033841P.pdf   05/13/2005  Charles Jess Palmer  v.  Harold W. Clarke
   U.S. Court of Appeals Case No:  03-3841
                          and No:  03-3842
   District of Nebraska   
   Habeas Case - Death Penalty. Claims upon which district court denied 
   habeas relief are affirmed: application of modified state's marital 
   privilege rule to third conviction did not violate ex post facto and the 
   state court's disposition of claim was not contrary to nor an unreasonable 
   application of federal law; change in rule was not a bill of attainder; 
   double jeopardy claim was successive claim and must be dismissed; 17- 
   week delay in retrial was not presumptively prejudicial and thus did not 
   violate the Speedy Trial Act; admission of identification by victim's wife 
   did not violate due process or other constitutional protections; and claim 
   that death by electrocution is cruel and unusual was procedurally 
   defaulted. Claims upon which district court's partially granted habeas 
   corpus relief are reversed. State court's proportionality review is not 
   subject to federal review; claim that defendant was deprived of two-tier 
   process was procedurally defaulted; State court's reformulation and 
   reweighing of aggravating and mitigating circumstances was sufficient to 
   justify imposition of death penalty even though exceptional depravity 
   aggravating circumstance was vague; defendant was not deprived of fair 
   notice; Ring claim was foreclosed by Supreme Court's decision in Schriro 
   v. Summerlin; death penalty is satisfied by conviction for felony murder 
   because defendant actually killed victim; ineffective assistance of counsel 
   claim from deficiency