Full opinion text
Reversed and remanded by published opinion. Judge KING wrote the majority opinion, in which Judge GREGORY joined. Judge WILKINSON wrote a dissenting opinion. OPINION KING, Circuit Judge: For nearly thirty years, Edward Lee Elmore, a mentally retarded handyman, has been behind bars, mainly on South Carolina’s death row, for the January 1982 murder of Dorothy Edwards, an elderly woman who had sporadically employed him. The 28 U.S.C. § 2254 petition now on appeal, however, is part of Elmore’s very first effort to secure federal habeas corpus relief. The antecedent state proceedings — encompassing three trials and related appeals over eight years, followed by another fourteen years of state postconviction relief (“PCR”) litigation — were, to say the least, excruciatingly protracted. And, unfortunately, these federal habeas proceedings have been prolonged, in part because of our stay of this appeal to await further state court action. In these federal proceedings, the district court denied Elmore relief on multiple claims, previously exhausted in the South Carolina courts, challenging the constitutionality of his convictions for murder, criminal sexual conduct, and burglary, as well as his death sentence. The district court also declined to stay the federal litigation pending a final state determination of Elmore’s unexhausted claim that, because he is mentally retarded, his execution is prohibited by the Eighth Amendment under Atkins v. Virginia, 536 U.S. 304, 122 S.Ct. 2242, 153 L.Ed.2d 335 (2002). The first oral argument in this appeal, conducted on March 21, 2008, focused primarily on the stay issue. Shortly thereafter, on March 24, 2008, we entered our own stay, abating any further federal action while Elmore exhausted his Atkins claim in the state courts. Nearly two years later, on February 1, 2010, the state PCR court granted Elmore relief on that claim, vacating his death sentence and ordering that a life sentence be imposed instead. On March 10, 2010, the respondents — Jon Ozmint, Director of the South Carolina Department of Corrections, and Henry McMaster, the State’s Attorney General — advised us that the state PCR court’s Atkins ruling would not be further contested. The following day, March 11, 2010, we lifted our stay. Finally, on September 22, 2010, we heard additional oral argument on the issues remaining before us, i.e., those involving claims relating to the constitutionality of Elmore’s convictions, rather than his now-vacated death sentence. Having scrutinized volumes of records of Elmore’s three trials and his state PCR proceedings, we recognize that there are grave questions about whether it really was Elmore who murdered Mrs. Edwards. And we are constrained to conclude — notwithstanding the demanding strictures of § 2254(d) — that Elmore is entitled to habeas corpus relief on his Sixth Amendment claim of ineffective assistance of counsel premised on his trial lawyers’ blind acceptance of the State’s forensic evidence. All told, Elmore’s is one of those exceptional cases of “ ‘extreme malfunctions in the state criminal justice systems’ ” where § 2254 may appropriately be used to remedy injustice. Harrington v. Richter, — U.S. —, 131 S.Ct. 770, 786, 178 L.Ed.2d 624 (2011) (quoting Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U.S. 307, 332 n. 5, 99 S.Ct. 2781, 61 L.Ed.2d 560 (1979) (Stevens, J., concurring in the judgment)). Accordingly, we reverse the district court’s judgment denying relief and remand for the court to award Elmore a writ of habeas corpus unless the State of South Carolina endeavors to prosecute him in a new trial within a reasonable time. I. Elmore is alleged to have raped and murdered Mrs. Edwards and burglarized her Greenwood, South Carolina residence on the night of Saturday, January 16, 1982. Elmore, an African-American who was then twenty-three years old, performed odd jobs in the area to earn money. Mrs. Edwards, seventy-five years old and white, was a wealthy widow who resided alone. She had hired Elmore several times — most recently on December 30, 1981 — to wash the windows and clean the gutters of her home. On Monday, January 18, 1982, the local police were alerted by Mrs. Edwards’s neighbor, Greenwood County Councilman Jimmy Holloway, that he had just discovered Mrs. Edwards’s body in her bedroom closet. Holloway immediately identified Elmore as a possible suspect and said that Elmore’s name could be found in Mrs. Edwards’s checkbook register. The following day, Tuesday, January 19, 1982, investigators matched a thumbprint on the exterior frame of the back door into the Edwards home — the murderer’s likely entrance point — to Elmore. Relying on the thumbprint, the police obtained a warrant to arrest Elmore for Mrs. Edwards’s murder. Elmore was arrested early the next morning, Wednesday, January 20, 1982, and has been imprisoned since that time. The following is a summary of the extensive procedural history of this matter. • The first trial was conducted in the Court of General Sessions for Greenwood County on April 12-19, 1982, within three months of Elmore’s arrest. He was found guilty and sentenced to death. • On November 1, 1983, the Supreme Court of South Carolina reversed Elmore’s convictions, vacated his death sentence, and remanded for a new trial because the trial judge had improperly entered the jury room during the sentencing phase of the trial, without counsel for either the State or the defense; requested periodic reports on the status of jury deliberations, in “violation of elementary hornbook law”; and directed a “highly prejudicial” and “unjustifiably coercive” supplemental instruction at a juror who was apparently voting against the death penalty. See State v. Elmore, 279 S.C. 417, 308 S.E.2d 781, 785-86 (1983). • The second trial was conducted in Greenwood County from March 26 to April 2, 1984, and Elmore was again found guilty and sentenced to death. • On May 16, 1985, the state supreme court unanimously affirmed Elmore’s convictions and death sentence. See State v. Elmore, 286 S.C. 70, 332 S.E.2d 762 (1985). The court ruled, inter alia, that the trial judge had properly excluded sentencing-phase-only prison guard testimony offered by Elmore to show his adaptability to prison life. See id. at 764 (citing State v. Skipper, 285 S.C. 42, 328 S.E.2d 58 (1985)). On May 5, 1986, however, the Supreme Court of the United States granted certiorari, vacated the judgment, and remanded for further consideration in light of its decision in Skipper v. South Carolina, 476 U.S. 1, 4-5, 106 S.Ct. 1669, 90 L.Ed.2d 1 (1986) (concluding that petitioner’s evidence of good behavior in jail was “relevant evidence in mitigation of punishment” that “may not be excluded from the sentencer’s consideration”). See Elmore v. South Carolina, 476 U.S. 1101, 106 S.Ct. 1942, 90 L.Ed.2d 353 (1986). • The third trial — which was limited to the sentencing phase — was conducted on February 23-28, 1987, in Newberry County, as a result of Elmore’s successful motion to transfer venue from Greenwood County. At the conclusion of the trial, Elmore was yet again sentenced to death. • On August 21, 1989, the state supreme court affirmed Elmore’s death sentence, see State v. Elmore, 300 S.C. 130, 386 S.E.2d 769 (1989), and, on June 11, 1990, the Supreme Court of the United States denied certiorari, see Elmore v. South Carolina, 496 U.S. 931, 110 S.Ct. 2633, 110 L.Ed.2d 652 (1990). • On December 13, 1990, Elmore filed his PCR