OPINION

ROGERS, Circuit Judge.

This case involves Joseph Ambrose's procedurally defaulted claim challenging the constitutionality of the jury selection computer program in Kent County, Michigan. In April 2001, a Kent County jury convicted Ambrose of armed robbery. At jury selection, Ambrose did not object to the racial composition of the jury venire. In July 2002 — after Ambrose had exhausted his direct appeal — the Grand Rapids Press published a story about a computer glitch in the Kent County software that had systematically excluded African-Americans from the jury pool from April 2001 to early 2002. In light of these revelations, Ambrose filed a motion for post-conviction relief in state court, alleging that his Sixth Amendment fair-cross-section right had been violated. However, because Ambrose failed to object to the composition of the jury venire at trial, the state courts denied relief. Ambrose then filed a 28 U.S.C. § 2254 habeas petition in federal court, which the district court conditionally granted on March 10, 2011, having found cause to excuse his procedural default and a prima facie violation of his Sixth Amendment fair-cross-section right; however, on June 28, 2012, we remanded his case for a determination of whether there was actual prejudice. Ambrose v. Booker, 684 F.3d 638, 652 (6th Cir.2012). The district court — interpreting and applying the prejudice standard set forth in Ambrose, 684 F.3d at 652 — subsequently found that Ambrose had sufficiently demonstrated actual prejudice to excuse his procedural default and had established a prima facie violation of his Sixth Amendment fair-cross-section right. The respondent appeals. Because Ambrose has failed to show actual prejudice, the district court erred in excusing Ambrose's procedural default. We therefore do not reach the merits of his Sixth Amendment claim.

On April 19, 2001, a jury of an unknown racial composition1 convicted Joseph Ambrose of two counts of armed robbery, one count of carjacking, and one count of felony-firearm possession following a trial described by the district court as follows:

The jury found Ambrose guilty on three counts, and on June 19, 2001, following conviction, the court sentenced Ambrose to two years' imprisonment on the felon in possession of a firearm charge; ten to fifty years on the carjacking charge, to run consecutive to the two years for felony-firearm possession; and fifteen to sixty years on each of the armed robbery charges, to "run concurrent with the carjacking sentence and consecutive" to the two years for felony-firearm possession.

Ambrose v. Booker, 684 F.3d 638, 640-41 (6th Cir.2012). In light of these revelations, Joseph Ambrose, who had been convicted on April 19, 2001 — a time period during which jury pools were affected by the computer glitch — initiated state post-conviction proceedings, claiming that he had been denied his Sixth Amendment right to be tried by a jury drawn from a fair cross-section of the community. The trial court denied relief, in part, because Ambrose had failed to object to the venire panel before the jury was empaneled. The Michigan Court of Appeals denied leave to appeal, as did the Michigan Supreme Court. People v. Ambrose, 474 Mich. 931, 706 N.W.2d 16 (2005).

On July 25, 2006, Ambrose filed his habeas petition in district court, raising only the Sixth Amendment fair-cross-section claim. The district court referred the matter to a magistrate judge, who held an evidentiary hearing at which four items of evidence were introduced: (1) the testimony of Wayne Bentley, a Grand Rapids school teacher and member of the Kent County jury commission who uncovered the disparate representation; (2) the November 14, 2007 deposition of Terry Holtrop, the case management manager for Kent County; (3) the report of Dr. Paul Stephenson, a statistician who evaluated the impact of the glitch; and (4) the report of Dr. Edward Rothman, who analyzed the composition of the Kent County jury pool between January 1998 and December 2002. For a more detailed description of the hearing testimony and reports, see Ambrose, 684 F.3d at 641-43.

Based on the magistrate judge's recommendation, the district court granted relief. Ambrose, 781 F.Supp.2d at 545-46. First, the district court held that Ambrose had not procedurally defaulted his claim because he had shown good cause to excuse his default, namely that he could not have known of the computer glitch at the time his jury was empaneled. Id. at 542-43. Second, the district court found that the number of African-Americans in the jury pool was not "fair and reasonable in relation to the number of such persons in the community." Id. at 543-44. Finally, the district court held that the systematic exclusion did not need to be intentional and that Ambrose had shown a prima facie violation of his Sixth Amendment fair-cross-section right. Id. at 545. The district court granted a conditional writ of habeas corpus and Respondent appealed.

