blum warned Crappa “when you start talking and then say I don’t know, I know that’s B.S. You understand that, I know that’s B.S.” Crappa also explained that one of the investigators even assured her of Alcala’s guilt, saying that he was “a hundred percent sure this guy is guilty, a hundred percent without any doubt.” On February 15, 1980, Crappa met with prosecutor Richard Farnell and police officer Craig Robison, both of whom were trained in hypnosis. Although Crappa had told the police that she had not seen the Datsun F-10 prior to June 21, 1979, she revised her story a fifth time. In the recorded portion of the interview, Crappa claimed that on June 20, the day before she almost collided with the Datsun, she saw the same car parked on the side of the road and a man nearby “pushing” or “steering” a young blond-haired girl into the ravine. She stated that the man was wearing a white t-shirt and Levis and that she thought he was “the same guy that’s ... suspected of killing the little kid.” Crappa claimed that she never told anyone about this incident because she “just felt guilty like [she’d] done something wrong.” Crappa also reiterated that she had gone to the murder scene on the night of June 29, 1979,' and had seen a knife and children’s clothes near the corpse. Eleven days later on February 26, 1980, Crappa met with Robison again, revising her story a sixth time. Crappa had told investigators that she never saw Samsoe’s corpse before June 29, 1979, but Robison told her that he found this contention implausible. Because Crappa could not account for her activities on the evening of June 25, 1979, Robison suggested that she visited the scene that night; he proceeded to paint a hypothetical picture of what the scene would have looked like at that time, suggesting that the body would have “smelled foul” and been easy to find. Crappa denied having visited the scene on June 25 the first few times Robison asked her about it, but eventually stated that, “Well, it’s a real possibility” that she visited the corpse prior to June 29 as well. Crappa continued to talk to investigators before trial. On March 19, 1980, at Alcala’s first trial, Crappa testified that she saw a man “forcefully steering” a girl with long blond hair towards the ravine. He was wearing a white t-shirt and Levis and was near a vehicle that resembled Alcala’s car. Crappa further testified that she saw that same vehicle parked nearby at the side of the road on June 21. This time she claimed that she saw the Datsun between 8:00 and 8:30 p.m. and that her earlier estimate of 10:00 or 10:30 p.m. had been mistaken. According to Crappa, there was a man standing near the vehicle, again wearing Levis and a white t-shirt that “appeared to be sort of dirty or have a stain.” Crappa also repeated her story that she visited Samsoe’s corpse on the night of June 29, 1979. Unlike in her previous versions of this event, Crappa denied seeing a knife near the corpse, although she repeated her earlier statement that she picked up six .22 shells and discarded them. She said that this visit took place around 7:00 p.m. Crappa also testified for the first time at trial that she had made another nocturnal visit to the murder scene on June 25, 1979, that it “smelled pretty foul,” and that she saw a child’s tennis shoe and some clothing near the body. She also testified that she saw Sam-soe’s corpse and that it was “cut up pretty bad.” On April 30, 1986, the prosecution called Crappa as a witness in Alcala’s second trial. Four days earlier, however, Crappa had told the prosecutor that she could no longer remember any of the facts or circumstances relating to Samsoe’s murder. She had told them she could not even recall testifying at the first trial. The prosecutor advised the trial court: Miss Crappa, who would be the People’s next witness, is present outside in the hallway ready to testify under subpoena. However, she has essentially informed me that she ... is not going to testify because she doesn’t have any recollection about the events in this case, essentially. She has further told me, in response to my direct question essentially, I have asked her, is it a situation where you can’t remember, or you don’t want to remember. And essentially it seems to be a situation where she just doesn’t want to remember so she is going to say she doesn’t remember. But it’s not a situation where she can’t remember. The prosecutor argued that Crappa was thus unavailable as a witness, and requested admission of Crappa’s testimony from Alcala’s first trial. Crappa then testified, first to the court outside the presence of the jury and then before the jury, that she could not remember testifying at Alcala’s first trial or any of the events relating to the case against him. Between Alcala’s two trials, the California Supreme Court found hypnotically-induced testimony inherently unreliable, and thus, per se inadmissible. People v. Shirley, 31 Cal.3d 18, 181 Cal.Rptr. 243, 