application in the Court of Common Pleas for Greenwood County. More than four years later, from February 27 to March 4, 1995, the state PCR court conducted an evidentiary hearing, and, on October 30, 1995, Elmore amended his PCR application for the final time. By order of July 3, 1997, the court denied the application in its entirety. See Elmore v. Evatt, No. 90-CP-24-1004 (S.C.Ct.C.P. July 3,1997). • While Elmore’s appeal from the denial of his PCR application was pending in the state supreme court, the State revealed that items of physical evidence — previously sought by Elmore’s lawyers in the PCR proceedings but claimed by the State to have gone missing — had recently been found. Consequently, the parties filed a joint motion to dismiss Elmore’s appeal without prejudice and remand for further proceedings, which the state supreme court granted. See Elmore v. Evatt, S.C.Ct.C.P. No. 90-CP-24-1004 (S.C. Jan. 8,1999). • On remand, the state PCR court concluded that the once-missing evidence was of insufficient help to Elmore and, thus, yet again denied him relief. See Elmore v. Evatt, No. 90-CP-24-1004 (S.C.Ct.C.P. Feb. 21, 2001). • In 2004, the state supreme court granted a writ of certiorari to review the state PCR court’s rejection of Elmore’s PCR claims, but, after briefing and oral argument, dismissed the writ as improvidently granted. See Elmore v. Evatt, No. 2004-MO-036 (S.C. July 12, 2004). • On July 5, 2005, Elmore filed his 28 U.S.C. § 2254 petition in the District of South Carolina, in which he asserted numerous exhausted claims, plus his unexhausted mental retardation claim pursuant to Atkins v. Virginia, 536 U.S. 304, 122 S.Ct. 2242, 153 L.Ed.2d 335 (2002). The district court rejected Elmore’s request to stay the federal proceedings pending exhaustion of his Atkins claim in the state courts. See Elmore v. Ozmint, No. 4:04-cv-22310 (D.S.C. Apr. 25, 2006) (order and opinion denying stay); Elmore v. Ozmint, No. 4:04-cv-22310 (D.S.C. Aug. 11, 2006) (order and opinion refusing to alter or amend stay ruling). Thereafter, the district court denied Elmore’s § 2254 petition on the magistrate judge’s recommendation. See Elmore v. Ozmint, No. 4:04-cv-22310 (D.S.C. Oct. 27, 2005) (report and recommendation of the magistrate judge); Elmore v. Ozmint, No. 4:04-cv-22310 (D.S.C. May 17, 2007) (order and opinion denying petition); Elmore v. Ozmint, No. 4:04-cv-22310 (D.S.C. Aug. 3, 2007) (order and opinion refusing to alter or amend judgment). Nevertheless, the court granted Elmore a certificate of appealability, thereby authorizing this appeal. See Elmore v. Ozmint, No. 4:04-cv-22310 (D.S.C. Oct. 9, 2007). In his initial appellate brief, submitted to this Court in December 2007, Elmore pursued five issues. As explained above, we conducted oral argument in March 2008 and then stayed our proceedings pending Elmore’s exhaustion of his Atkins mental retardation claim in the South Carolina courts. See Elmore v. Ozmint, No. 07-14 (4th Cir. Mar. 24, 2008). Nearly two years later, the state PCR court rendered its unappealed Atkins ruling in Elmore’s favor, see Elmore v. State, No. 05-CP-24-1205 (S.C.Ct.C.P. Feb. 1, 2010), and, soon thereafter, we lifted our stay of this appeal, see Elmore v. Ozmint, No. 07-14 (4th Cir. Mar. 11, 2010). On April 1, 2010, Elmore was formally resentenced in the state trial court to a life term of imprisonment. As the parties asserted in their subsequent briefs and during the latest oral argument, the state Atkins ruling nullified our review of two of the five issues pursued by Elmore — whether he was entitled to a stay of the district court proceedings pending exhaustion of his Atkins claim, and whether he was due resentencing relief on his Sixth Amendment claim of ineffective assistance during his 1987 sentencing-phase-only trial. The remaining three issues encompass the question of whether Elmore is entitled to habeas corpus relief on a claim challenging the constitutionality of his 1984 convictions. Our opinion focuses on two of those claims — Elmore’s Sixth Amendment claim of ineffective assistance in the guilt phase of his 1984 trial, and his Fourteenth Amendment claim that the State suppressed exculpatory evidence and knowingly presented false testimony material to his convictions. II. In assessing Elmore’s claims, we first examine the record of the 1984 trial proceedings. Significantly, the State’s case during the 1984 trial was nearly identical to the case it had presented in 1982. Elmore was represented at both trials by Geddes D. Anderson, the part-time Greenwood County Public Defender, and John F. Beasley, a local lawyer and former public defender who was appointed to assist Anderson. A. The seven-day trial began on Monday, March 26, 1984. During a pretrial hearing conducted on Friday, March 23, the state trial court took up Elmore’s pending motions, including his pro se request for new defense counsel (a request Elmore had made to the court by letter a few months earlier). His lawyer, Mr. Anderson, acknowledged at the hearing that the request for replacement counsel had been made, but indicated opposition to being replaced. As Anderson explained to the court, I would at this time tell [Elmore] that Mr. Beasley and I are thoroughly prepared. I have been going over the old transcript. I had Mr. [Bruck] send it to me, and he did about six weeks ago. I’ve been going over the trial, and I frankly told [Elmore] that it was Mr. Beasley and I making the record that they used to get him a new trial, and we feel like we’re prepared to go. I’d like the Court to make inquiry as to what he wants to do about it and what if anything can be done. J.A. 511-12. When the court asked Elmore to explain why he had made the request for replacement counsel, Elmore advised only that “I think it would be in my best interest to have some new attorneys.” Id. at 513. The court responded that Anderson and Beasley are already familiar with the case and the. facts and your defense. Both of them are experienced attorneys; both of them have represented defendants in many criminal trials as well as in trials in which the State sought the death penalty. The Court is of the opinion that you are represented by two competent attorneys, and I would need, Mr. Elmore, something other than simply a request for a change of attorneys to consider any such change. Id. Elmore then stated that “Mr. [Brack] said he could ... explain it to you more better than I could. He’s supposed to have came down and talked to you. He told me he had talked to you about it.” Id. The court recalled only receiving a letter from Elmore requesting new counsel, “but without any reason being stated.” Id. Elmore then asked the court to “hold off on [ruling on the request] until [Mr. Brack] talks to you about it,” but the court refused to delay ruling and denied the request. Id. at 514. Thereafter, the pretrial hearing turned to Elmore’s pending counseled motion for a competency hearing. With respect to that motion, his lawyers promptly conceded that Elmore was competent to stand trial. See J.A. 515 (Anderson explaining that, four to • five weeks earlier, Elmore had advised him “that he [Elmore] felt emotionally stable and he knew what was going on”). Nevertheless, the state trial court ordered a competency hearing, to be conducted the following Monday, March 26, 1984, at the outset of Elmore’s trial. By agreement of the parties, Elmore was examined that Monday morning by a private psychiatrist, Dr. Harold