On appeal, we held that Ambrose had shown cause to excuse the procedural default "because the factual basis for the claim — the computer glitch — was not reasonably available to counsel, and petitioners could not have known that minorities were underrepresented in the jury pool by looking at the venire panel." Ambrose, 684 F.3d at 645. However, we held that "[h]aving shown cause, petitioners must [also] show actual prejudice to excuse their default, even if the error is structural." Id. at 649. Consequently, we remanded the case to district court to address whether Ambrose could show actual prejudice. To guide the district court's analysis, we explained:

Ambrose, 684 F.3d at 652.

On remand, the district court held an evidentiary hearing to determine whether there was a "reasonable probability that a more diverse jury would have been less likely to convict." To answer that question, Ambrose called Dr. Samuel Sommers — "the nation's foremost expert in the fields that are inherently implicated by the Sixth Circuit's standard: `the influence of race on social perception and judgment,' `the relationship between race and legal decision-making,' and `the psychology of intergroup relations and racial bias.'" Dr. Sommers testified that: (1) "research literature demonstrates that more diverse juries are less likely to convict;" (2) "[t]here remains an increased likelihood of a ... conviction with a greater percentage of White jurors even in a strong case,"4; (3) "all-White ... jurors ... behave[] very differently in racially diverse jury settings," because "when people enter any kind of group discussion or group interaction and believe that there is going to be disagreement and divergent opinions, people sort of scrutinize information more carefully,"5; and (4) in racially charged cases, "White people might actually be more conscious of biases and try to counteract [them]." Finally, Dr. Sommers explained that "the research literature indicates a general finding that when you see a particular viewpoint or life experience or attitude on an issue that seems to vary by demographic, that when you change ... that demographic on the jury, and make that demographic more likely to be on that jury, you also increase the likelihood that that perspective or viewpoint or life experience is shared during those deliberations."

Following Ambrose's evidentiary hearing, the district court once again conditionally granted Ambrose's petition for writ of habeas corpus. First, after finding that a less demanding, "less likely to convict" prejudice standard from Hollis v. Davis, 941 F.2d 1471, 1483 (11th Cir.1991) — and not the Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668, 694, 104 S.Ct. 2052, 80 L.Ed.2d 674 (1984), prejudice standard — applied, the court found that Ambrose had sufficiently shown "actual prejudice" to excuse his procedural default for two independent reasons: (1) because, according to the evidence of Dr. Sommers, more diverse juries are statistically less likely to convict, a properly selected jury would have been less likely to find Ambrose guilty of his charges,6 and (2) because the "strength of the evidence against Ambrose was far from overwhelming," the State could not "overcome Dr. Sommers's indication that a properly selected jury would have been less likely to convict." The court reasoned:

Having found that Ambrose demonstrated cause and prejudice to excuse his procedural default, the court then held that Ambrose had also established a prima facie violation of the Sixth Amendment fair cross-section requirement. In particular, the court concluded that "the representation of African Americans [in the jury venire] was not fair and reasonable in relation to their number in the community," and "that the exclusion of potential African-American jurors was `systematic.'" The court therefore ordered conditional habeas relief.

Respondent now appeals the district court's grant of conditional habeas relief, claiming that (1) Ambrose failed to show actual prejudice to excuse his procedural default, and (2) the district court erred in finding that the representation of African-Americans in the venire from which his jury was selected was not fair and reasonable.

As an initial matter, the district court on remand should not have applied a less stringent Hollis — rather than the Strickland — prejudice standard to determine whether to excuse Ambrose's procedural default. The "actual prejudice" inquiry outlined in Ambrose v. Booker, 684 F.3d 638, 652 (2012), was intended to mirror the inquiry required by Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668, 694, 104 S.Ct. 2052, 80 L.Ed.2d 674 (1984). Courts must consider whether, in light of the underrepresentation of African Americans in the jury venire, "there is a reasonable probability that ... the result of the proceeding would have been different." Strickland, 466 U.S. at 694, 104 S.Ct. 2052. Stated another way, courts must ask, is there a reasonable probability that a different (e.g., properly selected) jury would have reached a different result, "a probability sufficient to undermine confidence in the outcome of the trial." Id.

The district court expressed some confusion as to whether the Strickland or Hollis prejudice standard applies,7 ultimately applying a "Hollis standard" which, according to the district court, asks only whether there is a "reasonable probability that a proper jury would have been less likely to convict." Hollis v. Davis, 941 F.2d 1471, 1482 (11th Cir.1991). The Ambrose opinion, however, stated: "Although the instant petitions do not involve a Strickland claim, this standard is appropriate because it balances the competing demands of constitutionally protected equal protection interests and comity toward the state courts." Ambrose, 684 F.3d at 652 (emphasis added). "This standard" refers to the Strickland standard — and not a different Hollis standard8 — a reading that wholly aligns with our previous statement that "federal courts should not reverse state court decisions unless a petitioner can show that the outcome would have been different." Id. at 651 (emphasis added).