723 P.2d 1354, 1355-56 (1982). Accordingly, Alcala wanted to offer Dr. London at his second trial to prove that investigators had hypnotized Crappa. In determining the admissibility of Crappa’s testimony pursuant to Shirley, the trial court made a preliminary finding of fact that Crappa had not been hypnotized, which is a question for the court, not the jury, under California law. Cal. Evid.Code § 310(a). Alcala did not offer Dr. London solely for the purpose of proving that Crappa was hypnotized as that question relates to admissibility under Shirley, however, but also to impeach Crappa’s testimony as tainted and unreliable. Dr. London’s testimony was offered to demonstrate the influence that hypnotic and suggestive techniques had on Crappa’s memory as well as Crappa’s adoption of investigators’ suggestions, her increasingly certain memory over time, and her purported amnesia at Alcala’s second trial. Dr. London had reviewed all of the transcripts of police interviews with Crappa preceding Alcala’s first trial and listened to the available tape recordings. He concluded that Crappa was hypnotized at the interviews on February 7 and 11, 1980, and that she may have been hypnotized on February 15. Dr. London found that Detective Droz and' others used specific techniques and suggestions to put Crappa into a hypnotic state and to aid Crappa in “remembering” what she saw in the mountains. • He opined that Crappa adopted the investigators’ suggestions. For example, Crappa originally told police that she never saw Alcala and Samsoe together. During the course of the investigation, however, detectives encouraged Crappa to piece different clues together, such as the man she saw on the mountain road and the girl who was kidnapped. Crappa ultimately adopted this suggestion and, at the first trial, testified that she saw Alcala “forcefully steering” Samsoe into the ravine on June 20. Crappa also adopted the investigator’s suggestions that she saw Samsoe’s body prior to June 29, 1979. Dr. London testified that people who undergo hypnosis commonly experience progressively increased certainty in their recollections, much like Crappa’s evolving confidence in her memory. He added that Crappa’s behavior at Alcala’s first trial, including substantial pauses in her testimony and rocking her body back and forth while speaking, suggested a hypnotic trance. Other behavior indicated “dissociation,” or separation from reality, and “vi-vification,” or making an image or dream so real that it seems to take place presently — both of which indicate an altered state of consciousness. Additionally, Dr. London took note of negative post-hypnotic suggestions, which communicated to Crap-pa that she should not remember the content of or techniques used in the interviews. He also pointed out that Crappa’s certainty in her testimony waned between the February 15 interview and a March 12 conversation with an investigator, explaining that hypnotically-induced suggestions must be reinforced with some frequency to last. This phenomenon explained Crap-pa’s amnesia at Alcala’s second trial. B. Error “The right of an accused in a criminal trial to due process is, in essence, the right to a fair opportunity to defend against the State’s accusations. The right[ ] ... to call witnesses in one’s own behalf ha[s] long been recognized as essential to due process.” Chambers v. Mississippi, 410 U.S. 284, 294, 93 S.Ct. 1038, 35 L.Ed.2d 297 (1973); see also Crane v. Kentucky, 476 U.S. 683, 690, 106 S.Ct. 2142, 90 L.Ed.2d 636 (1986) (holding that “an essential component of procedural fairness is an opportunity to be heard”); Washington v. Texas, 388 U.S. 14, 19, 87 S.Ct. 1920, 18 L.Ed.2d 1019 (1967) (“The right to offer the testimony of witnesses ... is in plain terms the right to present a defense, the right to present the defendant’s version of the facts.... [The accused] has the right to present his own witnesses to establish a defense. This right is a fundamental element of due process of law.”). That the Constitution affords Alcala the right to present witnesses in his defense does not mean that this right is absolute. “Even relevant and reliable evidence can be excluded when the state interest is strong.” Perry v. Rushen, 713 F.2d 1447, 1450 (9th Cir.1983). While “[t]he right to present a defense is fundamental,” id., “the state’s legitimate interest in reliable and efficient trials is also compelling.” Id. at 1451. Where evidence has been excluded pursuant to a state eviden-tiary law, we use a balancing test: In weighing the importance of evidence offered by a defendant against the state’s interest in exclusion, the court should consider the probative value of the evidence on the central issue; its reliability; whether it is capable of evaluation by the trier of fact; whether it is the sole evidence on the issue or merely cumulative; and whether it constitutes a major part of the attempted defense. A court must also consider the purpose of the [evidentiary] rule; its importance; how well the rule implements its purpose; and how well the purpose applies to the case at hand. The court must give due weight to the substantial state interest in preserving orderly trials, in judicial efficiency, and in excluding unreliable or prejudicial evidence. Miller v. Stagner, 757 F.2d 988, 994-95 (9th Cir.1985) (citation omitted). The weight of the Miller factors compels us to conclude that the trial court’s exclusion of Dr. London violated Alcala’s due process rights. First, Dr. London’s testimony was highly probative because of its remarkable impeachment value. It would have emphasized the suggestive nature of police interview tactics, the evolution of Crappa’s testimony and its vulnerability to and incorporation of investigators’ suggestions, and Crappa’s increased certitude. This impeachment testimony would have explained Crappa’s bizarre and disturbing demeanor at Alcala’s first trial, her subsequent amnesia, and the parallel relationship between her testimony and both the prosecution’s theory and the physical evidence. Second, California did not object to Dr. London’s expert qualifications or the bases for his conclusions, giving us no reason to question its reliability. That prosecution witnesses disagreed with Dr. London’s conclusion that Crappa was hypnotized does not make his expert opinion unreliable; rather, it provides the very basis for admitting and relying on Dr. London’s testimony — the presentation of the defense theory of the case. Third, California does not assert that the jury could not evaluate Dr. London’s testimony and consider it with the totality of the evidence. Fourth, Dr. London provided the sole evidence for impeaching Crappa on the basis of hypnosis, suggestion, brainwashing, cajoling, or improper influence; his testimony was not cumulative but was critical to Alcala’s case. Finally, the testimony of Dr. London proved integral — vital even — to Alcala’s case. His testimony would have provided a formidable defense tool because his expert opinion would cast serious doubt on the most damning portions of Crappa’s testimony and on its overall believability. As the star prosecution witness, Crappa was the only person to place Alcala at the murder scene with the murder victim close in time to the theorized murder date. The district court’s compelling analysis demonstrates the import of Dr. London’s testimony to Alcala’s case: [W]ithout Dr. London, the defense was prevented from rebutting the prosecutor’s claim that Crappa’s inconsistencies were attributable to the traumatic nature of the events that she was describing (and had allegedly witnessed). Without Dr. London, the defense was precluded from presenting evidence that the substance and evolution of Crappa’s testimony at the first trial, and subsequent claim of amnesia, were indicative of hypnosis. Without Dr. London, the defense was precluded from proving that hypnosis could instill a greater degree of certainty and that the hypnotic subject was incapable of distinguishing implanted memories from actual recollection. Without Dr. London, the defense could not dispel the aura of credibility that Crappa’s testimony received by virtue of its consistency with the remaining evidence. Through Dr. London, however, the defense proposed to offer an explanation for this “fit” — because the memories had been constructed through hypnosis, Crappa’s testimony had been manufactured to fit. In short, Dr. London provided the only available means for Alcala to impeach Crappa’s testimony with a coherent theory. This theory would not only have undermined Crappa’s accounts of what she saw, but also would have diminished the overall weight, if any, the jury afforded her testimony. California’s interest in excluding Dr. London does not outweigh Alcala’s strong interest in the admission of his testimony. The trial court excluded Dr. London’s testimony under California Evidence Code § 352, finding that presentation of this evidence, though probative, would confuse the issues and waste an undue amount of time. While the policy underlying this rule is to allow the exclusion of otherwise probative evidence if an undue consumption of time or confusion of the issues would substantially outweigh its relevance, that is not the case here. We cannot conclude on the record before us that Dr. London’s testimony would consume even a considerable amount of time, let alone an undue amount of time, or that it would confuse the jury. C. Prejudice The balance of these factors supports a conclusion that the trial court unconstitutionally excluded Dr. London. Therefore, We must consider whether the exclusion was prejudicial. Calderon v. Coleman, 525 U.S. 141, 145, 119 S.Ct. 500, 142 L.Ed.2d 521 (1998). We agree with the district court that it was. Crappa’s testimony provided the bedrock of the prosecution’s case by placing Alcala and his distinctive car at the murder scene with the victim just hours after she