Affirmed by published opinion. Judge LUTTIG wrote the opinion, in which Judge WILKINSON and Judge MICHAEL joined.
OPINION
Petitioner-appellant Archie Lee Billings appeals the district court’s denial of his petition for a writ of habeas corpus. Finding no error in the district court’s adjudication of Billings’ claims, we affirm.
I.
On September 12, 1995, Archie Lee Billings was indicted in North Carolina for first-degree murder, first-degree rape, first-degree kidnapping, first-degree burglary, and assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill, inflicting serious injury. J.A. 8-12. In May 1996, a jury convicted Billings on all counts, id. at 80-84, and, after a separate capital sentencing proceeding, recommended a death sentence, id. at 266-72, which the state court duly imposed, id. at 273-74. The facts underlying Billings’ convictions and death sentence, as summarized by the Supreme Court of North Carolina on direct appeal, are as follows:
The State’s evidence tended to show inter alia that Robert Jackson left his Caswell County mobile home at 1:50 a.m. on 7 July 1995 to gather and ready a herd of cows for milking. Jackson left his two children, Bobby, thirteen years old, and Amy, eleven years old, asleep in their beds. Sometime between 1:50 a.m. and 4:50 a.m., [Billings] entered the mobile home, stabbed Bobby repeatedly with a knife, and began his assault on Amy. Bobby struggled to a telephone in the kitchen and dialed 911. When emergency personnel arrived at 5:00 a.m., Bobby was found on the kitchen floor in a pool of his own blood. [Billings] had stabbed the boy some twenty-three times. Bobby identified [Billings] as the man who stabbed him and whom he had seen carry his sister out of the mobile home. It was not until some twelve hours later that Amy’s body was found in a field, with her pajama bottoms around her feet and her pajama top partially torn off. Amy had died from a stab to her throat that had severed her carotid artery. An autopsy revealed that Amy had also bеen sexually assaulted. [Billings] worked with Jackson on the dairy farm, and both children knew him well. [Billings] was arrested by sheriffs deputies on the dairy farm the same morning the children were attacked.
Id. at 292.
On May 8, 1998, the Supreme Court of North Carolina affirmed Billings’ convictions and sentence,
id.
at 285-308, and on November 16, 1998, the United States Supreme Court denied Billings’ petition for a writ of certiorari,
Billings v. North Carolina,
On March 5, 2003, Billings filed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus in the Eastern District of North Carolina. Id. at 363-72. The case was subsequently transferred to the Middle District of North *243 Carolina, id. at 373-74, which denied the petition and dismissed the action with prejudice, id. at 430. On November 7, 2005, we granted Billings’ motion for a certificate of appealability. This appeal followed.
II.
In reviewing the district court’s denial of Billings’ habeas petition, we review the district court’s conclusions of law
de novo
and its findings of fact for clear error.
Quesinberry v. Taylor,
III.
On appeal, Billings raises five issues, three relating to allegations of juror misconduct, one relating to improper arguments made by the prosecutor during sentencing proceedings, and one relating to the trial court’s submission of a mitigating circumstance to the jury over Billings’ objection. We consider each of Billings’ claims in turn.
A.
Billings’ first claim relates to juror Janie Coleman’s alleged failure to answer honestly material questions on voir dire. During voir dire, defense counsel asked a panel of potential jurors, including Coleman, whether anyone “[knew] of any reason at all why [he or she] could not be a fair and impartial juror in this trial.” J.A. 57. Coleman did not raise her hand in response to this question. See id. When asked a similar question by the court, Coleman expressly stated that she knew of no reason why she could not give both the state and the defendant a fair and impartial trial. Id. at 63. During a separate exchange, defense counsel Jim Tolin, who had previously represented Coleman’s daughter-in-law in a domestic matter, asked Coleman whether his representation of her daughter-in-law would “cause [her] any problems.” Id. at 75. Coleman responded that it would not, and, in response to Tolin’s question, “What are your feelings about me?”, stated that she had “no hard feelings” about him. Id. She further affirmed that she did not believe in punishing the defendant for anything Tolin might have done. Id. at 75-76. After further examining Coleman, Tolin informed the court that the defense was “content with *244 this juror,” and Coleman was accepted as juror number ten. Id. at 78-79.