The district court also should not have relied on Dr. Sommers' expert testimony — in which Dr. Sommers stated that racially diverse juries are less likely to convict than all-white juries — in making the court's "actual prejudice" determination. Dr. Sommers' testimony is not relevant to the "actual prejudice" determination because it: (1) does not support a finding that a different jury would have reached a different result; (2) lacks any individualized assessment of the case against Ambrose; and (3) relies on impermissible racial stereotypes. First, Dr. Sommers' testimony at best only supports a finding that a properly selected jury would have been less likely to convict — a standard that — as interpreted by the district court-requires little more than a showing of a mere possibility of prejudice. This finding does not meet the more exacting Strickland standard, namely that Ambrose had to show that, with a properly selected jury, there was a reasonable probability that the outcome of his trial "would have been different." Ambrose, 684 F.3d at 651-52. To find that there is a reasonable probability that with a properly selected jury a petitioner's trial outcome would have been different, a court must do more than simply find that, in general, a more racially diverse jury is less likely to convict; such a finding says nothing about the case at hand. "To establish actual prejudice, a petitioner must show not merely that the errors at his trial created a possibility of prejudice, but that they worked to his actual and substantial disadvantage, infecting his entire trial with error of constitutional dimensions." Hollis, 941 F.2d at 1480 (quotations and citation omitted).

Second, Dr. Sommers' testimony lacked any individualized assessment of the evidence against Ambrose, the factor we repeatedly identified as the "most important aspect to the inquiry." Ambrose, 684 F.3d at 652. To permit a finding of actual prejudice based solely on such expert testimony would essentially eliminate the actual prejudice requirement in all but the most extreme cases (e.g., where the evidence against the defendant is so airtight that no reasonable jury could vote to acquit).9

Third, reliance on the type of evidence provided by Dr. Sommers rests solely on general racial characteristics, considerations flatly inconsistent with the underlying theory of Batson v. Kentucky, 476 U.S. 79, 106 S.Ct. 1712, 90 L.Ed.2d 69 (1986) and its progeny, as Justice Marshall explained, in his Batson concurrence.

Batson, 476 U.S. at 104-05, 106 S.Ct. 1712 (Marshall, J., concurring).

Ultimately, under the stricter Strickland standard, and without consideration of Dr. Sommers' testimony, Ambrose has failed to show actual prejudice to excuse his procedural default. Though a careful review of the record reveals some inconsistencies in the trial testimony of the two victims, and the prosecution, admittedly, failed to explain why Ambrose — after carjacking the victims at gunpoint and stealing their possessions — would later abandon the car with a cell phone, gold and silver jewelry, and a watch still inside, these issues on their own do not create a reasonable probability that a different jury would have reached a different result, a probability sufficient to undermine confidence in the outcome. "The most important aspect to the [actual prejudice] inquiry is the strength of the case against the defendant," which requires courts to take a "careful look at the transcripts involved." Id.

Here, the evidence implicating Ambrose in the carjacking and robbery is very strong. The two victims at trial provided the same basic narrative about the incident: they were carjacked and robbed at gunpoint by Ambrose, immediately contacted the police at the home of Anderson's mother's friend, gave statements to the police about the robbery, and picked Ambrose out as the gunman. All of these statements, with the exception of what happened during the carjacking itself, were corroborated by later testimony. Anderson's mother's friend testified that the two victims had visited her home, where they borrowed the phone to call the police. The victims' statements taken by the police shortly after the carjacking and robbery occurred tracked their trial testimony, with the exception of Ambrose's location in the car as the car was driving away. And both victims picked Ambrose out of a photo array, a fact confirmed by police testimony. Though no physical evidence linked Ambrose to the crime — the victims' property was not recovered in Ambrose's possession and police never found the machine gun allegedly used during the robbery — the victims' accounts of the incident provided strong evidence against Ambrose.

It is true that the victims' testimony, at times, conflicted with each other's — on issues such as whether they "had a destination in mind" while driving, who exited the car first, whether Mr. Morgan accompanied Mr. Anderson home (a point later clarified by police testimony), and where Ambrose sat in the car; however, these issues were all minor — with some of the conflicting assertions likely simple mistakes — and did little, if anything, to undermine the victims' broader narrative. Though the two contradictory statements made by one of the witnesses at trial — that "he and Ambrose had no friends in common and had never been at the same location" and that he had handed cash directly to Ambrose, despite having previously testified that he had met Ambrose before and had handed his wallet to Hicks — are arguably more concerning, they are nevertheless insufficient on their own to undermine confidence in the trial's outcome.