disappeared. Dr. London’s testimony, if accepted by the jury, would have damaged Crappa’s credibility severely. It also would have helped place the cold transcript of Crappa’s testimony in context by showing the dramatic evolution of her purported recollections. Thus, the exclusion of Dr. London likely had a substantial and injurious effect or influence on the jury’s verdict. III. The Trial Court’s Denial of Alcala’s Motion for an Independent Medical Examination of Dana Crappa The district court held that the trial court’s denial of Alcala’s motion for an independent medical examination of Crap-pa constitutes a violation of the Sixth Amendment’s Compulsory Process Clause. We disagree. While the Compulsory Process Clause guarantees a criminal defendant the right to present relevant and material witnesses in his defense, see Washington, 388 U.S. at 17-19, 87 S.Ct. 1920, the trial court never barred Alcala from exercising this right. A. Crappa’s Alleged Unavailability The prosecution asserted that Crappa was “unavailable” because of her purported amnesia. After hearing Crappa’s testimony on April 30, 1986, the trial court observed that Crappa appeared to be suffering from an “existing ... mental illness or infirmity” and, therefore, “probably qualifie[d] under unavailability, in view of [her] present mental status.” When Alcala requested additional time to consider Crappa’s purported claim of amnesia, the trial court set a hearing for May 5, and informed Alcala, But I really think you gentlemen can do all the research in the world, and everybody knows I am never hampered by the law anyway. Basically, what we are going to do is put her on, let her have her say-so, give it a shot, and get into the reading.... And there won’t be anything further until tomorrow. And then you have the rest of the night to show me I am wrong, and everybody knows I never am. On May 5, Alcala filed a motion asking the trial court “to appoint, for the information of the court, a mental health professional to conduct a clinical interview of [Crappa].” Alcala argued that due process required the trial court to perform an independent medical examination of Crap-pa’s current mental condition before ruling on Crappa’s unavailability. Two witnesses testified at the hearing: Dr. Anthony Staiti, a psychiatrist called by the prosecution, and Superior Court Judge Phillip Schwab, who had presided over Al-cala’s first trial. Dr. Staiti had met with Crappa three times for a total of two to three hours to assess whether “she was capable of returning to her position as a police dispatcher.” Dr. Staiti explained that his “working diagnosis” of Crappa was that she was suffering from “post traumatic stress disorder chronic delayed.” The defense called Judge Schwab. He commented that Crappa’s demeanor during Alcala’s first trial was “unusual,” and often punctuated with long delays of one minute or longer between questions and answers. Judge Schwab also testified that Crappa’s behavior was peculiar and that he even conferred with the parties about the possibility of terminating her testimony. At the close of the hearing, the trial court denied Alcala’s motion for an independent medical examination and ruled that Crappa was “unavailable” because of a “pre-existing mental infirmity.” The court based its decision on, inter alia, “the history of the case” as well as the “obvious frailties of the witness.” Accordingly, Crappa was excused from testifying in person and the prosecution was permitted to read a transcript of Crappa’s previous testimony to the jury. B. Alcala’s Right to Compulsory Process The right of an accused to have compulsory process for obtaining and calling witnesses in his favor is guaranteed under the Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments. Washington, 388 U.S. at 17-19, 87 S.Ct. 1920. “Just as an accused has the right to confront the prosecution’s witnesses for the purpose of challenging their testimony, he has the right to present his own witnesses to establish a defense. This right is a fundamental element of due process of law.” Id. at 19, 87 S.Ct. 1920. Alcala’s right to compulsory process was violated if he was barred by the trial court from presenting “testimony [that] would have been relevant and material, and ... vital to [his] defense.” Selam v. Warm Springs Tribal Corr. Facility, 134 F.3d 948, 952 (9th Cir.1998) (quoting Washington, 388 U.S. at 16, 87 S.Ct. 1920). At the hearing on Crappa’s purported unavailability, Alcala was never barred from presenting any witnesses or evidence, nor did Alcala ever request an opportunity to examine Crappa with his own medical experts. Alcala points out that if the prosecution was permitted to present a medical expert, due process requires that the defense be allowed to do the same. But, Alcala never requested such an opportunity; he only asked that the trial court appoint a mental health professional to conduct an independent medical examination of Crappa for the