Phillip Jones v. Tim Shoop

── Phillip Jones v. Tim Shoop ── Court: Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit Date: April 22, 2026 Category: General RECOMMENDED FOR PUBLICATION Pursuant to Sixth Circuit I.O.P. 32.1(b) File Name: 26a0118p.06 UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE SIXTH CIRCUIT ┐ PHILLIP L. JONES, │ Petitioner-Appellant, │ > No. 24-3356 │ v. │ │ TIM SHOOP, Warden, │ Respondent-Appellee. │ ┘ Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Ohio at Akron. No. 5:19-cv-02063—Solomon Oliver, Jr., District Judge. Argued: August 21, 2025 Decided and Filed: April 22, 2026 Before: GIBBONS, GRIFFIN, and THAPAR, Circuit Judges. _________________ COUNSEL ARGUED: Joseph E. Wilhelm, OFFICE OF THE FEDERAL PUBLIC DEFENDER, Cleveland, Ohio, for Appellant. Brenda S. Leikala, OFFICE OF THE OHIO ATTORNEY GENERAL, Columbus, Ohio, for Appellee. ON BRIEF: Joseph E. Wilhelm, Matthew Gay, Jillian S. Davis, OFFICE OF THE FEDERAL PUBLIC DEFENDER, Cleveland, Ohio, for Appellant. Brenda S. Leikala, OFFICE OF THE OHIO ATTORNEY GENERAL, Columbus, Ohio, for Appellee. _________________ OPINION _________________ JULIA SMITH GIBBONS, Circuit Judge. Petitioner Phillip L. Jones, an Ohio prisoner sentenced to death, appeals the district court’s denial of his petition for writ of habeas corpus.  No. 24-3356 Jones v. Shoop Page 2 Jones makes three arguments on appeal: first, that the trial court violated his Confrontation Clause rights by allowing two witnesses to testify to out-of-court statements made by his wife; second, that his trial counsel were ineffective by not presenting testimony from a forensic expert to counter the state’s expert during the guilt phase; and third, that his counsel were ineffective during the penalty phase of trial. For the foregoing reasons, we affirm the judgment of the district court and deny Jones’s petition for writ of habeas corpus. I. Factual History A. Pre-Trial Proceedings Around 6:00 AM on April 23, 2007, Susan Yates’s body was discovered at Mount Peace Cemetery in Akron, Ohio.1 Yates’s skirt and bra were torn, with her bra “ripped at the connecting fabric between the cups and . . . turned around on her torso.” State v. Jones, 984 N.E.2d 948, 954 (Ohio 2012). A small, plastic, glow-in-the-dark cross was placed over her right eye, and her face and neck had many bruises. Police also located Yates’s shoes, a hat, and a pocketknife on the ground near the body. A day later, Akron police arrested Jones in connection with Yates’s death. When interviewed at the police station that night, Jones stated that all he would “say about this is that it was an accident.” Id. at 955. Soon after, Jones was charged with one count of aggravated murder, one count of murder, and two counts of rape. Jones pled not guilty to all charges. On October 22, the grand jury supplemented the indictment against Jones to include a death penalty and repeat offender specification. Four