F.3d 888, 897 (6th Cir.2008) (“We must accept as valid a state court’s interpretation of the statutes and rules of practice of that state.”) (citing Estelle v. McGuire, 502 U.S. 62, 67-68, 112 S.Ct. 475, 116 L.Ed.2d 385 (1991)). The majority cites cases from three of our sister circuits to support its contention that appeals to general deterrence might be appropriate at the sentencing phase of a death penalty case. Although federal cases are not relevant in light of Tennessee’s unambiguous conclusion that the prosecutor’s argument was improper, I note that, in this circuit, general-deterrence arguments are disfavored, especially where, as here, the argument is “calculated to inflame passion and prejudice.” See, e.g., United States v. Solivan, 937 F.2d 1146, 1150-53, 1155 (6th Cir.1991) (<HOLDING>); cf. Byrd v. Collins, 209 F.3d 486, 539 (6th
holding that the defendants objection was untimely when he waited until the end of the prosecutors closing argument to raise it holding that the prosecutors request that the jury send a message to the community was improper in the guilt phase of the trial but was not so flagrantly improper as to constitute plain error holding that it was harmless error when the prosecutor focused on a single incident in closing argument holding prosecutors reference in closing argument to defendants prior conviction constituted an introduction of evidence so extremely unfair as to violate fundamental conceptions of justice and thus a deprivation of defendants right to due process holding that a prosecutors entreaty in closing argument to convict a defendant in order to send a message and strike a blow to the drug problem was a single misstep so destructive to defendants right to a fair trial that it constitute reversible error