Case Title: In re Andrews

Citation: 

Docket Number: S017657A

State: california

Court: California Supreme Court

Date: 2002-08-26T00:00:00Z

Document:
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Filed 8/26/02 (reposted same date to designate Acting Chief Justice) 
 
 
 
IN THE SUPREME COURT OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 
 
In re JESSE JAMES ANDREWS 
) 
 
 
) 
 
on Habeas Corpus. 
) 
S017657 
___________________________________ ) 
 
I.  INTRODUCTION 
 
Petitioner Jesse James Andrews was convicted of capital murder.  (See 
People v. Andrews (1989) 49 Cal.3d 200 (Andrews I).)  As recounted in Andrews 
I, the evidence at trial established the following:  “On the evening of December 9, 
1979, police were summoned to the Los Angeles apartment of Preston Wheeler.  
There they found the bodies of Wheeler, Patrice Brandon and Ronald Chism.  
Wheeler had been stabbed in the chest six times and shot in the neck at close range 
with either a .32- or .357-caliber weapon.  His face and head were bruised, and his 
face had been slashed with a knife.  Brandon and Chism had been strangled with 
wire coat hangers.  Their faces were bruised, Chism’s extensively.  Brandon’s 
anus was extremely dilated, bruised, reddened and torn, consistent with the 
insertion of a penis shortly before her death.  There was also redness around the 
opening of her vagina, and vaginal samples revealed the presence of semen and 
spermatozoa.  All three victims were bound hand and foot.”  (Id. at p. 206.) 
 
At trial, the prosecution’s chief witness was Charles Sanders, who testified 
pursuant to a plea bargain in which he pled guilty to three counts of second degree 
murder in exchange for a promised sentence of 17 years to life in prison. 
 
 
 
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Sanders testified that he and petitioner devised a plan to rob Wheeler, a 
drug dealer.  Defendant armed himself with a .357 magnum and gave Sanders a 
.38- or .32-caliber automatic.  On the evening of the murders, they visited their 
friend, Carol Brooks, who lived in the same apartment building as Wheeler, and 
then went to Wheeler’s apartment.  “In response to their knocking, Wheeler, who 
apparently knew [petitioner], let them in.  Also inside the apartment was a woman 
(Patrice Brandon).  [¶]  After smoking some marijuana with Wheeler, [petitioner] 
and Sanders drew their guns.  Sanders tied Wheeler and Brandon with belts and 
socks, put on a pair of gloves, and began to search the apartment for drugs and 
money.  Except for some powder on a saucer which appeared to be cocaine, the 
search was unsuccessful.  [Petitioner] questioned Wheeler, who denied having any 
drugs or money.  Saying he would make Brandon talk, [petitioner] dragged her 
into the kitchen and closed the door.  Sanders remained in the living room with 
Wheeler.”  (Andrews I, supra, 49 Cal.3d at p. 207.) 
 
Sanders heard petitioner hitting Brandon and later heard sounds as though 
they were having sex.  When petitioner came out of the kitchen shortly thereafter, 
Sanders saw Brandon’s pants around her ankles.  (Andrews I, supra, 49 Cal.3d at 
p. 207.) 
 
“[Petitioner] put his gun in Wheeler’s mouth.  He threatened to kill 
Wheeler and Brandon unless Wheeler revealed the location of the drugs.  Wheeler 
said the ‘dope’ was in the attic, and pointed out a trap door leading up to it.  
Sanders climbed into the attic.  [¶]  While in the attic, Sanders heard two shots.  
When he came down, [petitioner] told him he had shot Wheeler because the latter 
had tried to jump out the window.  Sanders asked if Wheeler was dead.  
[Petitioner] responded he was ‘standing right up’ on Wheeler when he fired the 
gun. . . .  When Sanders asked about Brandon, [petitioner] replied he had killed her 
before leaving the kitchen.”  (Andrews I, supra, 49 Cal.3d at p. 207.) 
 
 
3
 
While petitioner and Sanders were cleaning up the apartment, Ronald 
Chism knocked on the door and asked if everything was all right.  Petitioner said 
Wheeler was home and invited him inside.  Petitioner “then hit Chism on the head, 
tied him up, and took him into the bathroom.  Sanders saw [petitioner] sitting 
astride Chism’s back, joining and separating his clenched fists in a tugging 
motion, apparently strangling Chism.”  (Andrews I, supra, 49 Cal.3d at p. 208.)  
Sanders then saw petitioner go into the kitchen and choke Brandon with a wire 
clothes hanger.  When the two left the apartment, petitioner gave Sanders some 
money, saying it was all he had found.  (Ibid.) 
 
Carol Brooks, whose brother was married to Sanders’s sister, testified that 
on the night of the murders petitioner told her they were going to Wheeler’s to get 
some money.  Sanders later acknowledged to her his involvement in the crimes; 
and petitioner told her he had shot Wheeler, taken $300, and had sex with 
Brandon.  (Andrews I, supra, 49 Cal.3d at p. 208.) 
 
Print evidence disclosed the presence of petitioner’s fingerprints on 
Wheeler’s living room coffee table.  A set of left and right palm prints was found 
on the kitchen floor, the left one about an inch from Brandon’s body.  (Andrews I, 
supra, 49 Cal.3d at p. 208.) 
 
Petitioner did not testify.  In an effort to undermine Sanders’s credibility, 
the defense called two jail inmates whose testimony implied he had lied about 
petitioner’s involvement in the crimes to minimize his own.  (See Andrews I, 
supra, 49 Cal.3d at p. 209.) 
 
A jury convicted petitioner of the first degree murders of Wheeler, 
Brandon, and Chism.  (Pen. Code, § 187; all undesignated statutory references are 
to the Penal Code.)  As to each murder, it found true special circumstance 
allegations of prior murder (§ 190.2, subd. (a)(2)), multiple murder (id., subd. 
(a)(3)), and robbery murder (id., former subd. (a)(17)(i), now subd. (a)(17)(A)).  
 
 
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As to Brandon’s murder, it found true the rape-murder special-circumstance 
allegation.  (Id., former subd. (a)(17)(iii), now subd. (a)(17)(C).)  The jury also 
convicted petitioner of rape (former § 261, subds. 2, 3), sodomy by a foreign 
object (§ 289), and robbery (§ 211).  It further found petitioner used a firearm in 
committing each offense.  (§ 12022.5.) 
 
Following the penalty phase evidence, the jury determined the punishment 
should be death.  (Andrews I, supra, 49 Cal.3d at p. 206.)  On automatic appeal, 
this court affirmed the judgment. 
 
Thereafter, petitioner sought a writ of habeas corpus, alleging his trial 
attorneys (lead counsel Gerald Lenoir, assisted by Halvor Miller) rendered 
ineffective assistance at the penalty phase.  We issued an order to show cause and 
subsequently appointed the Honorable Jacqueline A. Connor to conduct a 
reference hearing and take evidence and make findings of fact on the following six 
questions: 
 
1.  What mitigating character and background evidence could have been, 
but was not, presented by petitioner’s trial attorneys at his penalty trial? 
 
2.  What investigative steps by trial counsel, if any, would have led to each 
such item of information? 
 
3.  What investigative steps, if any, did trial counsel take in an effort to 
gather mitigating evidence to be presented at the penalty phase? 
 
4.  What tactical or financial constraints, if any, weighed against the 
investigation or presentation of mitigating character and background evidence at 
the penalty phase? 
 
5.  What evidence, damaging to petitioner, but not presented by the 
prosecution at the guilt or penalty trials, would likely have been presented in 
rebuttal, if petitioner had introduced any such mitigating character and background 
evidence? 
 
 
5
 
6.  Did petitioner himself request that either the investigation or the 
presentation of mitigating evidence at the penalty phase be curtailed in any 
manner?  If so, what specifically did petitioner request? 
 
Having considered the record of the hearing, the referee’s factual findings, 
and petitioner’s original trial, we conclude petitioner received constitutionally 
adequate representation, and any inadequacy did not result in prejudice. 
II.  PENALTY PHASE EVIDENCE 
 
“At the penalty phase, the prosecution evidence consisted of a stipulation 
and two exhibits.  The parties stipulated that [petitioner] was born on July 2, 1950, 
and that he pled guilty in Alabama to the crimes of armed robbery in 1968, escape 
in 1969, and robbery in 1977.  The two exhibits were photographs of two of the 
victims; they had been excluded from the guilt phase on the ground that they were 
unduly inflammatory. 
 
“The defense penalty phase evidence, admitted under stipulation, consisted 
of sworn statements describing the circumstances surrounding [petitioner’s] prior 
Alabama murder conviction.  According to the statements, [petitioner] and a  
17-year-old companion, each of whom carried a gun, entered a grocery store and 
announced a robbery.  When the store clerk placed his hand down the front of his 
apron, [petitioner’s] companion fired three gunshots, killing him.”  (Andrews I, 
supra, 49 Cal.3d at p. 225.) 
 
In his closing argument, Lenoir presented petitioner as an unsophisticated 
criminal whose crimes—committed many years apart—escalated when planned 
robberies took unexpected turns.  He noted that the Alabama murder occurred 
when petitioner was only 16 years old and his confederate, Freddie Square, shot 
the victim when he apparently reached for a weapon.  Lenoir also portrayed his 
conduct as less blameworthy than that of other special circumstance murderers 
who had been sentenced to life without possibility of parole.  In a similar vein, he 
 
 
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emphasized that the current murders occurred when petitioner, Sanders, and 
victims Brandon and Wheeler were all under the influence of narcotics, 
characterizing this drug usage as partially blurring the lines between guilty 
offender and innocent victim, unlike the facts in many capital cases.  Counsel 
further noted Sanders received a sentence of 17 years to life imprisonment. 
III.  REFEREE’S REPORT AND PETITIONER’S EXCEPTIONS 
A. Findings 
 
The referee provided one-paragraph summaries in response to each 
question posed in our reference order and also set forth detailed findings on each 
question. 
 
1.  What mitigating character and background evidence could have been, 
but was not, presented by petitioner’s trial attorneys at his penalty trial? 
 
“Trial counsel could have presented evidence of petitioner’s upbringing and 
childhood, including evidence of his abandonment by his parents from the age of 
two.  The subsequent loss of his grandfather at the age of 11[1] triggered an 
absence of structure in his life resulting in truancy, delinquency and eventual 
incarceration at a young age in a segregated brutal institution near Montgomery, 
Alabama.  Further evidence could have been presented on the impact of the 
Alabama state prison system on petitioner, following a conviction for robbery-
murder at the age of 16.  This prison experience did not provide petitioner with a 
basis for rehabilitation but the evidence did show that petitioner adjusted well 
when the prison structure permitted it.  Additionally, witnesses could have been 
presented to develop mitigation regarding petitioner’s mental health, including a 
diagnosis of a learning disorder, brain impairment and post traumatic stress 
                                             
 
1  
In his exceptions to the referee’s report, petitioner points out that he was 10 
years old, not 11, when his grandfather died.  The Attorney General agrees. 
 
 
7
disorder.  Finally, petitioner had a large extended family who would have testified 
to their love and support for petitioner and the impact of his execution on them.” 
 
Based on the testimony of more than 50 witnesses,2 the referee explained in 
her findings that petitioner’s trial attorneys could have presented evidence that 
petitioner spent his early years in a poor, segregated neighborhood of Mobile, 
Alabama.  His parents were alcoholics who separated soon after his birth.  His 
mother moved to Detroit, Michigan, to better herself when petitioner was two, and 
his father also moved away when petitioner was young, leaving him in the care of 
his grandparents and aunt, who raised him in a large family home with his siblings 
and cousins.  Petitioner and his brother were sometimes disciplined by being 
forced to wear dresses.  There was no evidence of abuse; and petitioner apparently 
had a good relationship with his grandfather, who was described as loving, 
benevolent, and responsible.3 
 
When petitioner was 9 or 10, his mother returned to the family home with 
two children by another marriage.  About the same time, petitioner’s grandfather, 
described by the referee as a “pivotal figure” in his life, died.  Petitioner, who 
grieved for his grandfather, felt rejected by his mother and jealous of her new 
children.  He became withdrawn and began skipping school.  At the age of 14, he 
                                             
 
2 
In this regard, the referee observed, “The length of time available to 
develop, expand and refine the depth of the evidence presented at this reference 
hearing obviously creates an artificial setting and this court notes that the 
abundance and massiveness of the evidence presented could not and would not 
have been the same in an original trial.  Strategic considerations alone would have 
undoubtedly resulted in a greater refinement of the quality of evidence presented, 
but this issue is outside the scope of the referee’s findings.” 
3 
There was testimony that petitioner’s grandfather had a drinking problem 
and that petitioner and his siblings were beaten, but the referee described the 
evidence on these points as “inconsistent.” 
 
 
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was committed to the Alabama Industrial School for Negro Children, a reform 
school known as Mt. Meigs, for car theft. 
 