Morgan, who had previously examined Elmore in 1982, at the behest of the defense, in preparation for the first trial. Within a few hours of examining Elmore to determine his competency for the 1984 trial, Dr. Morgan testified on direct examination by the State that Elmore “does not show signs of any mental disease, nothing that would interfere with his ability to understand the charges against him or to assist counsel in his own defense.” J.A. 519. After Elmore’s counsel declined to cross-examine Dr. Morgan, the state trial court ruled, based upon Dr. Morgan’s testimony, that Elmore was competent to stand trial. Shortly after its competency ruling, the court completed discussion of preliminary trial matters, and the jury selection proceedings began that afternoon. B. The State’s theory of the case at the 1984 trial was (as it remains today) that Elmore raped and murdered Mrs. Edwards and burglarized her home in the time period between approximately 10:00 p.m. and midnight on Saturday, January 16, 1982, a period for which Elmore does not have a corroborated alibi. Under that theory, Elmore drove his car to the Edwards residence after failing in that day’s efforts to reunite with his former girlfriend. According to the prosecutor, Elmore may have peered through the living room window, where he would have seen Mrs. Edwards sitting on the couch, watching television. The prosecutor more assuredly theorized that Elmore approached the house at its back door, adjacent to the carport, and left his thumbprint on the exterior door frame while waiting for Mrs. Edwards to answer. See 1984 Trial Tr. 542 (prosecutor’s opening statement that the thumbprint was “about the height that one would be if they were standing there with their hand up there waiting at the door after knocking or whatever”). The prosecutor also posited that, when Mrs. Edwards opened the back door, Elmore forced his way inside the house. In the immediate kitchen area, a violent altercation with Mrs. Edwards ensued, during which she sustained bloody injuries and suffered a blow so powerful that a partial denture plate was dislodged from her mouth. The prosecutor surmised that Elmore then propelled Mrs. Edwards to her bedroom, where he raped her on her bed. Additionally, the prosecutor deduced that Mrs. Edwards, acting on repulsion at what was happening to her, reached out and pulled more than forty pubic hairs from Elmore’s exposed groin area. Following the rape, under the State’s theory of the events, Elmore inflicted dozens of antemortem and postmortem injuries on Mrs. Edwards in the area of the bedroom’s west wall, using such items as needle-nosed pliers, a paring knife, a broken metal-and-glass ashtray, a serrated cake knife, and bottle tongs. Despite her small stature — she stood well under five feet tall and weighed only about 130 pounds — Mrs. Edwards had fought her attacker, as evidenced by the defensive wounds she sustained and the blood under her fingernails. Brutalized, however, Mrs. Edwards succumbed to “exsanguination, or bleeding, and crush chest trauma.” See J.A. 644 (testimony of medical examiner Dr. Sandra Conradi). According to the prosecutor, Elmore concealed Mrs. Edwards’s body, clad only in a robe, in her nearby bedroom closet. He then wiped the scene clean of fingerprints and other evidence, leaving behind bloody paper tissues. Some of the scene was left in disarray — for example, Mrs. Edwards’s bed was askew and several of her belongings were scattered on the bedroom floor — though Elmore returned the tongs to a drawer in the kitchen. Finally, the prosecutor theorized that Elmore exited the Edwards home with Mrs. Edwards’s small clutch bag of cash in hand, got into his waiting car, and drove to the apartment of his former girlfriend. 1. Jimmy Holloway testified for the State in the 1984 trial that he and his wife had been friends and neighbors of Mrs. Edwards (and her late husband) since the 1940s. The Holloways sometimes “had meals” with Mrs. Edwards, provided “most of her security,” helped her with “minor repairs around the house,” and acted as “someone to talk to when she needed someone to talk with.” J.A. 661. According to Holloway, he had last spoken with Mrs. Edwards during the afternoon of Saturday, January 16, 1982, and she had planned to leave town at 6:00 a.m. the following day. Holloway saw Mrs. Edwards’s car parked outside her house later that Sunday, but it did not cause him concern. After calling Mrs. Edwards shortly after noon that Monday and not receiving an answer, however, Holloway decided to walk to Mrs. Edwards’s house to check on her. As he approached the back door (his usual entrance point), Holloway noticed that both the Sunday morning and Monday morning editions of The Greenville News were lying outside the house. Holloway knocked on the back door, and the door came open. Just inside the residence, Holloway noticed signs of a disturbance and saw a partial denture plate on the floor, alongside a pair of needle-nose pliers. Holloway proceeded through the house, looking for Mrs. Edwards, and ended up at her bedroom. According to Holloway, as he approached the bedroom, he noticed that the bed had been turned down. Holloway testified that, after entering the bedroom, “I turned to the left to see if by chance [Mrs. Edwards] had fallen or hurt herself in the [en suite] bathroom.” J.A. 673. “The bathroom door was open, and as I looked down, I saw reddish stains on the lavatory and on the commode which had been wiped.” Id. After turning around to face the west wall of the bedroom, Holloway “only then ... saw the large amount of blood, the knife on the floor, and the empty bag to the left, with a penny laying on the floor, and the disturbance. It looked like somebody had been through something.” Id. at 674. At that point, Holloway did not open the adjacent closet door. Rather, being “very excited,” Holloway “wanted to go and get a neighbor to come with [him], or better still, try and call the hospital and see if something had happened to [Mrs. Edwards] and she was in the hospital.” J.A. 674. Holloway went to the home of another neighbor, a Mrs. Clark, where he called the hospital. Holloway and Mrs. Clark then returned together to the Edwards home and went directly to the bedroom. Once there, Mrs. Clark waited in the hallway while Holloway “took a pair of gloves out of [his] back [pants] pocket in order to open the closet door, which was standing about two and a half to three inches open.” Id. at 675. As Holloway described it, “I took my glove and gently opened the door, and I found the body of Mrs. Edwards.” Id. Holloway then “turned around and placed the door back in its position for the law enforcement.” Id. Holloway and Mrs. Clark left the Edwards home, Mrs. Clark called the police, and Holloway waited for the officers in Mrs. Edwards’s driveway. The State relied on Holloway’s testimony to show that Mrs. Edwards’s small clutch bag of cash was missing from the residence. See J.A. 675-76 (Holloway’s testimony that, “[a]s [Mrs. Clark and I] came out of the house, it was concerning me, ‘Now, what all did happen?’ and being of an inquisitive mind, I looked over on the ... drop-leaf table to see if robbery had been, and I missed [Mrs. Edwards’s] clutch”). The State also relied on Holloway’s testimony to establish that the crimes had occurred on Saturday night. In addition to testifying that Mrs. Edwards had planned to leave town at 6:00 a.m. Sunday and that the Sunday and Monday morning newspapers were lying outside her house, Holloway stated the following: [A]s I came back through the kitchen [after finding Mrs. Edwards’s body], her coffeepot was on, this little automatic coffeepot that you can set at night to come on at [the] designated hour the next morning. ... This automatic coffeepot was one exactly like the one I have. It’s a G.E., and I noticed that all the moisture, or water, had evaporated out and only the residue from the coffee was at the bottom of the Pyrex pot. Id. at 676. Holloway initially testified that the coffeepot was set for “[s]ix o’clock a.m.,” but then clarified that he “shouldn’t have used the word ‘a.m.,’ because if you set it at six o’clock before six o’clock in the afternoon, it’s going to go off at six o’clock in the afternoon.” Id. at 680. Nevertheless, Holloway agreed that it was his “judgment that [the coffeepot] was set for six a.m.” Id. at 681. While testifying about the coffeepot, Holloway also noted that Mrs. Edwards’s alarm clock was sounding at the time he discovered her body. See id. at 676 (Holloway’s testimony that “I would like to go back and say that as I went into the bedroom the first time, as well as the second time, the alarm clock was running”). Holloway — who was not cross-examined by Elmore’s trial counsel — testified on direct examination that he did not turn off the coffeepot or the alarm clock. Other evidence that the crimes had occurred on Saturday night was provided by Lieutenant Alvin Johnson of the Greenwood City Police Department. Johnson corroborated that, in the kitchen, “[t]he coffeepot was on” and “[t]he liquid had evaporated.” 1984 Trial Tr. 600. Johnson turned off the coffeepot “for ... safety purposes.” Id. at 601. Johnson also testified that the alarm clock in Mrs. Edwards’s bedroom was sounding when he arrived at the residence, and that the clock was set for 6:00 (though he did not specify a.m. or p.m.). Additionally, Johnson testified that the television in the living room was on, and a TV Guide magazine on the coffee table was open to the listings for 8:00 and 9:00 on Saturday night. 2. Also during Elmore’s 1984 trial, the State presented law enforcement officers and forensic analysts to testify about the murder investigation and their collection and testing of physical evidence. a. Medical examiner Dr. Sandra Conradi, the forensic pathologist who performed the autopsy at approximately 11:00 a.m. on Tuesday, January 19, 1982, in Charleston, South Carolina, testified in considerable detail about Mrs. Edwards’s horrific injuries, including vaginal abrasions evidencing a sexual assault, plus defensive wounds on her arms and hands. Dr. Conradi opined that the time of death was between twelve hours and three days before the autopsy— as late as 11:00 p.m. on Monday, January 18, and as early as 11:00 a.m. on Saturday, January 16. When asked if she could be more specific, Dr. Conradi testified: The only way I could do that is basing my findings also on history as provided me by the coroner as to when she was ... last seen alive, when she was last talked to, but as far as on a scientific basis, from the autopsy, I couldn’t be any more specific than the twelve hours to three days. J.A. 651. Based on the “history,” Dr. Conradi “estimate[d] the time of death to be the night of the 16th, Saturday night.” Id. On cross-examination, she acknowledged that the scientific indicators of time of death “are very variable.” Id. at 653. She reiterated that, based on “the autopsy itself,” Mrs. Edwards had been dead “twelve hours to three days.” Id. “From the historical information,” the time of death was “probably closer to three days than twelve hours.” Id. at 653-54. b. Lieutenant Frank Dan DeFreese of the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division (“SLED”), a fingerprint analyst, testified that he arrived at the Edwards home shortly after 3:00 p.m. on Monday, January 18, 1982. According to DeFreese, he noticed an area on the exterior frame of the back door with “a certain shine to it that the surrounding paint did not have,” and he “subsequently treated that area with contrasting fingerprint powder to make a fingerprint visible.” J.A. 552. Because “[t]he powder bonded readily,” De-Freese concluded “[t]hat the print was relatively moist” and, thus, “relatively fresh.” Id. at 554. DeFreese photographed and lifted the print from the door frame and, the following day (Tuesday, January 19, 1982), matched that print to the left thumb impression on a fingerprint card bearing Elmore’s name. On cross-examination, Lieutenant De-Freese agreed that the print “could have been there [on the exterior door frame] a month.” J.A. 579. He explained that “[fit’s very difficult to say with any degree of precision when it was placed there. We can say for certain who it was put there by ..., but telling it like it is, I can’t say for sure it was put there two days before.” Id. Nonetheless, DeFreese restated the indicators that the print was “fresh,” i.e., “that there was moisture present, and the powder did readily adhere to the print.” Id. Four officers of the City of Greenwood Police Department had earlier testified that the print on the door frame was visible to the naked eye and appeared (to the naked eye) to be “recent” or “fresh,” without explaining why this was so. See 1984 Trial Tr. 561, 567, 576, 590. Elmore’s defense counsel objected to the testimony of the third and fourth witnesses. See id. at 575 (“[W]e have allowed that once or twice. He is drawing a conclusion as to the appearance of the prints. I think he can testify as to what he saw and not what his conclusion is as to recent vintage or several days old.”); id. at 590 (“Same objection, same grounds.”). Those objections were overruled. During his time on the witness stand, Lieutenant DeFreese testified to finding and identifying only two other prints at the crime scene. The first was a print lifted from the swinging door between the kitchen and dining room. DeFreese described “comparfing] it with these postmortem inked fingerprints from Mrs. Edwards’ body,” and concluding that the print was made by her right thumb. J.A. 571. The second was a palm print found on top of the toilet tank in Mrs. Edwards’s en suite bathroom, which also was matched to Mrs. Edwards. See id. at 580. De-Freese testified that “blood ... was smeared, noticeably smeared on the commode and on a portion of the lavatory.” Id. “There [was] both some unsmeared blood and some smeared blood across the top of the toilet seat.” Id. at 581. c. SLED Agent Ira Byrd Parnell, Jr., testified that he assisted Lieutenant De-Freese in examining the crime scene and preserving evidence. According to Parnell, he discovered “a number of hairs” in the bed in Mrs. Edwards’s bedroom. J.A. 544. As Parnell described it, “[t]he bottom part of the bed had been moved,” “[t]he main covers, the spread, or quilt, were folded down,” and “the sheets underneath were rumpled and in a wrinkled condition.” Id. at 543. Parnell testified that, “in an area just past the middle of the bed from top to bottom,” he found the hairs arrayed in “almost a band, approximately eighteen inches deep by approximately three feet wide.” Id. at 544. Parnell, who was not cross-examined by the defense, stated that he collected the hairs in DeFreese’s presence. Lieutenant Earl Wells, the Assistant Chief Chemist of SLED’s Forensic Chemistry Department, testified that he received a collection of forty-nine hairs found on