In an affidavit submitted after trial, Coleman revealed several facts that she had not disclosed on voir dire. She stated that she “knew [the prosecutor] previously but not well” and that she was grateful that he had previously dropped an assault charge against her. Id. at 315. She also stated that defense counsel Tolin had heard an unemployment case of hers twenty years ago, that he had ruled against her, and that, before the trial, she would not have hired him. Id. Based on these statements from Coleman’s affidavit, Billings argued before the state MAR court that his right to a fair jury trial was violated “because in voir dire, juror Janie Coleman failed to disclose that she was biased in favor of the prosecution by her gratitude toward the prosecutor for previously dropping an assault charge against her and by her animosity against one of appointed counsel for previously ruling in favor of her former employer and against her in her unemployment case.” Id. at 310. The state MAR court rejected Billings’ claim," concluding that the facts alleged in Coleman’s affidavit, even if proven true, were insufficient to entitle Billings to relief. Id. at 326. The district court concluded that this ruling was neither contrary to nor an unreasonable application of clearly established federal law. Id. at 396.
The district court did not err. In order to obtain a new trial based on a juror’s failure to disclose information during
voir dire,
Billings “must first demonstrate that a juror failed to answer honestly a material question on
voir dire,
and then further show that a correct response would have provided a valid basis for a challenge for cause.”
See McDonough Power Equipment, Inc. v. Greenwood,
Billings also contends in his brief on appeal that the state MAR court violated clearly established federal law by resolving his claim without holding an evidentiary hearing to explore whether Coleman was actually biased in favor of the prosecution because of her past contacts with the prosecutor and defense counsel.
See Jones v. Cooper,
B.
Billings next claims that he was denied his rights to a fair trial and an impartial jury because an alternate juror wore a T-shirt one day during trial that said “No Mercy — No Limits,” and members of the jury saw and joked about the T-shirt. See J.A. 315, 317. The state MAR court concluded that these facts, even if proven true, were insufficient to entitle Billings to relief, id. at 326, and the district court concluded that this ruling was neither contrary to nor an unreasonable application of clearly established federal law, id. at 417-18.
The district court did not err. Billings cites no decision or line of decisions by the
*247
Supreme Court that clearly establishes that a jury’s exposure to a T-shirt like the one at issue here amounts to a violation of the defendant’s constitutional rights. Instead, Billings cites a Ninth Circuit decision holding that a rape defendant’s right to a fair trial was violated when the trial judge permitted spectators at his trial to wear buttons bearing the words “Women Against Rape.”
See Norris v. Risley,
These precedents do not clearly establish that a defendant’s right to a fair jury trial is violated whenever an article of clothing worn at trial arguably conveys a message about the matter before the jury. It would not be objectively unreasonable to conclude that the jury’s exposure to a T-shirt or button that could, but need not necessarily, be construed as conveying a message about the matter before the jury simply does not rise to the level of a constitutional violation in the way that it does when the court forces the defendant to appear before the jury in prison garb, allows the trial to be influenced or dominated by a mob, or allows the prosecution’s key witnesses to have extensive interaction with the jury.
See Phillips,
*248 C.
Billings raises one other claim relating to alleged juror misconduct. Juror Steve Irby stated in a post-trial affidavit that, on the night before the jury’s sеntencing deliberations, he read the Bible at home because he was “very confused and didn’t know what to do,” and that his study of the Bible helped him conclude that the death penalty was the “right sentence.” J.A. 319. The state MAR court concluded that these facts, even if proven true, were insufficient to entitle Billings to relief, id. at 326, and the district court concluded that this ruling was neither contrary to nor an unreasonable application of clearly established federal law, id. at 419-21.