At Mt. Meigs, petitioner encountered appalling conditions.  The referee 
found “he was subjected to beatings, brutality, inadequate conditions and sexual 
predators.  He also participated with the other boys in using inhalants while at the 
institution.  He was rarely visited by family.  His passiveness and small physique 
caused him to be a target of older, tougher boys, from whom no protection or 
separation was provided.”  The evidence also established Mt. Meigs failed to 
provide any meaningful rehabilitative or educational opportunities. 
 
After petitioner’s release at the age of 16, he became withdrawn and 
uncommunicative.  Over his family’s objections, he began to associate with older, 
streetwise boys, including Freddie Square, “a more sophisticated young man with 
manipulative and criminal tendencies.”  Within three months, at Square’s 
instigation, petitioner and Square robbed a grocery store.  When they drew guns 
and announced the robbery, the store clerk placed his hand down the front of his 
apron.  Square fired, killing the clerk.  Petitioner had acted as a lookout in the 
robbery, but played a more active role when he and Square robbed a taxi driver 
during their getaway, firing three shots at the driver as the latter fled the scene.  He 
was convicted of murder and robbery and introduced to the Alabama State Prison 
system just before turning 18.4 
 
Petitioner spent the next 10 years in Mobile County Jail and in Kilby, 
Draper, Atmore, and Holman Prisons in Alabama.  Regarding conditions there, the 
                                             
 
4 
Petitioner was convicted of murder based on his participation in the robbery 
of the grocery clerk in November 1967.  Six months later, he was convicted of 
armed robbery of the taxi driver.  The jurors at petitioner’s penalty trial were told 
only of the conviction dates not the date when the crimes were committed, which 
may have led them to believe the crimes were unrelated. 
 
 
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referee heard the accounts of numerous inmates incarcerated with or during the 
same time as petitioner as well as testimony of noninmates, several of whom had 
witnessed the conditions firsthand.  On this basis, she described conditions in these 
institutions as “abysmal,” characterized by “severe overcrowding, racial 
segregation, substandard facilities, no separation of the tougher inmates from 
younger or smaller inmates, constant violence, the persistent threat of sexual 
assaults and the constant presence of sexual pressure, the availability and necessity 
of weapons by all inmates, and degrading conditions in disciplinary modules.”  
Petitioner not only received beatings but “was also personally subjected to sexual 
assaults.”  At the same time, the referee noted that petitioner was “personal[ly] 
involve[d] in violence includ[ing] the stabbings of two inmates who had been 
threatening him.” 
 
In 1976, petitioner was released from prison.  He was soon arrested for 
attempted robbery of a laundry, which “involved taking a young woman hostage at 
gunpoint and threatening responding police officers.”  Petitioner escaped from the 
Mobile County Jail5 and fled to California, where he found a job and for a short 
time had a stable relationship with Debra Pickett, with whom he had a child.  He 
then resumed using cocaine and left Pickett.  Soon after, he committed the 
murders in this case.  At the reference hearing, petitioner’s son, Dominick, who 
communicates with petitioner through letters and telephone calls, testified that he 
loved his father and would be devastated if he were executed. 
 
“Extensive psychiatric testimony was presented in the form of several 
expert witnesses[, including Drs. George Woods, Craig Haney, James Park, 
Dorcas Bowles, John Irwin, and Myla Young].  They generally described the 
petitioner as suffering from a learning disorder known as attention deficit disorder, 
                                             
 
5 
Petitioner had previously attempted but failed to escape from the same jail. 
 
 
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and post traumatic stress disorder.  They also described mild to moderate organic 
brain impairment from a history of drug use and abuse, starting with the inhalants 
at Mt. Meigs, as well as possibly from a head injury suffered while in prison.  
These witnesses presented evidence that the aggravating circumstances of the 
murders and sexual assaults were diminished by an awareness of the context of 
petitioner’s participation in the instant crime, that his learning disability and the 
adverse circumstances of his childhood as well as the impact of the Alabama 
juvenile and adult correctional systems made his behavior understandable and his 
reincarceration predictable.  The added effect of post traumatic stress disorder was 
presented to mitigate his actions in the Warhurst and laundromat robberies as well 
as the instant charges.  The additional impacts of his experiences in the prison 
system provide an argument that he was prevented from adjusting to the free 
world and that his alienation from conventional society led him back to the 
familiar world of crime.” 
 
Sifting through the “overwhelm[ing]” “minutiae” of this expert testimony, 
the referee found that “the impact of petitioner’s incarceration history, while a 
double-edged sword, was compelling, having occurred from an extremely 
vulnerable and sensitive age.  Although there were a number of inconsistencies 
concerning exactly what petitioner personally experienced, it was undisputed that 
he was rarely the instigator of violence.  On the contrary, the evidence showed 
that he avoided violence and appeared to adjust well when the structure 
permitted and that he would continue to do so.  His smaller stature made him 
the target of more violent inmates in virtually every institution in which he was 
housed.  However, when circumstances permitted, he tended to hold positions 
of responsibility.  To the extent that he was involved in prison violence 
personally, the evidence remains consistent that he was the prey rather than the 
predator.” 
 
 
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2.  What investigative steps by trial counsel, if any, would have led to each 
item of evidence? 
 
“Trial counsel could have contacted petitioner’s family to develop his 
background and childhood, including contacting his mother and other relatives 
either living in the same location or accessible through known family members.  
Evidence relating to the impact of the juvenile and adult correctional systems 
could have been developed by obtaining prison records and contacting inmates 
referenced in those records as well as conducting standard legal research of public 
records relating to lawsuits involving these institutions.  Mental health experts 
could have been appointed to review the background material and to test petitioner 
in order to ascertain the viability of psychiatric mitigation.” 
 
In her findings of fact, the referee explained that appellate counsel utilized 
“standard investigative techniques” to obtain the evidence presented at the 
reference hearing.  She categorized the evidence into three general and partially 
overlapping areas—the circumstances of petitioner’s upbringing, the impact of the 
correctional facilities in Alabama and petitioner’s adult experiences, and the 
psychiatric aspects of petitioner’s history—none of which “called for any 
extraordinary efforts beyond simple persistence.” 
 
In the referee’s view, petitioner’s attorneys could readily have learned 
about petitioner’s upbringing from their contact with his mother.  Other family 
members and acquaintances could have been found through her; and many were 
willing to testify on petitioner’s behalf.  Addresses and information were also 
independently available from public documents; and counsel could have reached 
numerous individuals familiar with petitioner’s family and upbringing with little 
effort.  “[G]eneral information regarding schooling issues was available through 
family members.  Many family members and friends continued to live in the 
Mobile area and others were known to the family . . . .” 
 
 
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“Several areas of inquiry were available relating to petitioner’s experiences 
in the correctional system in Alabama. . . .  Further, . . . the ‘word’ had spread 
that counsel were looking for people who knew petitioner, and several came 
forward of their own volition.” 
 
“In the area of mental health, there was no significant written history.  The 
references to family members having mental impairments was not particularly 
impressive. . . .  [¶]  [Nevertheless,] [r]outine appointment of psychiatric experts 
would have provided some information to dictate any additional steps that may 
have been in order.”  The referee further found, however, that “[a]ny such 
inquiry may not necessarily have resulted in the availability of evidence of the 
diagnoses of organic brain impairment, learning disorders, or of post traumatic 
stress disorder.  The quality of standardized personality tests was not the same, the 
knowledge of post traumatic stress disorder was in an infancy stage, and the 
resulting diagnosis may not necessarily have been favorable to the petitioner.”6 
                                             
 
6 
Although he failed to do so in the reference hearing, petitioner requests this 
court take judicial notice of certain materials (the Diagnostic and Statistical 
Manual of Mental Disorders (3d ed. 1980) and the Comprehensive Textbook of 
Psychiatry/III (3d ed. 1980)) as well as several published decisions, all of which 
he argues rebut the referee’s conclusions regarding the development and use of 
post traumatic stress disorder as a defense in criminal proceedings.  Even 
assuming it would be appropriate to take judicial notice of matters not presented 
for the referee’s consideration (cf. People v. Hardy (1992) 2 Cal.4th 86, 134), the 
psychiatric materials constitute neither “[f]acts and propositions that are of such 
common knowledge . . . that they cannot reasonably be the subject of dispute” 
(Evid. Code, § 452, subd. (g)) nor “[f]acts and propositions that are not reasonably 
subject to dispute and are capable of immediate and accurate determination by 
resort to sources of reasonably indisputable accuracy.”  (Id., subd. (h); cf. Ake v. 
Oklahoma (1985) 470 U.S. 68, 81 [“Psychiatry is not, however, an exact science, 
and psychiatrists disagree widely and frequently on what constitutes mental 
illness”].)  Accordingly, they are not the proper subject of judicial notice.  While 
we may judicially notice decisional law (see id., subd. (a)), such notice does not 
extend to the facts of such cases when the point on which they are submitted is, as 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
(footnote continued on next page) 
 
 
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Although “petitioner’s cooperativeness was a significant issue” and he had 
been more forthcoming with appellate counsel than with his trial counsel, the 
referee found nonetheless “that essentially all of the information that was 
presented [by petitioner at the reference hearing] could have been developed 
through outside sources in the absence of any cooperation from the petitioner.” 
 
3.  What investigative steps, if any, did trial counsel take in an effort to 
gather mitigating evidence to be presented at the penalty phase? 
 
“Trial counsel took two trips to Mobile, searching the court records for 
petitioner’s priors, and documents relating to his background.  On one such trip, 
they drove around petitioner’s neighborhood searching for relatives or witnesses.  
They also contacted petitioner’s mother and spent some time interviewing her 
about petitioner as well as her own history.” 
 
In her factual findings, the referee explained that petitioner’s trial attorneys 
made only “limited” efforts to gather penalty phase evidence on petitioner’s 
behalf.  The two defense investigators worked solely on the guilt phase; the 
attorneys themselves did the investigative work on the penalty phase.  Counsel did 
not have petitioner examined by a psychologist, psychiatrist, or any other mental 
health expert. 
 
Both attorneys traveled to Mobile on February 4, 1983, for one day.  There, 
they spent time searching for records relating to petitioner at the Mobile County 
courthouse and driving around Mobile in taxis unsuccessfully looking for relatives 
and “making inquiries.”  Miller testified that they were seeking evidence of good 
character and good deeds, but he could not remember precisely who or what he 
and Lenoir were trying to find.7 
                                                                                                                                      
 
here, in dispute.  Thus, we grant petitioner’s request in part, but do not accord any 
evidentiary weight to the submission. 
7 
Lenoir had died prior to the reference hearing. 
 
 
14
 
On counsel’s second trip to Mobile, after petitioner’s first trial resulted in a 
hung jury, they again visited the county courthouse, where they obtained the 
information about petitioner’s prior murder conviction.  Later that day, they flew 
to Pensacola, Florida, where they spoke with petitioner’s mother at the airport for 
an hour and a half or more.  “Among other matters discussed, they obtained 
information about the fact that petitioner had been a slow learner, that he had 
been raised by his grandparents, and that he started getting into trouble as a 
teenager. . . .  Counsel provided her with their business cards and . . . Mr. 
Miller specifically recalled that he told her they would contact her if they could 
convince petitioner to ‘cut us loose in the investigation’ to obtain more 
information about other family members or any others that may have helped.” 
 
4.  What tactical or financial constraints, if any, weighed against the 
investigation or presentation of mitigating character and background evidence at 
the penalty phase? 
 
“There were no financial constraints affecting the penalty investigation.  
The tactical constraints were trial counsel’s distaste for the use of inmate 
witnesses, concern for the consequential development of petitioner’s acts of 
misconduct while incarcerated as well as the preliminary impression that a 
‘poverty-presentation’ lacked viability.  Also, the petitioner’s adamant refusal to 
have his family involved and his threat to disrupt proceedings if his wishes were 
not honored impacted on counsel’s tactical decisions.” 
 
The referee found “essentially no financial constraints weighing against 
the investigation or presentation of penalty phase evidence.” 
 
“Regarding tactical constraints, the findings being limited by the absence of 
Mr. Lenoir’s state of mind, Mr. Miller testified that he felt constrained by the 
adamancy of petitioner’s opposition to having his family, and in particular his 
mother, testify at the trial.  Mr. Miller was very consistent in his testimony 
 
 
15
regarding petitioner’s refusal to cooperate in this area, and this position is 
supported circumstantially by statements made by petitioner as well as testimony 
from the prosecutor, Ed Ferns.  Mr. Miller believed the petitioner when he 
threatened to be disruptive if these wishes were not accepted.  Acceding to these 
wishes, neither he nor Mr. Lenoir pursued a full investigation of petitioner’s 
background or family and never learned the names of family members with one or 
two exceptions.” 
 
In addition, Miller was “not particularly impressed” with the house or 
neighborhood in which petitioner grew up as providing a basis for mitigation “as it 
resembled the manner in which counsel had been raised.”  “As to the inherent 
problems of calling prisoners as witnesses, Mr. Miller stated he was not generally 
impressed with prisoners and did not want to trade ‘good acts’ for ‘bad acts,’ 
expressing concern about the risk of disclosure of any possible misconduct 
petitioner may have been personally involved in.  In fact, the evidence reflected 
that petitioner engaged in two stabbings and escaped from custodial facilities on 
two occasions.  From a practical standpoint, relating to Mr. Miller’s reaction to 
prisoner-witnesses, the inmates who were called did have substantial violent 
criminal records and these offenses included a substantial number of escapes. 
 