Mrs. Edwards’s bed. Of those hairs, according to Wells, two were consistent with Mrs. Edwards’s pubic hairs, two with her head hairs, and the remaining forty-five with Elmore’s pubic hairs. Of the latter forty-five hairs, four looked to be of the type that would have normally fallen out, and forty-one appeared to have been forcibly removed. Wells testified that “[t]he racial origin of the [forty-five hairs] was Negroid,” and that the hairs had two “outstanding characteristics” that rendered them “consistent with Mr. Elmore” and “somewhat inconsistent with normal [N]egroid hair”: a certain rare “banding effect” and “a reddish cast to the color of the hair.” Id. at 622-23. Wells opined on direct examination that there was “a very high degree of probability that the hairs found on the bed” came from Elmore. Id. at 624. On cross-examination, the defense elicited that it was “not a certainty,” i.e., “[n]ot 100 percent,” that the hairs matched Elmore. Id. d. The trial evidence reflected that the crime scene was a particularly bloody one. The bedroom carpet was saturated with blood in the area near the closet where Mrs. Edwards’s brutalized body was stashed. Two bloody footprints were found: one in the carpeted dining room just off the hallway leading from Mrs. Edwards’s bedroom, and one in the carport leading away from the house. There was also blood on several of the weapons used against Mrs. Edwards, as well as on the kitchen carpet, the bedroom wall, the toilet and sink in Mrs. Edwards’s en suite bathroom, and tissues apparently used by the murderer to wipe away fingerprints and other evidence. Lieutenant Thomas W. Henderson, Jr., of SLED testified that blood was found on several items of Elmore’s clothing that he admittedly had been wearing on the night of Saturday, January 16, 1982: a pair of shoes, a brown corduroy coat, and a pair of blue denim pants. According to Henderson, he questioned Elmore about the blood on the shoes, which Elmore was wearing at the time of his arrest. In that regard, Henderson testified: I pointed out to [Elmore] there were stains on the shoes which appeared to be blood, and I asked him if he had any idea where the blood had come from. He said no, he hadn’t. I went on to ask him, “Have you been killing any animals in the recent past while wearing the shoes, such as a cow or dog or hog or any kind of animal?” He said no, he had not. I asked him if he had been walking anyplace wearing those shoes where blood might have been on the ground or floor, or anyplace he had been walking and got it on his shoes. He said no, he had no idea where the blood came from. J.A. 750. The coat and pants had been obtained during a search of Elmore’s mother’s home in nearby Abbeville, South Carolina, where Elmore resided. Elmore’s car also was “thoroughly” searched, “even vacuumed,” but no blood or other incriminating evidence was recovered. See 1984 Trial Tr. 726 (testimony of Greenwood city police officer Gary Vanlerberghe). SLED’s John C. Barron, a forensic serologist, testified that Elmore had Type B blood (in common with about 10% of the population), and Mrs. Edwards had Type A blood (along with approximately 40-45% of the population). Barron was able to identify Type A blood on Elmore’s left shoe, but was unable to ascertain the type of blood on his right shoe. Elmore’s coat contained three areas of human blood, two identifiable (both Type B). There were ten areas of human blood on his pants, five identifiable (three Type A and two Type B). All of the identifiable blood in Mrs. Edwards’s house was Type A. Among the unidentifiable samples was blood scraped from beneath Mrs. Edwards’s fingernails. Barron acknowledged on direct examination that it took “a period of at least two weeks” to complete his tests on the blood, and he conceded on cross-examination that, because the blood on Elmore’s shoes, coat, and pants was dry, it was “an impossibility” to determine the blood’s age. See 1984 Trial Tr. 812-14. 3. Greenwood resident James Gilliam testified for the State that he was arrested around April 2, 1982, and held in the Greenwood Law Enforcement Center, where fellow inmate Elmore approached him two or three days later in a jail common area and spontaneously confessed to murdering Mrs. Edwards. According to Gilliam, Elmore “said he went there to rob the lady, and she started screaming, so he had to kill her,” and that “he knowed police couldn’t have no fingerprints because he had cleaned up before he left.” J.A. 793-94. Elmore also asked Gilliam “if he had sex with anybody and you washed up afterward, could you be able to tell that you have had sex with that person.” Id. Gilliam testified that he had multiple convictions for writing bad checks and receiving stolen goods, and that he had been arrested and incarcerated with Elmore as the result of a probation violation. Gilliam “[k]new [Elmore] by sight,” because they had both once resided in the same Greenwood apartment complex, but had not previously spoken to him. Id. at 792. “[W]ant[ing] to do what was right,” Gilliam wrote a letter on April 6, 1982, to Lieutenant Johnson of the Greenwood City Police Department concerning his conversation with Elmore. Id. at 796. Gilliam further testified that no one had talked to him about Elmore’s case — including any police or other government official — before he wrote the letter to Johnson. The defense’s cross-examination of Gilliam was aimed at establishing that he fabricated Elmore’s confession in order to obtain favorable treatment at sentencing on his probation violation. The defense had also made a motion to exclude Gil-Ham’s testimony in advance of his appearance before the jury. After hearing from several witnesses outside the jury’s presence — including Gilliam and Captain Arlie Capps, the Greenwood jail administrator— the state trial court denied Elmore’s motion premised on findings that “any statement that the Defendant made to the Witness Gilliam was not the result of any plan on the part of any law enforcement agency, and Mr. Gilliam was not put there for the purpose of interrogation or asking any questions.” J.A. 788. 4. Elmore testified on his own behalf that he “didn’t have nothing to do with” the death of Mrs. Edwards. J.A. 851. He also denied “hav[ing] any discussion with [James Gilliam] such as [Gilliam] testified to here.” Id. at 848. Rather, according to Elmore, Gilliam approached him and asked “[questions about Mrs. Edwards[’s] death,” and Elmore responded that he “didn’t know nothing about it.” Id. at 849. On direct examination, Elmore testified that — hoping to get back together with his former girlfriend, Mary Alice Dunlap — he had met up with and talked to Dunlap several times on Saturday, January 16, 1982. At about 9:30 p.m., Elmore saw Dunlap leave work and get into her brother’s automobile. In his own car, Elmore stopped for gas at “the Pantry,” and then drove to Dunlap’s apartment, but no one was there. Id. at 836-37. Elmore then drove back to the Pantry, where he stayed for an unknown period of time before returning to Dunlap’s home to look for her. See id. at 837 (Elmore’s testimony that he did “not exactly” know how long he stayed at the Pantry, but “I think it was around ten-thirty or eleven or somewhere in there. I’m not sure what time”). On cross-examination, the State confronted Elmore with a written statement— made on the day of his arrest (Wednesday, January 20, 1982) to Lieutenant Henderson of SLED — asserting that Elmore had been