The district court did not err. Billings argues that the juror’s consultation of the Bible raises a presumption of prejudice under
Remmer v. United States,
in which the Supreme Court held that a presumption of prejudice arises when there is “any private communication, contact, or tampering, directly or indirectly, with a juror during a trial about the matter pending before the jury.”
D.
Billings next claims that his due process rights were violated when the prosecutor referred to the Bible during the sentencing proceedings. During closing arguments, the prosecutor made the following remarks:
So, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I remind you that what was once written: “And if he smite him with an instrument of iron [objection by defense counsel overruled] so that he died, he is a murderer; the murderer shall surely be put to death. And if he smite him with throwing a stone where he may die, and he died, he is a murderer; the murder [er] should surely be put to death. Or if he smite him with a hand weapon of wood where he may die and he died, he is a murderer; the murderer shall be put to death. If he thrust him of hatred or hurl at him by laying of wait that he die, or in enmity smite him with a hand that he die, he that smote him, shall surely be put to death, for he is a murderer.” For these things shall be a statute of judgment.
And I argue to you, ladies and gentlemen, that Chapter 15A of the North Carolina General Statute, Section 2000, the formula of the law that guides you through your issues and recommendations in your verdict sheet that is the law across the state of North Carolina, is the statute of judgment in this case. Now, as I argued to you from the Old Testament, the defense may argue the compassion taught in the New Testament. May I remind you that it’s written in Luke Chapter 20:25: “And he said unto them render therefore under [sic] Caesar the things which be Caesar’s and unto God the things which be God’s.”
J.A. 170-71.
On direct appeal, Billings raised a due process claim based on the prosecutor’s reference to the North Carolina death penalty statute as a “statute of judgment” in conjunction with his quotations from the Bible. The North Carolina Supreme Court rejected his claim, concluding that it was procedurally defaulted because Billings did not raise an objection at trial. 8 Id. at 303. The North Carolina Supreme Court further concluded that “the prosecutor merely contended to the jury that the Bible did not prohibit the death penalty, but he did not ask the jury to impose divine law,” and that “[t]he prosecutor’s argument was not so grossly improper as to require the trial court to intervene” in the absence of an objection. Id. The district court concluded that Billings’ claim was procedurally defaulted, that Billings had not established cause and prejudice or a miscarriage of justice to excuse the default, and, in any event, that the prosecutor’s arguments did not amount to a violation of due process. Id. at 414-15.
On appeal, the parties dispute whether the North Carolina Supreme Court’s ruling that Billings procedurally defaulted his due process claim constitutes an independent and adequate' state bar precluding federal habeas review. Billings
*250
argues that the ruling was not “independent” of his federal claim because, in concluding that the prosecutor’s arguments were not so grossly improper as to require the court to intervene
sua sponte
under state law, the North Carolina Supreme Court applied the federal rule of constitutional law that governs claims of prosecu-torial misconduct.
9
See Ake v. Oklahoma,
We decline to resolve whether this case is governed by
Ake
because we agree with the district court that, even if Billings’ claim is not procedurally barred, it fails on the merits. Improper prosecutorial arguments violate due process only where they render the proceedings fundamentally unfair.
Bennett v. Angelone,
All of the Bennett factors are present here. The evidence against Billings was abundant, 11 the rape and murder of the girl were undoubtedly vile, and the judge instructed the jury that the lawyers’ arguments at sentencing were “not to be considered as your instructions on the law.” J.A. 143. Moreover, Billings’ lawyer also made Biblical arguments to the jury during the sentencing proceedings. Id. at 211 (reminding the jury that the Apostle Paul was “a murderer, a persecutor of Christians” before “he was forgiven and he changed his ways”). Given the totality of the circumstances, we conclude, as we did in Bennett, that while the prosecutor may have improperly invoked the Bible to justi *251 fy the morality of the state’s death penalty statute, his argument did not render the proceedings so fundamentally unfair as to deprive Billings of due process.