court’s benefit in assessing her unavailability. If the trial court had barred Alcala from presenting defense witnesses or from conducting a medical examination of Crappa, Alcala would be correct in arguing that his constitutional rights were violated. Washington, 388 U.S. at 17-19, 87 S.Ct. 1920. However, that did not happen here. Rather, the trial court merely refused to exercise its discretion to appoint an expert to conduct an independent investigation of a disputed matter. While Alcala’s suggestion was probably the more prudent path for the trial court to adopt, the court’s decision not to perform an independent investigation of the facts cannot be characterized as a violation of the Sixth Amendment. California Evidence Code § 240(a)(3) states in pertinent part that a witness is “unavailable” if she is “[d]ead or unable to attend or to testify at the hearing because of then existing physical or mental illness or infirmity.” California law defines a “mental infirmity” as “a defect of personality or weakness of the will.” People v. Rojas, 15 Cal.3d 540, 125 Cal.Rptr. 357, 542 P.2d 229, 235 (1975). In order to establish the existence of a mental infirmity, expert medical testimony, while potentially relevant, is not essential. Alcala II, 15 Cal.Rptr.2d 432, 842 P.2d at 1213. Furthermore, California Evidence Code § 730 provides that a trial court’s decision to appoint such an expert is a purely discretionary one. Torres v. Mun. Ct. of Los Angeles Jud. Dist., 50 Cal.App.3d 778, 123 Cal.Rptr. 553, 556 (1975) (“Although Evidence Code section 730 provides for court appointed experts, the decision to comply with the defendant’s request remains within the sound discretion of the trial court.”); see also In re Jennifer J., 8 Cal.App.4th 1080, 10 Cal.Rptr.2d 813, 816 (1992) (“Although the court in a proceeding ... is assuredly empowered to appoint one or more factfinding expert witnesses ... such action is a matter of discretion.”). At any point between April 30, when Crappa informed the court of her amnesia, and May 5, when the court found her unavailable, Alcala could have requested that he be allowed to examine Crappa with a defense expert or, if additional time was needed, moved for a continuance. Alcala offers no explanation as to why he never made such requests. Accordingly, we hold the district court erred in granting Alcala’s claim that his Sixth Amendment rights were violated by the trial court’s denial of his motion for an independent medical examination. IV. The Admission of Crappa’s Previous Trial Testimony The district court rejected Alcala’s claim that the admission of Crappa’s previous testimony violated his rights under the Confrontation Clause of the Sixth Amendment. In his cross-appeal, Alcala argues that Crappa’s testimony was not sufficiently reliable to be deemed admissible as evidence. The Sixth Amendment’s Confrontation Clause, made applicable to the states through the Fourteenth Amendment, provides that, “In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right ... to be confronted with the witnesses against him.” U.S. Const. amend. VI. In Mattox v. United States, 156 U.S. 237, 15 S.Ct. 337, 39 L.Ed. 409 (1895), the Supreme Court explained: The primary object of the constitutional provision in question [is] to prevent depositions or ex parte affidavits ... being used against the prisoner in lieu of a personal examination and cross-examination of the witness, in which the accused has an opportunity, not only of testing the recollection and sifting the conscience of the witness, but of compelling [her] to stand face to face with the jury in order that they may look at [her], and judge by [her] demeanor upon the stand and the manner in which [she] gives [her] testimony whether [she] is worthy of belief. Id. at 242-43, 15 S.Ct. 337. The admission of hearsay testimony, however, does not violate the Confrontation' Clause, so long as the witness is unavailable and the testimony bears adequate “indicia of reliability.” Ohio v. Roberts, 448 U.S. 56, 65, 100 S.Ct. 2531, 65 L.Ed.2d 597 (1980). Such “indicia” can be inferred if “the evidence falls within a firmly rooted hearsay exception.” Id. at 66, 100 S.Ct. 2531. Crappa’s demeanor during Alcala’s first trial was odd, if not bizarre. Her conduct was so peculiar that it is next to impossible not to question the trustworthiness of her testimony. The record is replete with examples of Crappa behaving in a manner that calls into question her credibility, mental stability, psychiatric health, and veracity as a witness. • Crappa waited up to one minute or more before answering certain questions and, at times, did not answer questions unless they were repeated multiple times. Judge Schwab testified that, “There were, at least in portions of her testimony, substantial delays between the question and an answer, sometimes running perhaps close to a minute, perhaps even longer.” • At one point during her testimony, Crappa was “rocking back and