“Common themes at that time in penalty presentations included familial 
abuse, abandonment and institutional witnesses, although the evidence also noted 
that penalty trials at that time were not generally lengthy.  Post traumatic stress 
disorder remained in its incipient stages and was generally not used at this time 
except relating to Viet Nam veterans, a sharp contrast with current standards. 
 
“The evidence further established that both trial attorneys were severely 
impeded in their efforts to focus on petitioner by their heavy caseloads, conducting 
back-to-back capital cases before and after petitioner’s trial.” 
 
 
16
 
5.  What evidence, damaging to petitioner, but not presented by the 
prosecution at the guilt or penalty trials, would likely have been presented in 
rebuttal, if petitioner had introduced any such mitigating character and 
background evidence? 
 
“Evidence would have been presented detailing the facts of petitioner’s 
prior convictions, including the fact that he took hostages in one incident, pointed 
a gun at the head of a young female then alternately at officers before 
surrendering, and that he took a dominant role in the robbery of a taxi driver in 
which he shot at the victim three times.  Both of these descriptions counter the 
portrayal of petitioner as a victim of circumstances.  Also, mental health experts 
would likely have been called to rebut the diagnosis of post traumatic stress 
disorder and brain impairment.  These experts would further have developed a 
different diagnosis of anti-social personality disorder and shown petitioner to be of 
average intelligence.  They would have also presented opinions that petitioner’s 
ability to obtain and maintain employment as well as sustaining a relationship was 
indicative of normal brain function, and that his activities in the course of the 
instant murders were not caused by brain damage or intoxication.” 
 
On this point, the referee discussed in particular the reference testimony of 
Harry Woodall and Tommy Pettis and the prosecution’s mental health experts. 
 
Woodall, the driver of the taxi that petitioner and Freddie Square used as 
their getaway car in the Alabama grocery store robbery murder, would have 
testified that petitioner and Square robbed him at gunpoint.  While pointing the 
gun at Woodall, petitioner twice said, “Let’s shoot him.”  After they stole 
Woodall’s wallet, Square ordered Woodall out of the taxi.  Three shots were fired 
at Woodall when he was about 30 feet away; petitioner fired at least two of them. 
 
Mobile Police Officer Pettis testified that on March 23, 1977, he responded 
to a robbery call.  Entering the store from which the call came, he and other 
 
 
17
officers saw petitioner holding a crying young woman hostage with a cocked gun 
at her head.  He told the officers to leave and “continued  to repeat, ‘Someone’s 
going to get shot, I’m going to shoot.’ ”  The officers withdrew.  Ultimately, 
petitioner surrendered to the officers after releasing the young woman and another 
woman whom he had also held hostage. 
 
Psychologist Dale McNiel disagreed with the testimony of petitioner’s 
expert, Dr. George Woods, that petitioner suffered from posttraumatic stress 
disorder.  In Dr. McNiel’s view, petitioner suffered from antisocial personality 
disorder, he was resentful of authority, and his I.Q. of 93 was within normal limits. 
 
Dr. Reese Jones, a psychiatrist with a specialty in psychoactive drugs, 
testified that petitioner abused drugs but was not dependent on them.  According 
to Dr. Jones, petitioner’s actions in the year preceding the murder (his 
employment, his home, and his relationship with Debra Pickett, with whom he had 
a son) strongly suggested that he had not suffered brain damage.  His behavior on 
the night of the murders showed planning and thought, and it was therefore 
unlikely that petitioner was under the influence of PCP when he committed the 
murders. 
 
6.  Did petitioner himself request that either the investigation or the 
presentation of mitigating evidence at the penalty phase be curtailed in any 
manner?  If so, what specifically did petitioner request? 
 
“Petitioner demanded that counsel refrain from contacting or calling his 
mother or family members as witnesses.  Petitioner threatened to disrupt 
proceedings if his mother were called and he personally addressed the trial judge 
on this issue.  He indicated that he understood the consequences of this position 
and that it was his choice to proceed in this fashion.  There were no other 
constraints to developing other witnesses or a mental health profile.” 
 
 
18
 
The referee determined that petitioner “adamantly objected to his attorneys 
approaching his mother and family and having them testify.”  She based this 
finding on petitioner’s own statements at trial, “Miller’s consistent testimony, and 
the testimony and impressions of the prosecutor Ed Ferns.”  This evidence was 
corroborated by petitioner’s older sister, Carolyn Rivers, and uncontradicted by his 
mother.  When the trial court specifically addressed petitioner regarding his 
reluctance to have his mother called and explicitly advised that his mother’s 
testimony could be valuable, petitioner “was very precise in his response, telling 
the judge that he fully understood and that this was his choice and no one else’s.”  
Additionally, Lenoir represented on the record at trial that petitioner refused to 
have his mother called and that “he ‘had his reasons,’ which Mr. Lenoir did not 
wish to disclose to the court.  Apparently Mr. Lenoir knew what these reasons 
were.”  The referee also found that “petitioner went so far as to threaten to disrupt 
the trial if his mother were called.  Counsel acceded to these demands.” 
B. Exceptions 
 
Both parties filed exceptions to the report, raising numerous factual 
questions.  Because the determination of all but two of these issues is not material 
to our resolution of the petition, we need not address them.  As for the remaining 
exceptions, we examine them following the standard that accords deference to 
factual findings supported by substantial evidence.  (People v. Mayfield (1993) 5 
Cal.4th 142, 201.) 
1.  Rebuttal evidence  
 
Petitioner objects to the referee’s finding that the People would have 
offered rebuttal evidence if the defense had presented the proffered mitigating 
evidence.  The referee rejected the testimony of Prosecutor Ferns that he would 
not have introduced any rebuttal evidence, with the possible exception of 
petitioner’s second escape.  In the referee’s view, “This position ignores reality 
 
 
19
. . . .  [T]he time constraints that hampered the prosecution at the time, such as the 
difficulty Mr. Ferns spoke of in retrieving priors’ [sic] information, would have 
been alleviated by the consumption of trial time in presenting the large number of 
witnesses contemplated by the defense as shown in these hearings. . . .  Had any 
defense attorney called in excess of fifty witnesses with virtually hundreds of 
hours of testimony portraying the defendant as a victim of life’s circumstances, 
these rebuttal witnesses would have undoubtedly been called and presented by the 
prosecution during a penalty trial.” 
 
We agree with this general assessment of the realities of prosecuting a 
capital case.  Based on the reference hearing testimony, we also conclude the 
thrust of the referee’s finding—that the prosecutor would have responded to the 
mitigating evidence now proposed—is supported by substantial evidence and not 
necessarily inconsistent with Ferns’s testimony.  It appears Ferns disavowed the 
likelihood of rebuttal only with respect to prison conditions.  He did, however, 
indicate he would have altered the focus of his closing argument to respond to 
such evidence.  It is also clear from the record that much damaging testimony 
regarding petitioner’s own violent conduct in prison and other circumstances 
desensitizing inmates to violence could have, and undoubtedly would have, been 
elicited on cross-examination.  (People v. Mayfield, supra, 5 Cal.4th at p. 208.)  
Similar inferences can be drawn with respect to the mitigating evidence of family 
background.  While it may be unlikely the prosecutor would have sought to locate 
rebuttal witnesses in Alabama to contradict evidence of petitioner’s upbringing, 
the mitigating impact could nevertheless have been undermined on 
cross-examination and through closing argument, particularly regarding 
petitioner’s early criminal acts.  With respect to mental health rebuttal, the realities 
of trial surely would have prompted the prosecutor to present expert testimony in 
contradiction since such witnesses were generally available. 
 
 
20
 
Petitioner counters that if Ferns had found the testimony of Woodall and 
Pettis so useful, he would have introduced it even without petitioner’s presenting 
the mitigating evidence.  Their testimony, however, did not fit with the focus of 
the People’s case, which was not petitioner’s past crimes, but the gratuitously 
brutal circumstances of the current ones.  Given the disturbing nature of the facts, 
the prosecutor had little incentive to parse the details of petitioner’s criminal 
history.  Rather, as was more common in the 1980’s, he emphasized the 
circumstances of the crimes to persuade the jury death was appropriate.  If, 
however, the jury were to hear details of petitioner’s background in mitigation, the 
prosecutor would reasonably want to ensure it received a balanced and accurate 
picture.  (See, e.g., People v. Kipp (2001) 26 Cal.4th 1100, 1134.) 
 
Petitioner also asserts the testimony of Woodall and Pettis would have been 
inadmissible because it did not relate directly to a particular incident or character 
trait petitioner offered in his defense.  (People v. Rodriguez (1986) 42 Cal.3d 730, 
792, fn. 24.)  As to Woodall’s testimony, numerous witnesses characterized 
petitioner as a follower and Freddie Square as a leader in their misconduct.  The 
Woodall shooting demonstrated petitioner could and did take the initiative for 
violence.  While the admissibility of Pettis’s testimony may be somewhat closer, it 
too shows petitioner’s lack of reluctance to use violence to obtain his ends.  We 
therefore conclude substantial evidence supports the referee’s finding that 
presenting the mitigating evidence would have opened the door to damaging 
rebuttal. 
2.  Petitioner’s curtailment of penalty phase investigation  
     and presentation 
 
Petitioner disputes the referee’s finding that he did not want his family 
involved.  He claims he asked only that his mother not be called as a witness and 
placed no restrictions whatsoever on the use of other family members.  In support 
 
 
21
of his exception, he cites statements by Lenoir and Miller to the trial court that 
they were honoring petitioner’s request not to call his mother to testify without 
any mention of other relatives.  In declarations provided to petitioner’s habeas 
corpus counsel, Lenoir and Miller both stated only that petitioner had not wanted 
his mother involved and that they had been unable to find any evidence of good 
character and good deeds; they said nothing about petitioner’s desire not to have 
any others in his family contacted. 
 
Even if his attorneys made little effort to discuss with petitioner the 
possibility of calling family members other than his mother, the referee credited 
Miller’s testimony that petitioner objected not only to his mother’s involvement, 
but also to that of any relatives.  Giving the referee’s credibility determination the 
“great weight” to which it is entitled (In re Johnson (1998) 18 Cal.4th 447, 461), 
we adopt the referee’s finding that Miller accurately described petitioner’s 
objection to having family members present mitigating evidence. 
IV.  DISCUSSION 
 
In a habeas corpus proceeding, the burden of proof lies with the petitioner 
to prove, by a preponderance of the evidence, facts that establish the invalidity of 
the judgment under which he is restrained.  (In re Cudjo (1999) 20 Cal.4th 673, 
687.) 
 
With respect to reference proceedings, “this court independently reviews 
the referee’s resolution of legal issues and mixed questions of law and fact.  
[Citation.]  Because the referee observes the demeanor of testifying witnesses, and 
thus has an advantage in assessing their credibility, this court ordinarily gives 
great weight to the referee’s findings on factual questions, but this deference is 
arguably inappropriate when the referee’s findings are based entirely on 
documentary evidence.  [Citation.]”  (In re Cudjo, supra, 20 Cal.4th at 
pp. 687-688.) 
 
 
22
 
To prove a claim of ineffective assistance of counsel at the penalty phase 
trial, the petitioner “must establish that counsel’s performance did not meet an 
objective standard of reasonableness under prevailing professional norms and that 
he suffered prejudice thereby.  [Citation.]  Prejudice is established when ‘ “there is 
a reasonable probability that, absent the errors [of counsel], the sentencer . . . 
would have concluded that the balance of aggravating and mitigating 
circumstances did not warrant death.”  [Citations.]  As in the guilt phase, 
reasonable probability is defined as one that undermines confidence in the 
verdict.’  [Citation.]  Alternatively, the petitioner may establish that as a result of 
counsel’s inadequacy, the prosecution case was not subject to meaningful 
adversarial testing, thereby raising a presumption that the result is unreliable.  
[Citation.]”  (In re Gay (1998) 19 Cal.4th 771, 790; see also Strickland v. 
Washington (1984) 466 U.S. 668, 688, 694 (Strickland).) 
 