Billings also argues that the prosecutor viоlated his Eighth Amendment rights by referring to the North Carolina death penalty statute as a “statute of judgment” and by stating that the duty to give all citizens equal protection of the law was a “prescription” that “call[ed] for imposition of the death penalty.”
See id.
at 171— 72. Billings relies on
Caldwell v. Mississippi,
E.
Billings’ final claim is that the state trial court violated his Sixth Amendment right to conduct his own defense when it submitted a mitigating circumstance to the jury over his objection. At the instruction conference preceding the sentencing proceedings, the prosecutor requested submission to the jury of the statutory mitigating circumstance of lack of a significant history of prior criminal activity. J.A. 135. Defense counsel objected, but the court, concluding that it was required by North Carolina law to submit the mitigating circumstance to the jury, overruled the objection and included the circumstance along with the other mitigators listed on the form submitted to the *252 jury. 12 Id. at 135-37. Billings contends that the submission of this mitigating circumstance was prejudicial because the jurors would have considered his prior criminal record to be significant and would therefore have considered the evidence for the mitigating circumstance to be frivolous, and, having concluded that the evidence for this circumstance (which was first on the list submitted to the jury) was frivolous, would have tended to consider the evidence for the other mitigating circumstances frivolous as well. 13
Billings raised his Sixth Amendment claim before the North Carolina Supreme Court, which denied Billings a new sentencing hearing, but limited its analysis to the state-law question whether a rational jury could have found that Billings had no significant history of prior criminal activity.
See id.
at 305. The court did not consider' — or at least there is no indication that it considered— whether submitting the mitigating circumstance to the jury over Billings’ objection violated his Sixth Amendment right to conduct his own defense. Because the state court did not adjudicate Billings’ Sixth Amendment claim on the merits, we review the claim without the deference otherwise mandated by AEDPA.
See
28 U.S.C. § 2254(d) (requiring deference to a state court’s legal and factual determinations “with respect to any claim that was adjudicated on the merits in State court proceedings”). However, the rule of
Teag-ue
— that federal habeas courts may not announce or apply new rules of constitutional criminal procedure — remains in force.
See Horn v. Banks,
We agree with the district court. In order to overcome the bar to relief imposed by
Teague,
Billings must show that precedent existing at the time his
*253
conviction became final dictated that the submission of a mitigating circumstance to the jury over the defendant’s objection violates the defendant’s Sixth Amendment right to control the presentation of his defense.
See Teague,
Billings cannot make the required showing. He relies upon the Supreme Court’s statement in
Strickland v. Washington
that the “[gjovernment violates the right to effective assistance when it interferes in certain ways with the ability of counsel to make independent decisions about how to conduct the defense.”
14
None of these eases is sufficiently analogous to the present circumstances to dictate the conclusion that Billings’ right to control the presentation of his defensе was violated by the trial court’s submission of a mitigating circumstance to the jury over his objection. None of the cases has anything to do with the submission of mitigating circumstances to the jury during capital sentencing proceedings. And, in cases where the Court has dealt specifically with that issue, it has emphasized the importance of ensuring that the jury has access to all mitigating evidence.
See, e.g., Buchanan v. Angelone,
CONCLUSION
For the reasons stated, the judgment of the district court denying Billings’ petition for a writ of habeas corpus is affirmed.
AFFIRMED.
Notes
.
Teague’s
restriction is subject to two narrow exceptions not applicable in this case.
See Teague,
. Nor does it amount to a deliberate omission of material information. In
Williams v. Taylor,
the Court concluded that a hearing was necessary because a juror had deliberately omitted material information when responding to questions posed by defense counsel on
voir dire.
. Billings’ motion to the state MAR court did not contain a request for a hearing on actual bias. J.A. 310. In denying relief, however, the MAR court concluded that there was insufficient evidence to hold an evidentiary hearing with respect to any of the five juror misconduct claims Billings raised beforе that court. Id. at 325-26.