In stark contrast to the strength of the State's case, Ambrose's defense — premised on the victims' few conflicting and contradictory statements and a "drug-rental-gone-awry" theory — was weak. Stated simply, Ambrose's contention that it is reasonably probable that a different jury would have accepted the defense theory that what occurred was simply a "drug rental" gone awry, rather than a carjacking and robbery, is belied by the facts. Though "a defendant in a criminal trial need not ... produce any evidence," United States v. Drake, 885 F.2d 323, 323 (6th Cir.1989), to successfully argue that it is reasonably probable that a different jury would have accepted the defense theory, and thus have reached a different result, a defendant must show that there is some support for that theory. Here, there was no such support. Aside from asking the victims if they knew what drug rentals were, and suggesting during closing argument that the victims had lost their car during a drug rental gone awry, the defense presented no evidence to corroborate the theory; in particular, defense counsel failed to impeach the character of the victims and offered no evidence tying the victims to drugs or any other criminal activity. And although Ambrose suggests that the drug rental theory could help explain why Ambrose — after allegedly carjacking and robbing the victims — would later abandon the car with valuables inside, it is more likely that the fact that possessions were later found in the car cuts the other way. Why would an individual who was renting out his car for drugs ever leave his wallet, cell phone and identification in the car? Ultimately, the scant discussion of the "drug rental" theory in the record, coupled with the strong eyewitness testimony implicating Ambrose, supports a finding that it is not reasonably probable that a different jury would have reached a different result in Ambrose's case.

In finding that Ambrose has not shown actual prejudice to excuse his procedural default, we reject the district court's conclusion that "Ambrose has raised a credible claim that on the facts of this case, `[a] mixed race jury might clearly have a special perception.'" Though the court reasoned that the "subjective perceptions, life experience, and common sense of the jurors, as shaped by their individual racial and cultural backgrounds" could have affected how they might have "evaluated" the victims' testimony and Ambrose's drug rental theory, this argument fails for two reasons. First, as the Respondent points out, there is nothing inherent in race or ethnicity that would give a juror special insight into a "drug rental" theory; rather, such an analysis appears more predicated on the experiences of jurors from urban and suburban settings. Since "[d]efendants are not entitled to a jury of any particular composition," Taylor v. Louisiana, 419 U.S. 522, 538, 95 S.Ct. 692, 42 L.Ed.2d 690 (1975), it follows that they are not entitled to a jury predisposed to better "understand" their defense strategy.10 There is "no requirement that petit juries actually chosen must mirror the community and reflect the various distinctive groups in the population." Taylor, 419 U.S. at 538, 95 S.Ct. 692. As the district court in Garcia-Dorantes v. Warren, 978 F.Supp.2d 815, 824 (E.D.Mich.2013) explained, "[t]he question is not whether the petitioner missed his chance to stand trial before a more merciful jury panel or a panel with a particular racial balance, but rather whether there is a reasonable probability that a different jury would have reached a different result." Second, this argument sounds much like the stereotyping arguments courts have sought to avoid, see Batson v. Kentucky, 476 U.S. 79, 104-05, 106 S.Ct. 1712, 90 L.Ed.2d 69 (1986) (Marshall, J., concurring), namely that because an individual is black, he is predisposed to "understand" what happens in the "streets" or be sympathetic to the defendant's case.

Because Ambrose failed to show actual prejudice to excuse his procedural default, his petition for writ of habeas corpus should have been denied. We do not need to address the merits of his Sixth Amendment fair-cross-section claim.

The judgment of the district court is reversed and remanded for entry of judgment denying the writ of habeas corpus.

MERRITT, Circuit Judge, concurring.

I concur in the result reached in Judge Rogers's opinion, but my reasons are different.

First, the number of available black jurors in Kent County, Michigan, remains much below 10% — in line with the case from Kent County recently decided by the United States Supreme Court in 2010, Berghuis v. Smith, 559 U.S. 314, 130 S.Ct. 1382, 176 L.Ed.2d 249, in which the Court held that the trial by an all-white jury in a similar situation did not violate the Sixth Amendment. The Supreme Court observed that the number of non-white jurors seemed to be further substantially reduced because of social and economic factors leading potential black jurors at times to avoid serving by not responding to mail notice to appear. The Supreme Court noted that in such situations where "members of the distinctive group" are a "small percentage of those eligible for jury service" we should be hesitant to find that the state engaged in "systematic exclusion" when the jury turns out to be all-white. Id. at 329-30, 130 S.Ct. 1382. Based on the law of averages, along with the random nature of selecting the persons to be called for jury duty, there are likely to be many all-white juries in Kent County. The Court found that in such situations "absolute disparity and comparative disparity ... can be misleading," and rejected Sixth Amendment arguments, like those in the instant case, based on such abstract statistical measures.