In measuring counsel’s performance, the United States Supreme Court has 
cautioned that judicial scrutiny “must be highly deferential.  It is all too tempting 
for a defendant to second-guess counsel’s assistance after conviction or adverse 
sentence, and it is all too easy for a court, examining counsel’s defense after it has 
proved unsuccessful, to conclude that a particular act or omission of counsel was 
unreasonable.  [Citation.]  A fair assessment of attorney performance requires that 
every effort be made to eliminate the distorting effects of hindsight, to reconstruct 
the circumstances of counsel’s challenged conduct, and to evaluate the conduct 
from counsel’s perspective at the time.  Because of the difficulties inherent in 
making the evaluation, a court must indulge a strong presumption that counsel’s 
conduct falls within the wide range of reasonable professional assistance; that is, 
the defendant must overcome the presumption that, under the circumstances, the 
challenged action ‘might be considered sound trial strategy.’  [Citation.]  There are 
countless ways to provide effective assistance in any given case.  Even the best 
 
 
23
criminal defense attorneys would not defend a particular client in the same way.”  
(Strickland, supra, 466 U.S. at p. 689; Bell v. Cone (2002) ___ U.S. ___ [122 S.Ct. 
1843].)  The high court has also expressly reaffirmed that the Strickland standard 
applies to an assessment of counsel’s “failure to adduce mitigating evidence and 
the waiver of closing argument” with respect to capital sentencing.  (Bell v. Cone, 
at pp. __ - __ [122 S.Ct. at pp. 1851-1852].) 
 
Assessing petitioner’s claim in light of the referee’s findings and these 
governing principles, we conclude petitioner “has not established that ‘in light of 
all the circumstances, the identified acts or omissions [of counsel] were outside the 
wide range of professionally competent assistance.’  [Citation.]  He ‘has made no 
showing that the justice of his sentence was rendered unreliable by a breakdown in 
the adversary process caused by deficiencies in counsel’s assistance.’  [Citation.]”  
(Burger v. Kemp (1987) 483 U.S. 776, 795-796, quoting Strickland, supra, 466 
U.S. at pp. 690, 700.) 
 
In Strickland, the Supreme Court specifically addressed counsel’s duty to 
investigate and made clear courts should not equate effective assistance with 
exhaustive investigation of potential mitigating evidence:  “[S]trategic choices 
made after less than complete investigation are reasonable precisely to the extent 
that reasonable professional judgments support the limitations on investigation.  In 
other words, counsel has a duty to make reasonable investigations or to make a 
reasonable decision that makes particular investigations unnecessary.  In any 
ineffectiveness case, a particular decision not to investigate must be directly 
assessed for reasonableness in all the circumstances, applying a heavy measure of 
deference to counsel’s judgments.”  (Strickland, supra, 466 U.S. at pp. 690-691.)  
Concomitantly, the high court has recognized that valid strategic choices are 
possible even without extensive investigative efforts.  (See Burger v. Kemp, supra, 
 
 
24
483 U.S. at p. 794; see also Wiggins v. Corcoran (4th Cir. 2002) 288 F.3d 629, 
640.) 
 
Although the referee found that counsel could have discovered the 
mitigating evidence presented at the reference hearing with “simple persistence,” 
it is equally clear petitioner insisted they not involve his family.  “As we have 
repeatedly explained, an attorney representing a defendant at the penalty phase of 
a capital case is not required to present potentially mitigating evidence over the 
defendant’s objections.  [Citations.]”  (People v. Kirkpatrick (1994) 7 Cal.4th 988, 
1013.)  Nevertheless, counsel visited Alabama and observed petitioner’s childhood 
home, which they considered unimpressive as a basis for a poverty defense.8  They 
also contacted petitioner’s mother and sought information about his background.  
Assuming her revelations were consistent with her reference hearing testimony, 
they did not depict an excessively abusive or impoverished upbringing.  Counsel 
also had no significant documentation of any mental deficiencies petitioner might 
suffer. 
 
Moreover, “[t]he reasonableness of counsel’s actions may be determined or 
substantially influenced by the defendant’s own statements or actions.  Counsel’s 
actions are usually based, quite properly, on informed strategic choices made by 
the defendant and on information supplied by the defendant.  In particular, what 
investigation decisions are reasonable depends critically on such information.”  
(Strickland, supra, 466 U.S. at p. 691; Burger v. Kemp, supra, 483 U.S. at p. 795.)  
While counsel were aware petitioner had been incarcerated in the Alabama prison 
system, he did not inform them of the conditions he endured thereby alerting them 
                                             
 
8 
Contrary to the implication of the dissent (see dis. opn., post, at p. 11), the 
record contains no evidence counsel had any ulterior purpose in traveling through 
New Orleans to Mobile, which apparently had no direct airline connection from 
Los Angeles. 
 
 
25
to the need for further investigation of possible mitigation.  Additionally, whatever 
mitigating evidence may have been disclosed by pursuing the conditions of 
incarceration petitioner experienced, counsel knew such evidence would come 
primarily from the testimony of petitioner’s fellow prisoners, many of whom were 
hardened criminals with serious felony records.  Such testimony also could well 
open the door to petitioner’s own extensive criminal background. 
 
Thus, counsel’s preliminary investigation did not establish a compelling 
defense theory, whether considering the areas of family and background, prison 
conditions, and mental health singularly or collectively. 
 
“The record at the habeas corpus hearing does suggest that [counsel] could 
well have made a more thorough investigation than [they] did.  Nevertheless, in 
considering claims of ineffective assistance of counsel, ‘[w]e address not what is 
prudent or appropriate, but only what is constitutionally compelled.’  [Citation.]”  
(Burger v. Kemp, supra, 483 U.S. at p. 794.)  “The purpose [of the effective 
assistance guarantee of the Sixth Amendment] is simply to ensure that criminal 
defendants receive a fair trial.”  (Strickland, supra, 466 U.S. at p. 689.)  
Accordingly, the more important focus of our reasonableness inquiry is an 
assessment of the decision to forgo further investigation in light of the defense 
strategy counsel ultimately adopted.  (See Burger, at pp. 794-795; see also id. at 
p. 790, fn. 7.)  Instead of a lengthy presentation of a broad range of witnesses 
describing in detail various aspects of petitioner’s background—which at the time 
would have been atypical for a penalty phase defense—Lenoir chose to minimize 
petitioner’s culpability by circumscribing his background and mitigating his 
criminal responsibility, portraying him as a follower rather than violently 
antisocial.  (Cf. id. at p. 793.)  He also urged the jury to consider in mitigation the 
fact that others who had committed more heinous multiple murders had been 
 
 
26
sentenced to life without possibility of parole and that Sanders received a 
comparatively lighter sentence. 
 
In adopting this approach, counsel not only presented a reasonable case for 
sparing petitioner’s life under the circumstances (see Burger v. Kemp, supra, 483 
U.S. at p. 795; cf. Wiggins v. Corcoran, supra, 288 F.3d at pp. 641-642), but 
foreclosed the introduction of substantial aggravating evidence in rebuttal or on 
cross-examination that could have undermined the defense by depicting petitioner 
as aggressive and desensitized to violence.  (See People v. Gonzalez (1990) 51 
Cal.3d 1179, 1253; People v. Miranda (1987) 44 Cal.3d 57, 122, disapproved on 
another point in People v. Marshall (1990) 50 Cal.3d 907, 933, fn. 4; see also 
Burger v. Kemp, supra, 483 U.S. at pp. 794-795; Darden v. Wainwright (1986) 
477 U.S. 168, 186; Strickland, supra, 466 U.S. at p. 700.) 
 
This evidence included shooting at the fleeing taxi driver robbery victim 
without provocation after just committing the robbery murder with Freddie 
Square, holding a gun to a young woman’s head, threatening to shoot a police 
officer, and stabbing other inmates.  The prosecutor also could have argued this 
pattern of criminality—substantially accomplished prior to petitioner’s 
incarceration in prison—demonstrated his violence was a matter of predisposition 
rather than circumstance and would pose a danger to others if he were sentenced to 
life imprisonment.  (Cf. People v. Millwee (1998) 18 Cal.4th 96, 151-152.)  
Additionally, evidence of prison conditions could have led to the jury’s learning of 
petitioner’s second escape from custody.  Although counsel stressed that the 
California facility in which petitioner would serve his life sentence was more 
secure than the Alabama institutions of the 1960’s and 1970’s, multiple 
inflammatory references to “escape” could have created a danger defense counsel 
reasonably sought to avoid. 
 
 
27
 
In light of the foregoing, we conclude “counsel’s decision not to mount an 
all-out investigation into petitioner’s background in search of mitigating 
circumstances was supported by reasonable professional judgment.  It appears that 
[they did pursue the potential mitigation that] had been called to [their] attention 
and that there was a reasonable basis for [their] strategic decision that an 
explanation of petitioner’s history would not have minimized the risk of the death 
penalty.  Having made this judgment, [they] reasonably determined that [they] 
need not undertake further investigation to locate witnesses who would [have 
made] statements about [petitioner’s] past.”  (Burger v. Kemp, supra, 483 U.S. at 
pp. 794-795; see also Bell v. Cone, supra, __ U.S. at p. __ [122 S.Ct. at p. 1853].)  
As one federal appellate court has explained, “a tactical decision not to pursue and 
present potential mitigating evidence on the grounds that it is double-edged in 
nature is objectively reasonable, and therefore does not amount to deficient 
performance.”  (Rector v. Johnson (5th Cir. 1997) 120 F.3d 551, 564.) 
 
Furthermore, the evidence petitioner now argues should have been 
presented was not conclusively and unambiguously mitigating.9  “ ‘ “[M]itigation 
. . . ,” after all, “[m]ay be in the eye of the beholder.”  [Citation.]’  [Citation.]”  
(Burger v. Kemp, supra, 483 U.S. at p. 794.)  Thus, although petitioner’s mother 
went to Detroit to improve her circumstances when he was two years old, she did 
not abandon him, but left him with an extended family including his “loving and 
responsible” grandfather, regularly sent money and clothing to her children, and 
returned several years later to remain in the family home.  Despite the death of his 
grandfather when petitioner was 10, the testimony describing his upbringing and 
early family life generally showed it to be relatively stable and without serious 
                                             
 
9 
As explained, ante, at page 19, even without rebuttal witnesses, the 
prosecutor could have elicited facts on cross-examination to deflate the mitigating 
impact of this evidence. 
 
 
28
privation or abuse.  All but one of his siblings completed high school, and only 
one had a minor brush with the law.  (See People v. Gonzalez, supra, 51 Cal.3d at 
p. 1253.)  His mother and other relatives also counseled against associating with 
bad influences such as Freddie Square.  Thus, petitioner did not suffer a home 
environment that would place his crimes in any understandable context or explain 
his resorting to crime every time he was released or escaped from prison. 
 
The prosecutor could have exploited the testimony of the mental health 
experts to petitioner’s disadvantage as well.  As the reference hearing testimony 
demonstrated, the evidence of mental difficulties was subject to dispute and would 
likely have reduced to a proverbial “battle of the experts.”  Although the referee 
found one of petitioner’s experts, Dr. John Irwin, “one of the most compelling 
witnesses presented by the defense and his presentation and demeanor . . . 
impressive,” his testimony was limited to the impact of the prison system and the 
ability of inmates to succeed outside the system.  In part, he explained that 
convicts tend to react with rage to perceived insults, behavior they find difficult to 
shed even when discharged.  Many of the inmate witnesses at the reference 
hearing confirmed this experience.  While this might explain why petitioner 
reacted violently when Wheeler called him a “faggot” and a “punk,” it does not 
necessarily create a sympathetic impression.  The jury could just as readily infer 
petitioner was unable to control lethal impulses on the slightest provocation.  In 
addition, the prosecution’s expert, Dr. McNiel, challenged the diagnosis of 
petitioner as suffering from various mental disorders and concluded he simply 
“showed longstanding antisocial personality traits.”  He rejected the description of 
petitioner as “dull normal” and testified his 93 I.Q. was “low average.”  Dr. Jones 
agreed petitioner did not exhibit any evidence of brain damage, citing the fact he 
had successfully obtained and worked at a job, maintained a residence, and 
established a relationship.  As the reference hearing demonstrated, a mental health 
 
 
29
penalty defense would also have given the prosecution several opportunities to 
repeat the circumstances of the crime as well as petitioner’s past criminality in 
questioning the experts on both direct and cross-examination as to whether 
petitioner exhibited an antisocial personality rather than some form of mental 
impairment.  (See Darden v. Wainwright, supra, 477 U.S. at p. 186.) 
 
With respect to prison conditions, while the evidence leaves no doubt 
petitioner endured horrifically demeaning and degrading circumstances, this 
evidence could equally have proved a double-edged sword, as the referee found.  
Presenting testimony about petitioner’s abusive prison experiences would have 
required counsel to call a series of witnesses, including one death row inmate, with 
serious felony records for murder, rape, and armed robbery, potentially drawing an 
unfavorable comparison with petitioner.  At the very least, their criminal histories 
would automatically subject them to impeachment.  (Evid. Code, § 788.)  Many 
had themselves engaged in brutality while in prison and escaped with some 
frequency—again, in negative respects similar to petitioner.  Rather than 
engendering sympathy, the evidence could well have reinforced an impression of 
him as a person who had become desensitized and inured to violence and 
disrespect for the law.  (Cf. Darden v. Wainwright, supra, 477 U.S. at p. 186.)  It 
also would raise the question of why petitioner so readily resorted to crime when 
he escaped the brutal and predatory conditions in Alabama and relocated to 
California, where he found work and started a family.  In the same vein, 
petitioner’s abandonment of his own son to pursue a cocaine habit and his former 
criminal ways would belie the suggestion he merited sympathy due to his parents’ 
drinking and abandonment and his grandfather’s death. 
 