with Dunlap and her family members between 9:30 p.m. and midnight that Saturday. Although Elmore acknowledged that he signed the statement, he denied that he had actually read it. He also explained: When I was down there at the law enforcement center [during the morning of his arrest], they kept, you know, asking me all kinds of questions and stuff. I didn’t know what was going on. I just might have said anything, but I know what happened.... When I got there [to Dunlap’s apartment] first, wasn’t nobody there, so I went up to the store. J.A. 876-77. Anticipating rebuttal testimony of Dunlap and her family members that Elmore did not arrive back at the apartment until about 12:30 a.m. — and then with an unexplained lacerated lip— the State asked Elmore if it was not “[t]he truth of the matter ... that when you got finished with your business there at [Mrs. Edwards’s house] on that night a little bit after twelve-fifteen, you [only then] got down yonder to where those people [Dunlap and her family] were.” Id. at 890. Elmore responded, “No, sir,” and stood by his testimony that he had told Dunlap that night that he injured his lip by slipping on ice on the outside stairs to her apartment. Id. 5. In their rebuttal testimony for the State, Dunlap and her family members asserted that they had encountered Elmore around 9:45 p.m. on Saturday, January 16, 1982, and then did not see him again until he appeared at Dunlap’s home nearly three hours later, at about 12:30 a.m. During its case-in-chief, the State had also questioned Dunlap about Elmore’s attire when he arrived at her apartment: Q. Now, did he [Elmore] take off this coat? A. Yes, sir. Q. When he took off the coat, what if anything did he do with his shirt? A. Well, he took his coat off and asked me did he have any clothes at my house, and I told him no, so he unbuttoned on the button on his shirt. Q. Unbuttoned on his shirt? A. He unbuttoned on one button on his shirt and then ripped it the rest of the way. Q. Then what did he do with it? A. Threw it on the floor. Q. What did you do? A. I picked it up and threw it in the trash. Q. Did he have on any undershirt? A. Yes. 1984 Trial Tr. 867-68. Dunlap was not asked and did not explain why she “threw [Elmore’s button-front shirt] in the trash.” Neither Dunlap nor her family members testified to seeing (or not seeing) any blood on Elmore’s button-front shirt, undershirt, coat, pants, or shoes, and not one of those witnesses was specifically questioned as to whether blood was visible on any of Elmore’s clothing. 6. The State presented other evidence to undermine Elmore’s credibility and to demonstrate that he had a guilty conscience, including testimony establishing that Elmore broke his promise to return to Mrs. Edwards’s neighborhood the Monday after the crimes (January 18, 1982) to finish cleaning another customer’s windows— though he finished the job that Tuesday. There was also testimony about statements Elmore made on Wednesday, January 20, soon after his arrest. Late Tuesday night or early Wednesday morning, during an argument at her apartment, Dunlap had told Elmore that, if he did not leave the premises, she was going to report him to the police. Elmore accompanied Dunlap to a convenience store to make the call, and then they returned to the apartment, where Greenwood police officers arrived minutes later. After being advised by the officers that they wanted to talk to him, Elmore agreed to go with the officers to the Greenwood Law Enforcement Center. There, around 2:45 a.m. on Wednesday, January 20, Perry A. Dickenson, a city police detective, informed Elmore that he had been charged with murdering Mrs. Edwards, advised him of his rights, and began questioning him about the murder. As Dickenson described the interrogation, “I ... asked [Elmore] if he knew who Mrs. Dorothy Edwards was. He said no, he did not. I explained she lived at 209 Melrose Terrace. He then expressed that he did not know where Melrose Terrace was at.” 1984 Trial Tr. 924. The trial evidence reflected that, a short time later, at approximately 3:15 a.m., Major James T. Coursey and Lieutenant Johnson of the Greenwood City Police Department arrived at the law enforcement center with the warrant authorizing Elmore’s arrest for Mrs. Edwards’s murder. Johnson read Elmore the warrant, and Coursey again advised Elmore of his rights. Thereafter, according to Coursey, I asked [Elmore] if he knew Mrs. Dorothy Edwards over at 209 Melrose Terrace. He stated he did not. Then I asked him, “Do you mean to tell me that you do not know Mrs. Edwards, the elderly lady who lives at 209 Melrose Terrace? That’s the street behind the First Baptist Church, which is off of Grace Street.” Again, he told me he did not know her. I said, ‘You’re telling me that you did not do any gutters or windows for Mrs. Edwards?” He said, “I do windows and gutters, but I did not do any for Mrs. Edwards.” I said, “Well, I have a check from her to you, made out to you and endorsed by you, cashed by you, for forty-three dollars. I’ll go- get the check if you want to see it.” He hesitated briefly, and then told me that he did know Mrs. Edwards. J.A. 746. Later that day, Elmore was transported to SLED headquarters in Columbia, where he made the written statement to Lieutenant Henderson. That afternoon, according to Henderson, Elmore verbally stated that, “[i]f in fact he did kill Mrs. Edwards, that he did not remember doing it.” Id. at 757. C. The closing arguments proceeded as follows: lawyer Beasley argued for Elmore, the prosecutor then argued for the State, and, finally, lawyer Anderson spoke for Elmore. The State’s closing argument emphasized evidence that the crimes had occurred on the night of Saturday, January 16, 1982. See, e.g., J.A. 924-25 (“Was that house broken into that night? What time does the paper get there? Between five-thirty and six in the morning.... Did [Mrs. Edwards] get her paper? Huh-uh.”); id. at 946 (describing Mrs. Edwards as “a little lady seventy-five years old, ... in her home, with her alarm clock set, with her coffee maker set, there watching T.V. with just a housecoat on ...; and then for her not to take that trip she was planning the next morning; and then for that neighbor to come over there and to find her with her little body battered as bad as you’ll ever hear tell of a body being battered, dead, with her pocketbook on the floor, ... the clutch bag gone and no money left in the house”). The prosecutor also observed that, although SLED Lieutenant DeFreese had acknowledged that Elmore’s thumbprint on the exterior back door frame may have been as much as a month old, “what he told you was that his impression when he put on the fingerprint dust and his impression when he looked at it was that it was of recent origin.” Id. at 943-44. The prosecutor addressed the hairs found on Mrs. Edwards’s bed in the course of arguing that she had been the victim of rape: [L]et’s go in there to her bed. Turned down, little pillow, but down below, slightly diagonally towards the bottom, was rumpled and crumpled; and over there on that bed — and if you doubt anything that I’m saying to you on this, as far as testimony, come out and have it read back to you, because Mr. Parnell [SLED Agent Parnell] — remember that name — said that in an area eighteen inches wide by about three feet long, he gathered up what? The hairs. How many of them? Two or three? Oh, Lord, no. Oh, Lord, no. How many? Forty-something. Forty-something. Forty-nine. Forty-nine. Two