forth, her eyes closed.... ” for several minutes. According to Alcala’s trial counsel, Crappa “seem[ed] to be undergoing some kind of psychiatric or psychotic break.” • For one period lasting fifteen minutes, Crappa’s only responsive utterance to the prosecutor’s questions was to mutter repeatedly, “It was a.” • The prosecution asked Crappa to describe what she saw on the evening of June 25, 1979, multiple times. Crap-pa, however, either remained silent, muttered unresponsively to the questions, or would continue to rock her body back and forth without speaking. It was only after the trial court called for a recess and Crappa spoke with Robison, a police officer and trained hypnotist, during the break, that she was able to return to the witness stand and testify in a somewhat coherent fashion about having seen Samsoe’s corpse on the evening of June 25. • Judge Schwab, a veteran California state trial judge with more than twenty years of experience on the bench, agreed that Crappa’s behavior was “unusual.” In particular, the length of time it took for her to begin responding to a question after it was asked was not normal. Judge Schwab even called counsel into chambers to discuss whether it was appropriate for Crappa to continue testifying. Although he said this was not the only time he had considered terminating a witness’s testimony, he could not recall any other specific cases where he had done so. • Judge Schwab advised Crappa of her constitutional right to assert her privilege against self-incrimination and consult an attorney, after it was suggested to him that Crappa was committing perjury. Crappa’s behavior as a witness was so extraordinarily odd that it strikes at the very core of her reliability as a witness. Moreover, reading the cold transcript of her testimony may have had the effect of transforming an incredibly bizarre performance into a credible presentation. We are asked to determine whether, under these unusual circumstances, Crap-pa’s past trial testimony nonetheless bears sufficient indicia of reliability to have been admissible. California argues that the reliability of prior trial testimony given under oath and subjected to cross-examination should be inferred without further inquiry because such testimony is recognized as a firmly rooted exception to the hearsay rule. We do not opine on whether prior trial testimony is a firmly rooted hearsay exception, although we acknowledge some indications in the case law that it is. See Roberts, 448 U.S. at 66 n. 8, 100 S.Ct. 2531; Mancusi v. Stubbs, 408 U.S. 204, 216, 92 S.Ct. 2308, 33 L.Ed.2d 293 (1972); Barber v. Page, 390 U.S. 719, 722, 725-26, 88 S.Ct. 1318, 20 L.Ed.2d 255 (1968). In any event, the Supreme Court has noted that in “extraordinary cases,” further inquiry into the reliability of prior trial testimony may be required. Roberts, 448 U.S. at 73 n. 12, 100 S.Ct. 2531. Although this may be such a case where further inquiry would be appropriate, we ultimately need not decide whether Crap-pa’s testimony bears adequate indicia of reliability. The trial court’s other constitutional errors, combined with the ineffectiveness of Alcala’s trial counsel, are more than sufficient to warrant the denial of California’s appeal and the granting of Al-cala’s petition. Accordingly, we decline to rule on this issue as it is unnecessary in our ultimate assessment of the merits of Alcala’s petition. V. Cumulative Error The district court granted Alcala’s habe-as petition in part due to cumulative error. We hold that the district court did not err in finding that the combined prejudice of the multiple errors committed in this case deprived Alcala of a fundamentally fair trial and constitutes a separate and independent basis for granting his petition. California contends on appeal that some of the purported errors considered by the district court in its cumulative error analysis were not constitutional errors and that others were not prejudicial. Alcala argues that the district court erred in failing to find error in the exclusion of certain defense witnesses, holding that his trial counsel’s failure to investigate the crime scene was not deficient, and in ruling that some adverse evidentiary rulings were not sufficiently prejudicial to grant the petition on those grounds alone. In cases where “there are a number of errors at trial, ‘a balkanized, issue-by-issue harmless error review’ is far less effective than analyzing the overall effect of all the errors in the context of the evidence introduced at trial against the defendant.” United States v. Frederick, 78 F.3d 1370, 1381 (9th Cir.1996) (quoting United States v. Wallace, 848 F.2d 1464, 1476 (9th Cir.1988)). In other words, “ ‘[e]rrors that might not be so prejudicial as to amount to a deprivation of due process when considered alone, may cumulatively produce a trial setting that is fundamentally unfair.’ ” Thomas v. Hubbard, 273 F.3d 1164, 1180 (9th Cir.2001) (quoting Matlock v. Rose, 73