When “evaluat[ing] the conduct from counsel’s perspective at the time” 
(Strickland, supra, 466 U.S. at p. 689), we must also consider the nature of the 
aggravating evidence, particularly the circumstances of the crime.  Here, the facts 
 
 
30
of petitioner’s crimes evinced a callous disregard for human life.  None of the 
three murders was an impulsive reaction to a situation unexpectedly out of control.  
(Cf. People v. Dillon (1983) 34 Cal.3d 441, 482-483.)  Rather, petitioner 
essentially lured the victims with a false sense of normalcy before brutally ending 
their lives.  Nor was his motive simply robbery; he also raped and sodomized 
Brandon before killing her and murdered both Wheeler and Chism with 
considerable violence and evident sangfroid.  Any penalty phase strategy must 
take into account the jury’s likely state of mind having only recently heard an 
account of the defendant’s capital crimes and returned a guilty verdict.  
(Cf. People v. Cox (1991) 53 Cal.3d 618, 661 [no ineffective assistance of counsel 
in failing to present guilt phase defense when counsel could anticipate guilty 
verdict and might need to preserve credibility of penalty phase theory that 
codefendant orchestrated killings].) 
 
On these facts, we conclude counsel’s strategic decision to limit the scope 
of their investigation of mitigating background evidence and not to present such 
evidence at the penalty phase came within “the wide range of reasonable 
professional assistance.”  (Strickland, supra, 466 U.S. at p. 689; see People 
v. Miranda, supra, 44 Cal.3d at pp. 120-123.)  Furthermore, as in People 
v. Miranda, supra, 44 Cal.3d at page 122, petitioner “fails . . . to point to any 
evidence unknown to counsel which would have been discovered from such 
investigation and which would have influenced counsel’s decision.”  All the 
purportedly mitigating evidence proffered on habeas corpus “would [have the] 
same . . . damaging result” counsel would have sought to avoid by adopting a 
different penalty phase strategy.  (Ibid.)  For example, testimony that petitioner’s 
prison experience may have prompted him to rape and sodomize Brandon in 
retaliation for Wheeler’s referring to him as a “faggot” might have given his acts 
an understandable context, but not a particularly sympathetic one because it could 
 
 
31
also confirm petitioner as an antisocial personality.  (See, e.g., Burger v. Kemp, 
supra, 483 U.S. at p. 793; Wiggins v. Corcoran, supra, 288 F.3d at p. 642.)  A 
reasonable defense strategy would have kept this perception from the jury.  For the 
same reasons, it is not “reasonabl[y] proba[ble]” (Strickland, at p. 694) petitioner 
was prejudiced by counsel’s rejection of a defense premised on evidence of 
petitioner’s upbringing, the Alabama prison conditions he experienced, and his 
mental health in light of the circumstances of the crimes, given the ambiguous 
nature of some mitigating evidence and the substantial potential for damaging 
rebuttal. 
 
This conclusion is consistent with our assessment of comparable facts in 
other decisions.  For example, in People v. Gonzalez, supra, 51 Cal.3d at page 
1251, counsel declined to present evidence of the defendant’s family life, which 
was loving, stable, and nonabusive and thus not particularly mitigating.  In doing 
so, counsel kept the jury from hearing evidence suggesting the defendant’s 
possible involvement in a rape and a shooting.  (Id. at pp. 1248-1253.)  We found 
that “[u]nder all the circumstances, . . . counsel’s decision to avoid damaging 
‘rape’ evidence by omitting available character and background evidence was 
within the range of reasonable competence.”  (Id. at p. 1253.) 
 
In In re Jackson (1992) 3 Cal.4th 578, disapproved on another point in In re 
Sassounian (1995) 9 Cal.4th 535, 545, footnote 6, the defendant’s childhood was 
quite appalling and included physical abuse and frequent uprooting (id. at 
pp. 606-609), unlike petitioner’s relatively stable home environment.  
Nevertheless, we deemed it reasonable that counsel, had he investigated, would 
nevertheless have withheld this evidence to prevent the jury from learning of the 
defendant’s assault on two women a year before the murders.  (Id. at pp. 613-615.) 
 
Perhaps the most apposite precedent is In re Ross (1995) 10 Cal.4th 184, in 
which the jury convicted the defendant of three murders as well as other 
 
 
32
associated crimes.  As here, the defense called no penalty phase witnesses but 
presented certain evidence through stipulation, including the fact that an 
accomplice, who personally used a firearm during the crimes, did not receive a 
death sentence and that the defendant was 21 years old when he committed the 
murders.  (Id. at p. 189.)  We rejected the argument counsel was ineffective for 
failing to present mitigating evidence regarding Ross’s upbringing.  The evidence 
was not only subject to impeachment—potentially leaving Ross worse off (id. at 
p. 206)—it would also have triggered damaging rebuttal, including evidence of 
sustained juvenile petitions for four counts of robbery and one count of 
brandishing a weapon, and other sustained petitions involving burglaries of guns.  
(Id. at pp. 206-207; cf. People v. Mayfield, supra, 5 Cal.4th at pp. 207-208 
[finding no prejudice because additional defense witnesses could have “done 
severe damage to the penalty defense” on cross-examination].)  In addition, we 
noted the circumstances of the murders, which were “not sudden explosions of 
angry violence or psychopathic serial killings” but calculated killings during a 
robbery and burglary.  (In re Ross, at p. 213.)  Moreover, “there was no 
compelling connection between [the mitigating evidence not introduced at the 
penalty phase] and the crimes . . . .”  (Ibid.)  On a substantially similar record, we 
reach the same conclusion that petitioner did not receive ineffective assistance of 
counsel. 
 
This determination also comports with the decision in Burger v. Kemp, 
supra, 483 U.S. 776, in which the United States Supreme Court found no 
deficiency in counsel’s performance at the penalty trial.  In that case, counsel 
declined to present evidence of the defendant’s “ ‘neglectful, sometimes even 
violent, family background’ and testimony that his ‘mental and emotional 
development were at a level several years below his chronological age’ . . . .”  (Id. 
at p. 789, fn. 7.)  Such evidence would have risked “introducing facts [such as his 
 
 
33
difficulties with the law as a juvenile] not disclosed by [petitioner’s] clean adult 
criminal record.”  (Id. at p. 793.)  For similar reasons, counsel declined to call the 
defendant as a witness.  The defendant had never expressed remorse and 
apparently enjoyed talking about the crimes, which might have caused the jury to 
view his attitude as indifference or worse.  (Id. at pp. 791-792.)  Evidence of the 
defendant’s mental deficiencies could also have been deleterious because it would 
have demonstrated his “ ‘unpredictable propensity for violence which played a 
prominent role in the death of [the] victim.’ ”  (Id. at p. 794.)  On this record, the 
high court found the mitigating evidence “by no means uniformly helpful to [the 
defendant] because [it] suggest[ed] violent tendencies that are at odds with the 
defense’s strategy of portraying [the defendant’s] actions on the night of the 
murder as the result of [his accomplice’s] strong influence upon his will.”  (Id. at 
p. 793.) 
 
The facts of this case offer even more compelling justification to forgo 
presenting background evidence in favor of a strategy to mitigate petitioner’s 
culpability by minimizing the jury’s exposure to his criminal history.  The 
defendant in Burger endured a worse childhood and committed only one murder.  
He was still a teenager at the time of the crime; and his codefendant was primarily 
responsible for the plan to kidnap the victim, the sexual abuse inflicted, and the 
decision to kill.  (Burger v. Kemp, supra, 483 U.S. at p. 779.)  Rather than attribute 
his culpability to family or mental health problems, counsel sought instead to 
minimize it in light of the codefendant’s dominance.  The United States Supreme 
Court found this decision reasonable under the circumstances.  Whether or not 
counsel could have undertaken a more thorough investigation, “ ‘[w]e address not 
what is prudent or appropriate, but only what is constitutionally compelled.’  
[Citation.]”  (Id. at p. 794.)  Applying similar reasoning, we reach the same 
conclusion on comparable facts.  (See Campbell v. Kincheloe (9th Cir. 1987) 829 
 
 
34
F.2d 1453, 1462-1463 [upholding counsel’s omission of evidence of defendant’s 
abuse as a child, childhood medical problems, history of drug and alcohol abuse, 
attempted suicide, and father’s alcoholism, which foreclosed substantial 
aggravating evidence in rebuttal].) 
 
Reaffirming this standard, the Supreme Court also declined to find 
ineffective assistance of counsel in Bell v. Cone, supra, __ U.S. __ [122 S.Ct. 
1843], where counsel presented no penalty phase evidence and waived closing 
argument.  Viewing the record in its entirety and the totality of the circumstances 
from the perspective of counsel at the time of trial, the court found both decisions 
within the range of reasonable strategy.  For example, with respect to the failure to 
call background witnesses, counsel “feared that testimony about [the defendant’s] 
normal youth might, in the jury’s eyes, cut the other way.”  (Id. at p. 1853; see 
Darden v. Wainwright, supra, 477 U.S. at pp. 185-186.)  The court also noted that 
by waiving closing argument, counsel foreclosed the lead prosecutor, “who all 
agreed was very persuasive,” from additional argument “depict[ing] his client as a 
heartless killer just before the jurors began deliberation.”  (Bell v. Cone, at p. __ 
[122 S.Ct. 1854].)  In finding no deficiency in this representation, the court 
reiterated its cautionary admonition in Strickland “that a court must indulge a 
‘strong presumption’ that counsel’s conduct falls within the wide range of 
reasonable professional assistance because it is all too easy to conclude that a 
particular act or omission of counsel was unreasonable in the harsh light of 
hindsight.  [Citation.]”  (Bell v. Cone, at p. __ [122 S.Ct. at p. 1854].) 
 
Here, Miller viewed petitioner’s childhood surroundings as unimpressive 
because he found them comparable to his own.  Counsel also had concern that 
having inmates describe the Alabama prison conditions would simply “trade ‘good 
acts’ for ‘bad acts’ ” and potentially open the door to additional evidence of 
petitioner’s criminal past.  Under these circumstances, counsel could reasonably 
 
 
35
reject a background mitigation strategy in favor of an alternate basis to plead for 
petitioner’s life.  (See Darden v. Wainwright, supra, 477 U.S. at p. 186; 
cf. Williams v. Taylor (2000) 529 U.S. 362, 396.)  Similar reasoning applies to 
Lenoir’s relatively brief closing argument—consistent in both tone and length with 
the limited penalty phase presentation of both the prosecution and the defense—
which may have prompted the prosecutor to forgo his final statement, thereby 
leaving the defense with the last words to the jury.  (Cf. Bell v. Cone, supra, __ 
U.S. at pp. __ - __ [122 S.Ct. at pp. 1854-1855] [declining to find counsel’s 
decision to waive closing argument unreasonable under the circumstances].)  
Moreover, we have never equated length with effectiveness.  (See People 
v. Mayfield, supra, 5 Cal.4th at p. 186.)  In sum, strategic forbearance is not 
“inaction.”  (Dis. opn., post, at p. 12.) 
 
We find petitioner’s reliance on In re Marquez (1992) 1 Cal.4th 584 
inapposite.  (See In re Ross, supra, 10 Cal.4th at pp. 214-215.)  The facts of 
Marquez—both at trial and on habeas corpus—stand in sharp contrast to this case.  
The mitigating evidence of the defendant’s childhood had no disadvantage or risk 
of impeachment or contradiction.  Instead of showing he had endured experiences 
that may have desensitized him to violence, the background evidence 
demonstrated his “generosity, his consideration of others, and his capacity for hard 
work.”  (In re Marquez, at p. 602.)  The circumstances of the crime were not as 
aggravated as here; nor were prior convictions or uncharged acts of criminal 
violence at issue.  Counsel could therefore credibly argue that the defendant’s 
offenses were atypical rather than evidence of an antisocial personality.  When 
offered the opportunity to argue mitigation, however, counsel simply stated “he 
had ‘nothing more’ to add.”  (Id. at p. 607.) 
 
Nor does In re Gay, supra, 19 Cal.4th 771, support petitioner’s argument.  
In that case, defense counsel—apart from his other shortcomings—persuaded the 
 
 
36
defendant to confess to a series of robberies, which not only became penalty phase 
factors in aggravation but bolstered the prosecution’s theory the defendant killed 
the police officer victim to avoid arrest and imprisonment.  (Id. at p. 827.)  In 
addition, counsel “fraudulently and unethically maneuvered his own appointment 
to defend petitioner, [thereby causing petitioner to lose] any possibility of a fully 
developed penalty phase defense.  [Citation.]  He was saddled with an attorney 
who abandoned hope before any attempt to craft a penalty defense was 
undertaken.”  (Id. at p. 828.)  Counsel apparently had a capping relationship with 
both his assistant, who initially arranged his representation of the defendant, and 
with the mental health expert he retained, “who accepted only with the 
understanding that the case would not be complicated and would not place 
demands on his time.”  (Ibid.)  Counsel also “labored under a second and 
undisclosed potential conflict of interest—he was being investigated for 
misappropriation of client funds by the office of the same district attorney who 
was his adversary in the prosecution of petitioner.”  (Ibid.)  Cumulating these 
deficiencies with the failure to investigate and present any reasonable penalty 
phase defense and the absence of any trial strategy explaining the failure, the court 
concluded there was “a reasonable probability that absent counsel’s numerous 
failings and the conflicts of interest with which he was burdened, a different 
penalty verdict would have been reached.”  (Id. at p. 830, fn. omitted.)  The 
current facts are in no respect comparable. 
 