of them were her head hairs, two of them were her pubic hairs, and then forty-five of them were those red hairs; and [forty]one of the forty-five were what shape? Forty-one of the forty-five had been pulled out by their roots.... [Y]ou heard him [SLED Lieutenant Wells] say something else about this red hair that was there, and when we speak of the origin, be it Oriental or Caucasian or Negroid, it is of necessity that we do, and I beg none of you to feel as if that we might be leaning one way or the other. Please don’t. It’s just that we are pointing out to you what this specialist said that it was. It was a Negroid hair, of Negroid origin, it was red; and what else did he say? He said that there was banding.... He said that was a very rare thing. What else did he say about it? He said he’d been down there for eight or nine years examining hairs on top of hairs on top of hairs on top of hairs, and that what? Had never seen this before. Gosh, how coincidental. How singular it is for this man and— listen — this Defendant to have identical hairs. This specialist up on the stand said that his conclusion was that there was a high degree of probability that those forty-one hairs — forty-five, forty-one pulled out by their roots — came from this Defendant. J.A. 930-32. Tying the presence of the hairs to rape, the prosecutor argued: Could it have been that it was just plumb horrifying to her whole psyche, to the gentleness of womanhood, that there on her bed she was being penetrated? The act alone, to say nothing of the actual physical pain, would be so repulsive. Aren’t we quite sure that maybe she could not help but reach and grab a handful of anything she could grab? And it turned out to be the pubic hairs, the red ones, with banding.... Id. at 936. Turning to the blood evidence, the prosecutor referred to blood “[a]ll over those shoes; it had ridden up high. What kind? Type A.” J.A. 945. The prosecutor also alluded to “a bloody shirt” in discussing the testimony of Elmore’s former girlfriend, Mary Alice Dunlap, and her family members. Id. at 935 (“They may go far enough to not want to get involved with a bloody shirt. Only God knows how that shirt disappeared.”). The prosecutor remarked that the case against Elmore was not built entirely on circumstantial evidence, invoking direct evidence such as Elmore’s jailhouse confession to James Gilliam. See J.A. 921 (“Is it circumstantial evidence when the Defendant tells Mr. Gilliam what he did? Huh-uh. That’s direct evidence. That’s coming from the horse’s mouth.”). The prosecutor lamented that Gilliam himself “was put on trial here today because he came and told you” what Elmore had confessed. Id. On the substance of that confession, the prosecutor recounted: “What all did [Elmore] say to this Mr. Gilliam over here? He said, ‘If you have sex with somebody and then clean yourself up, can they tell it?’ Mr. Gilliam says [Elmore] also told him that they wouldn’t find no fingerprints there, because he rubbed down, cleaned off things.” Id. at 942. The prosecutor also discussed Gilliam’s testimony that Elmore had told him Mrs. Edwards “started screaming and she wouldn’t stop, ‘so I had to kill her.’ ” Id. at 947 (arguing that Mrs. Edwards “[d]one had part of her teeth knocked out in the kitchen, done had blood brought and was dripping it on the floor, and being taken to her bedroom, certainly against her wishes, who wouldn’t scream, who wouldn’t cry out, ‘God Almighty, help me.’ ”). Additionally, the prosecutor pointed out that Elmore’s alibi for Saturday night had been refuted by Dunlap and her family members, even though Dunlap must once have had, and likely yet possessed, “emotions for [Elmore].” J.A. 934. And, the prosecutor excoriated Elmore for initially denying to police that he knew Mrs. Edwards. See id. at 933 (“There’s an old Latin phrase [meaning] ‘False in one, false in all.’ What’s he trying to hide there? Why is he denying that? ... Why is he telling a falsehood when he said, T do not know her.’ ”). The prosecutor also reminded the jury of Elmore’s statement that “if he killed Mrs. Edwards, he couldn’t remember,” suggesting that such statement was inculpatory. Id. at 934. In his initial argument on behalf of Elmore, lawyer Beasley identified arguable areas of reasonable doubt, including Lieutenant DeFreese’s acknowledgement that Elmore’s thumbprint could have been on the back door frame “a month or longer.” J.A. 914 (adding that, “[o]f course, [Elmore] testified to the fact that he’d been working around there back the latter part of December, ... [s]o his prints could have been anywhere”). Beasley also noted the lack of certainty that the hairs found on Mrs. Edwards’s bed belonged to Elmore or that the Type A blood found on Elmore’s clothing came from Mrs. Edwards. See id. at 911 (“They can only say that [the hair is] consistent with [Elmore’s], so that within itself would definitely not be sufficient.”); id. at 912 (“I think forty-two, forty-three percent or forty-five percent— I don’t recall exactly, but I’m sure you will — have A type blood, so it’s a very common type blood.... So far as what length of time [the blood was] there, we don’t know ,...”). Additionally, Beasley underscored that the extensive search of Elmore’s car, which included a thorough vacuuming, yielded no inculpatory evidence. Beasley also noted that, contrary to the State’s theory that Elmore had a guilty conscience, he both worked in Mrs. Edwards’s neighborhood the day after the body was discovered and willingly met up with the police that night. As Beasley recounted the evidence, when [Elmore] went down to his girlfriend’s house on ... the Tuesday night that he got arrested, he was there and his girlfriend said, “I don’t want you here. Leave. If you don’t leave, I’m going to call the police.” Rather than leaving, he even gets in the car with her and rides down — she didn’t have a telephone — and rides down to the Quick Way or whatnot while she uses the telephone and calls the police department. He knows she’s called the police to come to her house. He stays there, knowing the police are coming. They come and arrest him. He knows they’re coming. J.A. 912-13. Beasley deemed it significant that, once arrested for Mrs. Edwards’s murder, Elmore was subjected to dogged interrogation by the city police and SLED agents, but “kept denying he had anything to do with it.” Id. at 913-14. Although he identified those areas of arguable reasonable doubt, Beasley also vouched for the investigators, proclaiming: “I think at SLED they are recognized as being one of the best departments or probably as good as the F.B.I. They have a very fine department, and they have very good personnel, and they are experts at everything they do.” J.A. 913. Furthermore, Beasley acknowledged that his presentation may not have been comprehensive, advising the jury: So if you take all of these that I’ve gone over, now — and I’m sure there’s several more — but you can see from all this that this isn’t enough to really convict anybody on. Of course, that’s in your province. Of course, I’m just reviewing these few with you. There’s probably a lot more. Id. at 915. In the final argument on Elmore’s behalf, lawyer Anderson alluded to the uncertainty surrounding the forensic evidence. See J.A. 949 (“There was never any expert testimony from individuals from SLED that pinpointed Edward Lee Elmore as the wrongdoer in this case.... The most I heard was high