. In cases where the Supreme Court has required a hearing, the source of potential bias was not discoverable on
voir dire,
either because a juror deliberately omitted material information in response to questions asked on
voir dire
or because the circumstances that potentially compromised the juror’s impartiality did not arise until after the trial had begun.
See, e.g., Williams,
. For the same reason that federal law does not obligate a state court to hold a post-trial evidentiary hearing about matters that were fairly discoverable on
voir dire,
a federal ha-beas court is not required to hold an eviden-tiary hearing about such matters on collateral review. Indeed, under AEDPA, a federal ha-beas court is likely forbidden from holding an evidentiary hearing where the petitioner failed, as Billings did here, to investigate the facts at the appropriate stage of the state court proceedings.
See
28 U.S.C. § 2254(e)(2) (stating that, subject to two narrow exceptions not applicable here, a federal habeas court may not hold an evidentiary hearing with respect to a claim "if the applicаnt has failed to develop the factual basis of [the] claim in State court proceedings”);
cf. Williams,
. Billings also asserts that he is entitled under
Remmer
to an evidentiary hearing to explore the potential prejudicial effect the T-shirt may have had upon the jury. In
Remmer,
the Supreme Court ordered a hearing where a juror who had been offered a bribe was investigated by an FBI agent during trial.
. The district court characterized the private consultation of the Bible in this case аs "less onerous” than the recitation of passages from the Bible during deliberations in Burch be cause here the consultation of the Bible affected only one juror. J.A. 421. Billings argues that private consultation of the Bible is worse than quoting the Bible during deliberations because, in the latter case, the jurors can remind each other that they have a duty to rest their decision on the law and not on the Bible. But whether the Bible consultation in this case was somehow less or more onerous than that in Burch is ultimately beside the point. What matters for purposes of this habeas action is that, in either case, it would not be objectively unreasonable to conclude that the consultation of the Bible did not constitute an extraneous contact that raises a presumption of prejudice under Remmer.
. Billings objected when the prosecutor first began quоting from the Bible, but he was overruled. He did not lodge a further objection to the prosecutor’s reference to the North Carolina death penalty statute as a statute of judgment, and it was apparently this lack of a specific objection that caused the North Carolina Supreme Court to conclude that Billings had forfeited his claim by not making a contemporaneous objection. See J.A. 303.
.Under North Carolina law, a court may not grant relief based on improper prosecutorial arguments unless the defendant raised a contemporaneous objection or the prosecutor's comments " 'so infected the trial with unfairness as to make the resulting conviction a denial of due process.' "
State
v.
Daniels,
. The prosecutor in
Bennett
аrgued that, after the flood, God gave the “sword of justice” to Noah and that "Noah is now the Government.”
. Billings was identified by the boy, who knew him well. And, in any event, Billings did not deny that he committed the murder.
. Under North Carolina law, if the evidence supporting a mitigating circumstance is such that a rational jury could find the circumstance, the trial court has no discretion and must submit the circumstance to the jury, regardless of the wishes of the state or the defendant.
State v. Lloyd,
. Billings argues that this prejudicial effect was exacerbated by the fact that the trial court allowed the prosecutor to tell the jury that the mitigating factors had been requested by the defendant. See J.A. 154. According to Billings, this furthered the prosecutor’s ability to construct a "straw man” out of the miti-gator for no significant history of criminal activity. However, any prejudicial effect that might have arisen from the prosecutor’s statement was countered by the fact that Billings’ attorney informed the jury that the mitigating factor of no significant history of criminal activity had not been requested by the defense. See id. at 187. Alsо, the premise of Billings’ straw man argument — that the jurors would certainly consider Billings’ prior criminal record to be significant — is undermined by the fact that one or more jurors found that Billings had no significant history of criminal activity and weighed that fact in his favor. See id. at 268, 302.
.
Billings also relies upon
United States v. Davis,