Williams v. Taylor, supra, 529 U.S. 362, also does not assist petitioner.  
There, the United States Supreme Court found counsel provided ineffective 
representation during the sentencing trial by failing to investigate and present 
evidence of the defendant’s “nightmarish childhood,” model behavior while 
imprisoned, and borderline mental retardation.  (Id. at pp. 395-396.)  Although 
 
 
37
petitioner urges a similar result should follow here, the facts of Williams are 
plainly distinguishable. 
 
To begin, counsel’s investigation in Williams was not limited either by 
inconclusive results or affirmative curtailment by the defendant; it was essentially 
nonexistent due to an incorrect understanding of the law.  (Williams v. Taylor, 
supra, 529 U.S. at pp. 395-396.)  Reasonable investigation would have uncovered 
an extremely harsh family life, qualitatively worse than petitioner’s.  (Id. at p. 395, 
fn. 19.)  Williams’s father beat him severely, and both parents were imprisoned for 
felony child abuse.  (Id. at p. 395.) 
 
Counsel had no tactical reason for withholding evidence regarding 
Williams’s life in prison.  Unlike petitioner’s experiences, which might lead a jury 
to conclude his violence had become an established character trait, Williams 
received commendations “for helping to crack a prison drug ring and for returning 
a guard’s missing wallet.”  (Williams v. Taylor, supra, 529 U.S. at p. 396.)  Prison 
officials described Williams “as among the inmates ‘least likely to act in a violent, 
dangerous or provocative way.’ ”  (Ibid.)  The evidence of Williams’s mental 
disability, unlike petitioner’s, was substantially quantified; he was considered 
“borderline mentally retarded” and did not advance beyond sixth grade.  (Id. at 
p. 396.) 
 
Perhaps most important, the risk of damaging rebuttal was significantly 
less.  Nor does it appear counsel proffered an alternate strategy for this reason.  
Although some potentially aggravating evidence about Williams’s background 
existed, it involved minor juvenile misconduct.  Thus, the possible harm was 
minimal.  (Williams v. Taylor, supra, 529 U.S. at p. 396.)  Aiding and abetting 
larceny and pulling a false fire alarm pale in comparison to petitioner’s shooting at 
a fleeing robbery victim, placing a gun to a hostage’s head, threatening to kill a 
 
 
38
police officer, and prison stabbings.  The jury may well retain sympathy despite 
learning of the former; it may well not in the case of the latter. 
 
Not only was counsel’s representation in Williams obviously deficient, the 
prejudicial impact was greater.  In contrast to petitioner’s brutal triple murder, 
“Williams turned himself in, alert[ed] police to a crime they otherwise would 
never have discovered, express[ed] remorse for his actions, and cooperat[ed] with 
the police after that.”  (Williams v. Taylor, supra, 529 U.S. at p. 398.)  In light of 
the substantial mitigating evidence and minimal disadvantage in presenting it, the 
high court found “ ‘a reasonable probability that the result of the sentencing 
proceeding would have been different’ if competent counsel had presented and 
explained the significance of all the available evidence.”  (Id. at p. 399.)  For the 
reasons previously discussed, we do not reach a similar conclusion on 
substantially dissimilar facts. 
 
We also find recent Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals decisions 
distinguishable even if we assume they are correct. 
 
In Silva v. Woodford (9th Cir. 2002) 279 F.3d 825, the court found 
ineffective assistance at the penalty phase due to counsel’s failure to engage in any 
significant investigation of mitigating evidence regarding Silva’s family 
background, mental health history, drug usage, and incarceration record.  Counsel 
apparently limited the investigation based on Silva’s request not to contact his 
relatives (id. at p. 839), but the court determined the decision was nevertheless not 
reasonable.  (Cf. Strickland, supra, 466 U.S. at p. 691.)  The court found Silva had 
requested only that counsel not call his parents as witnesses; he did not object to 
counsel’s contacting them for informational purposes or calling other relatives as 
witnesses.  (Silva v. Woodford, at pp. 839-840.)  At the same time, counsel’s “trial 
‘strategy’ was based entirely on an overbroad acquiescence in his client’s demand 
that he refrain from calling his parents as witnesses.”  (Id. at p. 846.)  The 
 
 
39
evidence also did not show that the abandonment of the investigation was based 
on the defendant’s informed and knowing judgment.  (Id. at pp. 840-841.)  Finally, 
the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals found counsel’s deficient investigation was 
likely prejudicial in part because the jury specifically asked the court about the 
actual effect of a sentence of life imprisonment without parole and appeared to be 
seriously considering that sentence.  (Id. at pp. 849-850.) 
 
By contrast in this case, counsel here did perform some background 
investigation, including an interview with petitioner’s mother despite his 
objection, after which they pursued a different penalty defense—one that would 
have been compromised by background mitigation evidence.  The referee 
expressly found not only that petitioner “personally adamantly objected to his 
attorneys approaching his mother and family and having them testify” but also that 
his on-the-record statements reflected he understood the consequences of his 
decision.  With respect to the question of prejudice, in addition to the reasons 
previously discussed, the record here contains no indication the jury was inclined 
to sentence petitioner to life imprisonment and might have been persuaded by 
additional or alternate mitigation evidence. 
 
In Turner v. Calderon (9th Cir. 2002) 281 F.3d 851, counsel failed to 
present evidence of the defendant’s long-term drug use and its effects on various 
aspects of his behavior.  (See id. at pp. 892-894.)  Nevertheless, the district court 
denied the defendant an evidentiary hearing, which left the reviewing court with 
no record as to the nature and extent of any investigation or penalty strategy.  (Id. 
at p. 895.)  Because counsel may have been incompetent in not presenting the drug 
use evidence in conjunction with information about the defendant’s abusive 
childhood, and the omission could have been prejudicial, the court found he was 
entitled to an evidentiary hearing.  (Ibid.)  Here, the record is clear counsel made a 
sufficient investigation to adopt an alternate strategy—one inconsistent with the 
 
 
40
theory now proposed by petitioner—and that further investigation would not 
reasonably have influenced that decision.  (See, e.g., Wiggins v. Corcoran, supra, 
288 F.3d at p. 642.)  As this court concluded in People v. Miranda, supra, 44 
Cal.3d at pages 122-123, “the information an investigation would have disclosed 
would only have confirmed counsel’s tactical decision not to open the ‘Pandora’s 
Box’ of [petitioner’s] violent background.  This decision, as we have determined, 
was within the range of reasonably competent assistance.  (Cf. Burger v. Kemp[, 
supra,] 483 U.S. [776]; Strickland v. Washington, supra, 466 U.S. at 
pp. 699-700.)”  (Fn. omitted.) 
V.  OTHER CLAIMS 
 
Because our order to show cause, and our subsequent reference order, were 
confined to specific claims of ineffective assistance of counsel, we do not address 
herein either the merits of any other claims set forth in the petition, or any 
procedural bars that might apply to such claims.  The petition for writ of habeas 
corpus itself will be resolved, as is our normal procedure, by a separate order. 
VI.  CONCLUSION 
 
The petition for writ of habeas corpus is denied and the order to show cause 
is discharged. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
BROWN, J. 
WE CONCUR: 
 
BAXTER, J. 
WERDEGAR, J. 
CHIN, J. 
MORRISON, J.* 
 
 
* 
Associate Justice of the Court of Appeal, Third Appellate District, assigned 
by the Chief Justice pursuant to article VI, section 6 of the California Constitution. 
 
 
 
1 
 
  
 
 
 
 
 
DISSENTING OPINION BY KENNARD, ACTING C.J. 
 
 
I disagree with the majority that petitioner’s attorneys competently 
represented him at the penalty phase of petitioner’s capital trial. 
Petitioner’s attorneys did not call a single witness at the penalty phase.  
Why?  The answer:  They had done virtually no penalty phase investigation, so 
they had no witnesses to present.  The two defense investigators had worked only 
on the guilt phase of trial; and counsel had consulted no psychiatrists, 
psychologists, neurologists, or other experts who might have been able to offer 
some insight as to why petitioner committed the three murders in this case.  The 
one potential witness interviewed by defense counsel was petitioner’s mother, but 
counsel knew beforehand that petitioner did not want her to testify. 
An investigation into petitioner’s background would have revealed 
substantial mitigating evidence.  For instance, in 1964, after a joyriding conviction 
at the age of 14, petitioner was sent to the Alabama Industrial School for Negro 
Children, which a federal judge testifying at the reference hearing described as a 
“penal colony for children.”  An investigation would also have revealed that 
beginning in 1966 when petitioner was 16, he spent almost 10 years in the 
Alabama penal system.  In the 1970’s, a federal court found prison conditions in 
Alabama to violate the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition against cruel and unusual 
punishment.   
 
2 
This mitigating evidence could and should have been presented by defense 
counsel, and their failure to do so may well have altered the outcome at the penalty 
phase of petitioner’s trial.  Thus, unlike the majority, I would grant the petition for 
habeas corpus relief and vacate petitioner’s sentence of death. 
I 
The majority’s clinically cold and cursory recitation of the evidence 
petitioner presented at the reference hearing does not adequately portray the 
mitigating nature of that evidence, which I therefore discuss in detail below. 
Petitioner was born in 1950 to alcoholic parents who separated soon after 
his birth.  Petitioner and his two siblings were left in the care of their grandparents 
and their aunt, who lived in a poor, segregated area in Mobile, Alabama. 
When petitioner was about 10 years old, his mother, who had moved to 
Detroit, returned to Alabama with two children by another marriage and started 
living with petitioner and his grandparents.  Less than a year later, petitioner’s 
grandfather, described by the referee in this case as a “pivotal figure” in 
petitioner’s life, died.  Petitioner grieved for his grandfather.  He felt rejected by 
his mother and was jealous of her new children.  He became withdrawn and began 
skipping school.  Based on his involvement in a car theft at the age of 14, a 
juvenile court committed him to the Alabama Industrial School for Negro 
Children, a reform school known as Mount Meigs.   
Federal District Court Judge Ira Dement, who in the late 1960’s (before he 
became a judge) had participated in litigation pertaining to the appalling 
conditions at Alabama’s Mount Meigs reform school, testified at the reference 
hearing that the institution was a “penal colony for children.”   
Denny Abbott was a juvenile probation officer in the early 1960’s when 
petitioner was at Mount Meigs, and he would visit Mount Meigs once or twice a 
month.  Later he became Regional Director for the Bureau of Detention with the 
 
3 
Florida Department of Youth Services, where he supervised six juvenile facilities.  
At the reference hearing, Abbott described Mount Meigs as “by far, by far . . . the 
worst facility I have ever seen,” a “slave camp for children” run by “illiterate 
overseers.”  The children were beaten “all the time” with, among other things, 
broom sticks, mop handles, and fan belts.  There were no vocational programs, no 
counseling, and virtually no education.  Instead, the children were put to work in 
the fields, picking cotton and tending vegetables.  There was little supervision of 
the children at night, and there was “a lot of sexual abuse of children.”   
Thirteen of the witnesses who testified at the reference hearing were former 
inmates at Mount Meigs; seven of them were there at the same time as petitioner.  
They uniformly corroborated Probation Officer Abbott’s testimony about the 
horrific conditions at Mount Meigs.  They mentioned getting beaten with sticks 
(sometimes lead-filled), bullwhips, and fan belts, often for trivial matters such as 
failing to pick their quota of cotton, hitting the wrong note in the band or chorus, 
talking too loudly, or starting to eat before everyone had sat down at the table.  
There were open sewage ditches next to the facility, and the children were 
periodically required to wade into the ditches to cut sprouting grass.  When a boy 
failed to pick his quota of cotton or was disobedient in the fields, the overseer 
would poke a hole in the ground and order him to lie down, to pull down his pants, 
and to stick his penis into the hole.  The overseer would then beat the boy’s thighs 
with a stick, often until the skin burst open.  One witness remembered seeing 
petitioner beaten in this manner. 
Chastain Raines, who was at Mount Meigs at the same time as petitioner, 
testified that after the nurse at Mount Meigs quit, he, at age 15, became the head 
nurse, giving injections, bandaging wounds, and stitching cuts.   
The witnesses who knew petitioner at Mount Meigs described him as 
passive and avoiding violence whenever possible; they mentioned that he was 
 