probability, a high degree of probability.”). Anderson expressed the view that “the most damaging thing about the case” was not the forensic evidence, but rather James Gilliam’s testimony about Elmore’s jailhouse confession. Id. (“[Cjertainly it’s going to be hard to go back there and try to deliberate in a reasonable fashion with Mr. Gilliam’s testimony staring you in the face.”). Anderson then outlined the various reasons that Gilliam’s story “makes absolutely no sense at all.” Id. at 951. Thereafter, Anderson attempted to poke a few more holes in the State’s case, pointing out the inconsistency between Elmore’s alleged eradication of evidence inside Mrs. Edwards’s home, but failure to wipe away his thumbprint on the exterior door frame or to destroy the clothes he had been wearing that Saturday night. See J.A. 953 (“Of course, they tried to imply that he wiped off all the inside prints. If he had that much sense, why wouldn’t he know where the prints were on the outside? They want you to believe he was pushing up against there when he went in.”); id. (“[W]hy in the Lord’s name wouldn’t he get rid of his clothes, instead of taking them on home and leaving them down in the closet? Or wherever they were found in his room in Abbeville with his mother back there.”). Anderson also provided an explanation for the blood on Elmore’s clothing: “This fellow climbed around houses all the time. It’s what he did for a living, been doing it for years.... You’re going to have some nicks and cuts working, if you ever work with your hands. You can’t help it.” Id. at 954. Referring to the police investigators, Anderson conceded that I left them people alone. I don’t know anything about that. I couldn’t come in here and cross-examine that fellow [specifically referring to the SLED blood examiner, Agent Barron], He would have tore me up, and tore me up anyway, I reckon. All I did was talk about the [unknown age of the blood]. You noticed that. I stayed away from him. Man, they’re trained. They’re ready for me. They’ve been here every day. They’re ready for me. Loaded for bear. I stayed away from them. I can’t cross-examine them. Nobody can. They do this every week. J.A. 955. Anderson nonetheless requested the jury to “think long and hard about ... the [Type A] blood on the shoe,” warning that “[a]ll we have is that fellow’s [Barron’s] word, and I certainly hope and pray for [Elmore’s] sake that [Barron is] telling the truth.” Id. at 956. Finally, Anderson implored the jury to “[l]isten to the others, but if you feel like there is reasonable doubt, stick by your convictions.” Id. at 958. Following the closing arguments, the twelve jurors received their instructions and deliberated for approximately two hours before unanimously finding Elmore guilty of murder, criminal sexual conduct, and burglary. Thereafter, in the sentencing phase of the 1984 trial, and again in the 1987 sentencing-phase-only trial, the jury recommended and the trial court imposed the sentence of death. III. Significantly, in his state PCR proceedings, Elmore — represented by new lawyers — challenged each of the key pieces of the State’s case against him in the 1984 trial. In pertinent part, Elmore asserted the following: • The illogical statements and bizarre conduct of Mrs. Edwards’s neighbor, Greenwood County Councilman Jimmy Holloway, rendered him the probable murderer, and indeed he was an unpursued and undisclosed early suspect; • As a matter of science, there was less than a 1% chance that Mrs. Edwards died on the night of Saturday, January 16,1982, contrary to the State’s theory and the (evidently staged) circumstantial evidence that the murder occurred that night. It was vastly more likely that Mrs. Edwards died on Sunday afternoon, when Elmore had a corroborated alibi; • The forty-five pubic hairs matched to Elmore and allegedly found on Mrs. Edwards’s bed were never there, as demonstrated by irregularities such as the investigators’ baffling failure to photograph the hairs while still on the bed, to collect the bedcovers and sheets for further laboratory analysis, or to package the hairs like other evidence taken from the scene; • The scant amount of blood on Elmore’s clothing — no blood was observed on his white button-front shirt, and there were just a few areas of blood on his coat, pants, and shoes— tended to demonstrate both that Elmore was not the perpetrator of the gruesome murder and that the blood was planted on his clothes (a possibility further suggested by a dubious link in the chain of custody); • A Caucasian hair recovered from Mrs. Edwards’s bloody abdomen during her autopsy — a hair that belonged neither to the victim nor Elmore, and that had been wrongly suppressed by the State — pointed away from Elmore and toward a white perpetrator such as Holloway; • A fingerprint lifted from the blood-smeared toilet in Mrs. Edwards’s en suite bathroom was falsely reported to be unidentifiable, and it had secretly been determined that neither the victim nor Elmore was the source of the print, further exculpating Elmore and incriminating someone else; • Critical prosecution witness James Gilliam had fabricated Elmore’s alleged jailhouse confession — as Gilliam himself now admitted — after being approached by the jail administrator and asked for “help” on the “Elmore thing”; and • Elmore’s low IQ and severe memory deficits not only explained inconsistencies in his statements to police and court testimony, but also made it highly improbable that Elmore was responsible for the state of the Edwards crime scene, including the concealment of Mrs. Edwards’s body. Elmore’s PCR application included claims — some of which are encompassed in the Fourteenth Amendment due process claim now before us — alleging that the State suppressed exculpatory evidence and knowingly presented false testimony with respect to Holloway’s possible culpability for the crimes, the hairs allegedly found on Mrs. Edwards’s bed, the undisclosed hair recovered from her abdomen, the fingerprint left on Mrs. Edwards’s toilet, and Gilliam’s since-repudiated account of Elmore’s confession. The PCR application also included a multi-faceted claim of ineffective assistance of counsel — a broader version of the Sixth Amendment ineffective assistance claim in these proceedings — asserting that “trial counsel failed to conduct an adequate and independent investigation of [Elmore’s] case in order to develop and present evidence to create a reasonable doubt as to [Elmore’s] guilt or to effectively cross-examine the state’s witnesses.” J.A. 3122-23. The PCR application specified numerous instances of ineffective assistance, including trial counsel’s performance with respect to the testimony of Holloway, Gilliam, and Elmore himself, as well as the time-of-death, hair, blood, and fingerprint evidence. The state PCR court rejected each of those claims by its orders of July 3, 1997 (the “First PCR Order”), and of February 21, 2001 (the “Second PCR Order”). TV. A. During the proceedings culminating in the First PCR Order, the state PCR court conducted its evidentiary hearing from February 27 to March 4, 1995, and the parties submitted additional evidence for the court’s consideration, including transcripts of pre- and post-hearing depositions. Following is a review of the evidence adduced during those proceedings relevant to Elmore’s Sixth Amendment claim of ineffective assistance of his 1984 trial counsel, as well as his Fourteenth Amendment claim of due process