Samuel Ambrose v. Kenneth Romanowski, 621 F. App'x 808

In 1979 Samuel Ambrose was convicted of second-degree murder after a bar fight in Detroit; he asserted self-defense but received life imprisonment.
At trial the court initially misstated Michigan law by telling jurors they had to acquit of murder before considering the lesser-included manslaughter charge; the court immediately retracted the error and later clarified the verdicts could be considered in any order and reinstructed on elements when jurors asked.
Ambrose later claimed his trial counsel failed to convey a prosecutor’s plea offer (manslaughter 5–15) or failed to convey Ambrose’s acceptance; a pretrial form bore the judge’s handwritten notation “Manslaughter 5–15,” but no formal plea offer was in the state-court record.
He pursued numerous state postconviction motions and federal habeas proceedings; the district court denied relief on all claims and granted certificates of appealability on two issues: (1) due process challenge to jury instructions, and (2) ineffective assistance for plea-related failures.
The Michigan Court of Appeals rejected the jury-instruction claim on direct review; later state-court orders denied relief on the ineffective-assistance motions, and the federal courts applied AEDPA deference to those rulings.

Issue	Ambrose’s Argument	State/Respondent’s Argument	Held
Jury instructions: Whether the trial court’s erroneous instruction and subsequent retraction/clarifications violated due process	The initial erroneous instruction coerced or confused jurors into acquitting of murder before considering manslaughter, depriving Ambrose of a fair trial	The court promptly admitted the error, corrected it, and reiterated that verdicts could be considered in any order; no due-process infection of the trial	Denied — state court’s rejection was not an unreasonable application of Supreme Court precedent; corrections cured any error
Ineffective assistance re: plea offer: Whether counsel’s failure regarding a plea offer (failure to convey existence or failure to convey defendant’s acceptance) violated Strickland and warrants habeas relief	Counsel failed to convey a valid plea offer (or Ambrose’s acceptance), and Ambrose would have accepted, so he was prejudiced	The specific federal claim (failure to convey acceptance) was not fairly presented to state courts and is procedurally defaulted; on the merits, the state record lacks proof of a formal plea offer, so no deficient performance or prejudice	Denied — claim is procedurally defaulted as exhausted state-court claims presented materially different factual theories; even construed broadly, AEDPA deference to state-court adjudication defeats relief

Estelle v. McGuire, 502 U.S. 62 (1989) (federal habeas relief not available for state-law jury instruction errors unless the instruction so infected the trial as to violate due process)
Cupp v. Naughten, 414 U.S. 141 (1973) (an instruction must be evaluated in context to determine if it deprived defendant of a fair trial)
Donnelly v. DeChristoforo, 416 U.S. 637 (1974) (errors in jury instructions are not sufficient for habeas relief unless they result in fundamental unfairness)
Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668 (1984) (standard for ineffective assistance: deficient performance and resulting prejudice)
Missouri v. Frye, 566 U.S. 134 (2012) (duty to communicate formal plea offers to defendant)
Harrington v. Richter, 562 U.S. 86 (2011) (presumption that state-court adjudication is on the merits absent indication otherwise)
Cullen v. Pinholster, 563 U.S. 170 (2011) (federal habeas review under §2254(d)(1) limited to the state-court record)
Murray v. Carrier, 477 U.S. 478 (1986) (cause-and-prejudice and actual-innocence exceptions to procedural default)
O’Sullivan v. Boerckel, 526 U.S. 838 (1999) (requirements for exhaustion of state remedies)