4 
subjected to substantial sexual pressure because of his youth, his slight build, and 
his good looks.  Oliver Grigsby explained what was meant by “sexual pressure”:  
“Jesse was . . . an attractive kid.  And by having a lighter complexion and the way 
that he walked and the way that he carried his self, he was good for harems . . . .  
So, the dogs from another geographical region [petitioner was from Mobile, and 
Mount Meigs was dominated by boys from Birmingham] . . . says, well, we’ll 
antagonize him any means we can.”   
After petitioner’s release from Mount Meigs at the age of 16, he became 
withdrawn and uncommunicative.  He began to associate with older, streetwise 
boys, including one Freddie Square.  In September 1966, three months after 
petitioner’s release from Mount Meigs, Square and petitioner robbed a grocery 
store clerk, whom Square then shot and killed.  While fleeing from the scene, they 
robbed a taxi driver.  Freddie Reed, who was a friend of petitioner’s and was 
present when the grocery store robbery was planned, testified that the robbery was 
Square’s idea; Reed saw petitioner cry right after the robbery.   
Based on these incidents, petitioner was convicted of murder and robbery, 
and he spent nearly a decade in the Alabama penal system.  The referee in this 
case described the prison conditions as “abysmal,” based on, among other things, 
“severe overcrowding, racial segregation, substandard facilities, no separation of 
the tougher inmates from younger or smaller inmates, constant violence, the 
persistent threat of sexual assaults . . . the availability and necessity of weapons by 
all inmates, and degrading conditions in disciplinary modules.”  In prison, 
petitioner suffered beatings and sexual assaults.   
Reference witness Dr. Carl Clements had worked for two and a half years 
in the Alabama prison system before obtaining a doctorate in psychology and 
joining the faculty at the University of Alabama.  As a consultant with the 
American Civil Liberties Union’s National Prisons Project, he visited Alabama 
 
5 
prisons during the period of petitioner’s incarceration, and he testified as an expert 
witness in litigation in the 1970’s raising constitutional challenges to the 
conditions in those prisons.  He later assisted the United States Department of 
Justice in prison litigation.  Of the 10 to 15 prison systems he evaluated, all were 
found to have unconstitutional conditions; with the possible exception of prisons 
in Puerto Rico, the prisons in Alabama were the worst.  When petitioner entered 
the prison system, it was newly integrated and many of the White prison guards 
resented the Black prisoners, whom they called “things” and “niggers.”  The 
prevailing view among both staff and inmates was that an inmate who was raped 
“deserved” it because he was “not man enough to fight.”   
Dr. Clements mentioned that inmates with disciplinary problems were put 
in cells called “doghouses.”  At Atmore Prison, where petitioner served part of his 
sentence, the doghouses were five feet wide by nine feet long.  Dr. James Thomas, 
a physician at Atmore, recalled seeing as many as 30 inmates in a doghouse cell, 
packed so tightly together that they had to sleep standing up.  He described 
conditions at the overcrowded and rat-infested prisons as “so debilitating” that 
they deprived inmates of “any opportunity to rehabilitate themselves or even to 
maintain the skills already possessed.”  Sexual assaults on younger inmates were 
common, and Dr. Thomas would treat two to three cases of badly torn rectums a 
week.   
Theodore Gordon, who had worked with Dr. Clements in a class action suit 
on behalf of inmates of the Alabama State Prison system, and Father Thomas 
Weise, a Roman Catholic priest who visited Atmore and the adjacent Holman 
Prison while petitioner was an inmate there, testified that the prisons were severely 
overcrowded and that most of the inmates carried weapons. 
Witness Dr. Craig Haney, a psychology professor at the University of 
California at Santa Cruz and an expert in evaluating prison systems, reviewed 
 
6 
reports by corrections experts describing conditions in the Alabama prison system 
while petitioner was incarcerated there.  Dr. Haney testified he had “not 
encountered anything that approximates what was described as existing in 
Alabama,” that the Alabama prison system was a “national disgrace,” and that it 
was either “the worst” or “among a handful of the worst” prison systems in the 
United States.   
Twenty witnesses who had been in the Alabama prisons with petitioner 
described the prisons as terribly overcrowded, unsupervised, and incredibly 
violent, with prisoners carrying knives in full view of the guards.  Whenever 
inmates at Atmore Prison, where petitioner spent time, would complain about 
sexual assaults, the warden’s response was to “get you a knife” or “be a wife,” 
meaning that an inmate should either “fight for [his] manhood or submit.”  Knife 
fights and killings were common (one inmate described six unrelated prison 
murders that he and petitioner had witnessed), and prisoners learned to live in a 
constant state of tension akin to that encountered by soldiers in combat.   
The inmate witnesses described petitioner as passive and not a 
troublemaker.  Petitioner was subject to constant sexual pressure because of his 
youth, his slight build, his good looks, and his desire to get along with others.  As 
inmate Richard English put it, petitioner was “just like a little sheep among 
wolves, a baby among a bunch of grownups,” who was subject to sexual pressure 
because he was “young, good looking,” and “tender.”  And in the words of 
Dr. James Thomas, a physician at Atmore and Holman Prisons where petitioner 
was housed, “[a] single young fledgling like [petitioner] would be raped many 
times if he didn’t have some sponsor.” 
Petitioner also presented evidence that he was repeatedly raped in prison. 
Inmate James White testified that in the late 1960’s he was in the Mobile 
County Jail in Alabama.  In the cell next to his were petitioner and an inmate 
 
7 
named Eugene Minifield.  White heard the sounds of someone being thrown 
against the wall, and he heard Minifield threaten to kill petitioner unless petitioner 
had sex with him.  White then heard moans and grunts characteristic of sexual 
activity, after which he heard Minifield ordering petitioner to “eat my ass.”  A 
short time later, White heard petitioner crying. 
Inmate Willie Spencer testified that while in Holman prison between 1970 
and 1972, he saw several inmates, two of whom (“Blako” White and Sam 
Crayton) had a reputation for raping prisoners, carry petitioner, who was 
struggling, into a cell.  When Spencer drew back a sheet the inmates had draped 
over the cell door to conceal their activities, he saw that petitioner, while still 
struggling, had been thrown on a bunk bed with his pants pulled off.  Another 
prisoner, Bobby Lee Dubose also testified that he saw petitioner being dragged 
into the cell; although he did not look inside, he could hear petitioner struggling 
and asking the other prisoners to stop.   
Yet another Holman prisoner, Eugene Simpson, testified that sometime 
between 1970 and 1972 he heard that a group of inmates planned to rape petitioner 
in the prison’s dental laboratory.  He went to the laboratory, where he found 
petitioner, crying, fearful, and stripped to his shorts, surrounded by inmates with 
knives.  Simpson persuaded them to let petitioner go. 
And Holman prisoner Roosevelt Youngblood testified that in 1970 he saw 
“Flame” Seagers, who had a reputation for sexually assaulting young inmates, 
drag petitioner into a cell.  A blanket was draped over the door, a method 
customarily used in the prison to conceal forcible sexual acts.  Youngblood heard 
sounds of someone being pushed against a wall or a bed.   
Based on the inmate witnesses’ testimony about petitioner’s conduct in 
prison, the referee here made this finding:  “Although there were a number of 
inconsistencies concerning exactly what petitioner personally experienced, it was 
 
8 
undisputed that he was rarely the instigator of violence.  On the contrary, the 
evidence showed that he avoided violence and appeared to adjust well when the 
structure permitted and that he would continue to do so.  His small stature made 
him the target of more violent inmates in virtually every institution in which he 
was housed.  However, when circumstances permitted, he tended to hold positions 
of responsibility.  To the extent that he was involved in prison violence personally, 
the evidence remains consistent that he was the prey rather than the predator.” 
In 1976, petitioner was released from prison in Alabama.  Soon he was 
arrested for an attempted robbery of a laundromat, a crime the referee in this case 
described as “an unsophisticated, botched effort which involved taking a young 
woman hostage at gunpoint and threatening responding police officers.”  
Petitioner escaped from jail and fled to California, where he found a job and for a 
short time had a stable relationship with a woman named Debra Pickett, with 
whom he had a child.  He then became a cocaine user and left Pickett.  Shortly 
thereafter, he committed the three murders in this case. 
At the reference hearing, expert witnesses testified about the psychological 
and neurological effects of petitioner’s childhood, his experiences at Alabama’s 
Mount Meigs reform school and in its prison system, and his abuse of controlled 
substances.  
Dr. George Woods, a psychiatrist, expressed his opinion that petitioner 
might have suffered from Fetal Alcohol Effect and in utero trauma; that organic 
brain damage hindered his academic development; and that he had posttraumatic 
stress disorder (PTSD), caused by his experiences at Alabama’s Mount Meigs 
reform school and in Alabama prisons.  Dr. Woods noted from the police reports 
that during a confrontation between petitioner and victim Wheeler a short time 
before the three murders, Wheeler had called petitioner a “faggot.”  In 
Dr. Woods’s view, petitioner’s PTSD would predispose him to overreact to the 
 
9 
slur, and petitioner was affected by serious emotional disturbance when he 
committed the murders. 
In the opinion of Dr. Craig Haney, a psychologist, the brutal conditions 
petitioner experienced as a teenager at Alabama’s Mount Meigs reform school had 
caused psychological damage.  Having neither job skills nor social skills, it was 
inevitable that petitioner would get in trouble with the law. 
According to Dr. James Park, a clinical psychologist, petitioner had 
behaved well in a structured setting, and he would make an above-average 
adjustment to a sentence of life in prison were he to receive such a term. 
Dr. Dorcas Bowles, the Dean of the School of Social Work at the 
University of Texas at Arlington, testified that petitioner was adversely affected by 
parental abandonment, by the death of his grandfather (whom he regarded as a 
father figure) when he was 10 years old, by organic brain impairment, and by the 
brutal conditions at Alabama’s Mount Meigs reform school. 
Dr. John Irwin was a retired sociology professor who, before going to 
college, had spent five years in prison for armed robbery.  He mentioned the 
difficulties encountered by former prisoners, particularly those who have been 
incarcerated for most of their adolescence, in adjusting to life outside of a penal 
institution.  Such persons are “socially crippled” because the cultural values that 
allow them to survive in an institutional setting make it difficult for them to adapt 
to conditions in the outside world.  Dr. Irwin contrasted California’s rehabilitative 
programs, which had enabled him to overcome his prison background, with the 
conditions petitioner experienced in Alabama, where nothing was done to prepare 
petitioner for reintegration into society.  Dr. Irwin cited statistics showing that the 
recidivism rates for persons released from Alabama prisons in the 1970’s (when 
petitioner was released) were much higher than those in the country as a whole.  
 
10 
The referee found Professor Irwin’s testimony “compelling” and said his 
“presentation and demeanor were impressive.” 
In the opinion of Dr. Myla Young, a clinical psychologist employed by the 
California Department of Mental Health to review neuropsychological tests of 
prison inmates, petitioner had brain impairment that was “mild” in some areas and 
“moderate” in others.  She found no indication that petitioner was a sociopath or 
psychopath.  She mentioned that petitioner’s answers to a battery of evaluative 
tests showed that he was not malingering. 
II 
Had petitioner’s trial attorneys made the effort, they could easily have 
discovered the substantial and compelling mitigating evidence described above.  
The referee noted that the steps appellate counsel took to obtain the evidence 
presented at the postconviction reference hearing involved “standard investigative 
techniques,” which did not call for “any extraordinary efforts beyond simple 
persistence.”  The referee explained:  “Trial counsel could have contacted 
petitioner’s family to develop his background and childhood, including contacting 
his mother and other relatives either living in the same location or accessible 
through known family members.  Evidence relating to the impact of the juvenile 
and adult correctional systems could have been developed by obtaining prison 
records and contacting inmates referenced in those records as well as conducting 
standard legal research of public records relating to lawsuits involving these 
institutions.  Mental health experts could have been appointed to review the 
background material and to test petitioner in order to ascertain the viability of 
psychiatric mitigation.”   
In rejecting petitioner’s contention that his trial attorneys were incompetent 
for not presenting mitigating evidence at the penalty phase of his capital trial, the 
majority points out that petitioner told counsel not to get his family involved in the 
 
11 
trial.  But petitioner did not ask his attorneys to do nothing at the penalty phase.  
Petitioner’s attorneys did virtually no penalty phase preparation.  They presented 
no expert witnesses.  Nor did they ask their investigators to do any work on the 
penalty phase.  The only potential witness they contacted was petitioner’s mother, 
even though petitioner had expressly told his counsel that he did not want his 
mother to testify.  Although petitioner’s two California defense attorneys took two 
trips to Mobile, Alabama (one of which had a stopover in New Orleans during the 
Mardi Gras holiday), on each trip they were in Mobile for less than a day, and they 
appear to have spent their time just looking through court records. 
In not faulting defense counsel for their lack of efforts to investigate 
petitioner’s background to uncover mitigating evidence, the majority asserts that it 
was up to petitioner to tell his trial attorneys about his reform school and prison 
experiences.  But petitioner did not withhold that information.  His attorneys never 
raised the subject.  The determination of what evidence to present on petitioner’s 
behalf at the penalty phase of his capital trial was counsel’s to make.  Reasonably 
competent counsel would have asked a mental health professional or an 
investigator to prepare a social history of petitioner’s life, based on information 
from petitioner and other available sources.  There is no evidence that petitioner, 
described by one of his trial attorneys as “very cooperative,” would have refused 
to discuss his reform school and prison experiences in Alabama had he been asked 
about them. 
The majority claims that “whatever mitigating evidence may have been 
disclosed by pursuing the conditions of incarceration petitioner experienced, 
counsel knew such evidence would come primarily from the testimony of 
petitioner’s fellow prisoners, many of whom were hardened criminals with serious 
felony records.”  (Maj. opn., ante, at p. 25.)  The majority mischaracterizes the 
record.  As discussed earlier, in addition to petitioner’s fellow prisoners, those 
 