Second, in the case before us, the number of available black jurors in Kent County, Michigan, is well below 10% so that by the law of averages many juries would be all white. Yet in this case, we do not even know that there were no blacks on the jury because apparently no record was kept, and no record is available, about who was on the jury. We do not know how many men or women, or how many blacks or Hispanics, were on the jury. There may well have been one or more black members on the jury in this case. We simply do not know the facts on this question. If we do not know the facts on this question, we cannot logically or accurately say that in reality there was "systematic exclusion" in this case, except in the most abstract, generalized statistical sense.

Third, even if we assume the under representation of black jurors based on the "computer glitch" and the various statistical tests courts have used to measure the representation of distinctive groups in jury pools, the assumption may very well be wrong because one or more of the clerks in the Kent County Circuit Court Clerk's office, on their own initiative, apparently added black members to some of the venires in order to overcome what they perceived to be juries that were too white. Based on the findings of Michigan courts, we may take judicial notice of the work of the clerks of court to try to make up for the shortfall of black jurors:

People v. Bryant, 289 Mich.App. 260, 796 N.W.2d 135, 143-44 (2010). Thus, we do not know whether any particular jury was unrepresentative of the community.

Fourth, when the jury decides a highly contested case based on the instincts, credibility determinations and inferences of twelve jurors after extensive discussions in the jury room, how can we judge the effect of the failure to have seated, or called for jury duty, a juror from a particular distinctive group? So long as the evidence supports the verdict and so long as the selection process does not purposely discriminate against members of the group, I am unable to find prejudice or a reasonable basis for setting aside a jury verdict in cases like this one.

A central purpose of the modern trial by jury is to protect the citizen from the executive branch by democratizing the judicial process through a representative group of citizens who apply the often-complicated rules of the criminal law and debate among themselves what justice requires in the case. See Plucknett, "A Concise History of the Common Law" 136-38 (1956). Taking into account all of the factors in this case — e.g., the attitude of the Supreme Court about the lack of persuasiveness of abstract statistical arguments, our lack of precise knowledge of what jurors were in fact impaneled, and the facts of the case and the jury verdict — I cannot say that the jury in this case was not representative of the people of Kent County, and I am not inclined to set aside the verdict and start all over again. Like my colleague, Judge Rogers, I see no injustice in upholding the jury verdict in the Circuit Court of Kent County in this case.

POLSTER, District Judge concurring in part and dissenting in part.

I concur with most of Judge Rogers' thorough and thoughtful opinion. While I agree that the decision of the district court should be reversed, I would remand the case to permit the district court to analyze the case using the correct legal standard, and without any reliance upon the expert report of Dr. Sommers.

As Judge Rogers states, the district court erred in applying a less stringent Hollis — rather than Strickland — prejudice standard to determine whether to excuse Ambrose's procedural default. While in retrospect our language in Ambrose I could have been a bit clearer, Judge Rogers' opinion has reaffirmed our holding that the Strickland standard applies.

Second, as Judge Rogers states, the district court erred in relying at all on the testimony of Dr. Sommers. In the first instance, as Judge Rogers notes, Dr. Sommers engaged in racial stereotyping. Any reference to, or reliance upon, racial stereotyping is inconsistent with the holding and theory of Batson v. Kentucky, 476 U.S. 79, 106 S.Ct. 1712, 90 L.Ed.2d 69 (1986). Further, Dr. Sommers' testimony and conclusions are legally irrelevant. The Constitution does not give a criminal defendant the right to any particular racial composition of his/her petit jury, nor does the Constitution give a defendant the right to a jury that might be deemed less likely to convict.

The Constitutional right involved is the right to have a jury selected by a system that does not under-represent any particular racial or ethnic group. There is no Constitutional guarantee that any given jury will contain any particular number of minority members, or that it will reflect the racial or ethnic composition of the District. The Constitutional right is to a system for selecting jury venires that is likely to yield one that will contain a fair cross-section of the District's population, whatever the racial or ethnic distribution might be, and that does not under-represent any particular racial or ethnic group. As a result of a computer software glitch, the system used in Kent County, Michigan under-represented African-Americans in the jury pools during the period April 2001 to early 2002.

Accordingly, I would reverse and remand the case to allow the district court to analyze the evidence against Ambrose under the correct Strickland standard, and without any reference to Dr. Sommers' findings.