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Before Torruella, Selya and Howard, Circuit Judges.

This habeas petition is before us for a second time. In 1995, a Massachusetts Superior Court jury convicted Jason Clements of second-degree murder, resulting in his receiving a life sentence. After unsuccessfully appealing his conviction, Clements petitioned for a writ of habeas corpus in the District of Massachusetts pursuant to 28 U.S.C. §*2254. When this case first reached us, we clarified which issues had been exhausted and were therefore appropriate for collateral review. See Clements v. Maloney, 485 F.3d 158 (1st Cir. 2007) (Clements IV). On remand, the district court granted the petition, concluding that the state trial judge had impermissibly, though unintentionally, coerced a guilty verdict as a result of a series of voir dire examinations of individual deliberating jurors. See Clements v. Clarke, 635 F. Supp. 2d 26 (D. Mass. 2009) (Clements V).

The Commonwealth now appeals. We conclude that the district court employed an insufficiently deferential standard of review and that the state-court conviction should stand.

 
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