12 
testifying at the reference hearing included a federal district judge, a priest, a 
college dean, a clinical psychologist, a longtime prison doctor, and the Regional 
Director for the Florida Bureau of Detention, all of whom gave powerfully 
effective testimony about the shocking conditions at Alabama’s Mount Meigs 
reform school and in that state’s prison system which corroborated the evidence of 
the inmate witnesses.   
In defending trial counsel’s inaction, the majority asserts that counsel must 
have been concerned that testimony about Alabama’s prison conditions “could 
well open the door to petitioner’s own extensive criminal background.”  (Maj. 
opn., ante, at p. 25.)  In making that assumption, the majority resorts to mixing 
petitioner’s experiences as a young teenager at Alabama’s Mount Meigs reform 
school with his later incarceration in Alabama prisons.  As to the reform school 
confinement, the majority’s claim that the evidence would have opened the door to 
rebuttal by the prosecution is unfounded.  Only the joyriding incident that led to 
his commitment to Mount Meigs would have been admissible in the prosecution’s 
rebuttal if petitioner had presented testimony about life at Mount Meigs.  It is 
unlikely that this insignificant offense, committed when petitioner was only 14 
years old, would have affected the jury’s penalty determination. 
With respect to petitioner’s Alabama prison experience, the majority fails 
to identify any significant evidence that the prosecution could have presented in 
rebuttal.  True, the prosecution could have presented details of petitioner’s 
Alabama convictions for murder, robbery, and escape.  But the jury already knew 
of the convictions, and any details of those crimes would not have substantially 
strengthened the prosecution’s case-in-aggravation.  Indeed, at the reference 
hearing the prosecutor, now a superior court judge, testified that if the defense had 
presented evidence of the Alabama prison conditions he probably would not have 
called rebuttal witnesses to give details about petitioners Alabama crimes. 
 
13 
In asserting that petitioner’s attorneys had a tactically reasonable strategy 
that was so good as to obviate any need to investigate his past, the majority points 
out that counsel tried to “minimize petitioner’s culpability by . . . portraying him 
as a follower rather than violently antisocial.”  (Maj. opn., ante, at p. 25.)  But that 
was a disastrous strategy, one no reasonably competent attorney would have used.  
This is why:  Petitioner was convicted of murdering three people, one of whom 
was raped.  The sole eyewitness to the killings was accomplice Charles Sanders.  
He testified that petitioner was the leader and Sanders the follower, and that 
petitioner personally committed all of these crimes.  The defense did not rebut that 
testimony.  Thus, the only evidence before the jury was that petitioner was the 
instigator rather than a follower.   
This case is not at all like Burger v. Kemp (1987) 483 U.S. 776, which the 
majority cites in support of its assertion that the defense “strategy” just described 
was reasonable.  In Burger, the defense attorney could credibly argue that the 
defendant in that case was a follower because his accomplice had committed the 
sexual assault that provided the motive for the murder the two of them later 
committed, and there was evidence that the accomplice had instigated the killing.  
(Id. at pp. 778-779.)  Here there was no such evidence.  
Insisting that the defense “strategy” at the penalty phase of petitioner’s 
capital trial obviated the need to investigate petitioner’s background to determine 
the existence of mitigating evidence, the majority points to counsel’s argument 
that the jury should spare petitioner’s life because Sanders, his accomplice, had 
received a lighter sentence.  (Maj. opn., ante, at p. 26.)  That argument was futile:  
As just explained, the evidence showed that petitioner was the leader and the 
perpetrator of the crimes while Sanders was the follower; thus, jurors were not 
likely to be troubled by Sanders’s lighter sentence.  Moreover, the defense 
argument was improper:  This court has repeatedly held that evidence about the 
 
14 
punishment given to codefendants or accomplices in a capital crime is irrelevant 
and inadmissible at the penalty phase, because it has no bearing on such issues as 
the defendant’s conduct, character, or record, on which the jury must base its 
penalty determination.  (People v. Morris (1991) 53 Cal.3d 152, 225; People 
v. Beardslee (1991) 53 Cal.3d 68, 112; People v. Carrera (1989) 49 Cal.3d 291, 
343; People v. Malone (1988) 47 Cal.3d 1, 53-54; People v. Dyer (1988) 45 
Cal.3d 26, 69-71; People v. Belmontes (1988) 45 Cal.3d 744, 810-813.)  
According to the majority, its conclusion that petitioner’s trial counsel 
competently investigated this case is “consistent with” this court’s “assessment of 
comparable facts in other decisions.”  (Maj. opn., ante, at p. 31.)  It relies on four 
cases:  People v. Gonzalez (1990) 51 Cal.3d 1179, In re Jackson (1992) 3 Cal.4th 
578, In re Ross (1995) 10 Cal.4th 184, and People v. Mayfield (1993) 5 Cal.4th 
142.  None is on point, as discussed below. 
In Gonzalez, defense counsel conducted a penalty phase investigation but 
decided not to present mitigating character evidence for fear it would lead to 
damaging rebuttal.  That decision was tactically reasonable because (1) counsel 
had a viable alternative strategy, namely, a lingering doubt argument (People 
v. Gonzalez, supra, 51 Cal.3d at p. 1250); (2) “family members had not given 
[defense counsel] any exceptionally sympathetic information about defendant’s 
background” (id. at p. 1251); and (3) the potential rebuttal pertained to the 
defendant’s involvement in a drive-by shooting and a gang rape, which could have 
been highly damaging (id. at pp. 1248-1253).  Here, by contrast, (1) petitioner’s 
attorneys conducted virtually no penalty phase investigation and they had no 
viable alternative strategy; (2) investigation would have uncovered strong 
mitigating evidence about petitioner’s background; and (3) as previously 
explained (see ante, at pp. 12-13), the prosecution could not have presented highly 
damaging rebuttal evidence. 
 
15 
In Jackson, this court held, unlike the majority here, that the defendant’s 
trial counsel acted incompetently by “failing to conduct a reasonable investigation 
of defendant’s background and childhood to enable him to make an informed 
decision as to the best manner of proceeding at the penalty phase . . . .”  (In re 
Jackson, supra, 3 Cal.4th at p. 612.)1  Thus, Jackson is inconsistent with the 
majority’s conclusion here that petitioner’s trial attorneys acted competently when 
they barely made an effort to investigate petitioner’s background. 
In Ross, as here, the defendant’s lead counsel was Gerald Lenoir.  There, as 
here, Lenoir presented no mitigating evidence at the penalty phase of Ross’s 
capital trial.  A majority of this court, declining to address whether Lenoir had 
competently represented Ross, concluded that any inadequacy was harmless.  (In 
re Ross, supra, 10 Cal.4th at p. 204.)  That conclusion was wrong, as I explained 
in my dissenting opinion in Ross.  (Id. at pp. 216-233.)  Because the majority in 
Ross never decided whether defense counsel had acted competently in that case, 
Ross does not support the majority’s holding that counsel acted competently in this 
case.  Similarly, in Mayfield, which the majority cites but does not discuss, this 
court did not decide whether the defendant’s trial counsel was competent, because 
it concluded that any inadequacy was harmless.  (People v. Mayfield, supra, 5 
Cal.4th at pp. 207, 208, fn. 15.) 
In short, the cases cited by the majority do not support its conclusion that 
the minimal investigation conducted by petitioner’s trial attorneys satisfied their 
“obligation to conduct a thorough investigation of the defendant’s background.”  
(Williams v. Taylor (2000) 529 U.S. 362, 396.)  This court held in In re Marquez 
                                             
 
1  
The majority in Jackson went on to hold that trial counsel’s failure to 
investigate the defendant’s background was harmless.  This holding was wrong for 
the reasons explained in the dissenting opinion, which I joined.  (In re Jackson, 
supra, 3 Cal.4th 578, 616-678 (dis. opn. of Mosk, J.).) 
 
16 
(1992) 1 Cal.4th 584, 606:  “In some cases, counsel may reasonably decide not to 
put on mitigating evidence, but to make that decision counsel must understand 
what mitigating evidence is available . . . .”  Failure to conduct a complete 
investigation “cannot be supported as a tactical choice.”  (Ibid.)  This court and 
others have consistently found that penalty phase investigations comparable to the 
minimal efforts expanded here do not meet the standard required of a reasonably 
competent defense attorney in a capital case.  (See, e.g., Williams v. Taylor, supra, 
529 U.S. at pp. 395-396; In re Jackson, supra, 3 Cal.4th at p. 612; In re Marquez, 
supra, 1 Cal.4th at pp. 605-606; Karis v. Calderon (9th Cir. 2002) 283 F.3d 1117, 
1133-1139; Caro v. Woodford (9th Cir. 2002) 280 F.3d 1247, 1255-1256; Silva v. 
Woodford (9th Cir. 2002) 279 F.3d 825, 838-847; Mayfield v. Woodford (9th Cir. 
2001) 270 F.3d 915, 927-928; Ainsworth v. Woodford (9th Cir. 2001) 268 F.3d 
868, 873-877; Jackson v. Calderon (9th Cir. 2000) 211 F.3d 1148, 1162-1163.)  
III 
Having concluded that petitioner’s trial attorneys rendered ineffective 
assistance at the penalty phase of his capital trial, I now turn to the issue of 
whether counsel’s incompetence prejudiced petitioner.   
The only evidence before the jury at petitioner’s penalty trial was that he 
had killed three people in this case, and that he had four prior felony convictions, 
including a robbery murder when he was 16 years old.  The jury knew nothing 
about the inhumane conditions at Alabama’s Mount Meigs Industrial School for 
Negro Children, a reform school to which petitioner was committed after stealing 
a car in the early 1960’s at the age of 14, and from which he was released at age 
16.  A juvenile probation officer familiar with Mount Meigs called it a “slave 
camp for children” that was run by “illiterate overseers.”  And a federal judge 
testified at the reference hearing that the facility was a “penal colony for children.”  
(See pp. 2-3, ante, for detailed description of conditions at Mount Meigs.)  The 
 
17 
institution offered no vocational programs and virtually no education.  The 
children had to work in the fields, picking cotton or tending vegetables.  Sexual 
abuse was common.  There were constant beatings with broomsticks and fan belts.  
Periodically, the children had to wade in open sewers outside the facility to 
remove sprouting grass. 
Nor did the jury learn of what the referee here described as “abysmal” 
conditions in the Alabama penal system, where from the age of 16 petitioner spent 
almost 10 years for the murder of a grocery clerk killed by petitioner’s companion 
in the course of a robbery, and for the robbery of a cab driver whose taxi petitioner 
and his companion used as a getaway car. 
The referee described all of this evidence as “compelling,” and the expert 
witnesses at the reference hearing testified that in their view petitioner’s 
experiences helped to explain, although they did not justify, the three murders he 
committed in this case. 
Had petitioner’s counsel at trial discovered the evidence in mitigation that 
petitioner’s habeas corpus counsel later presented at the reference hearing, and had 
trial counsel presented such evidence to the jury at the penalty phase of 
petitioner’s capital trial, the jury might still have returned a verdict of death, 
because the three murders petitioner committed were strong evidence in 
aggravation.  But to obtain relief on the ground that trial counsel was ineffective, 
petitioner need not show that it is more likely than not that a different result would 
have occurred had trial counsel provided effective representation.  (Strickland v. 
Washington (1983) 466 U.S. 668, 693.)  He need show only a “reasonable 
probability,” that is, a probability “sufficient to undermine confidence in the 
outcome,” that the result would not have been the same without counsel’s 
ineffective representation.  (Id. at p. 694.)   
 
18 
In Williams v. Taylor, supra, 529 U.S. 362, the United States Supreme 
Court granted a defendant’s habeas corpus petition and vacated his sentence of 
death, holding that his trial counsel’s incompetent failure to discover and present 
evidence of his childhood, which was “filled with abuse and privation” (id. at 
p. 398), was prejudicial because that evidence “might well have influenced the 
jury’s appraisal of his moral culpability” (ibid.).  Here, because of the incompetent 
investigation of petitioner’s trial counsel, his penalty jury did not hear mitigating 
evidence comparable to that not presented in Williams.  Thus, I “cannot put 
confidence in the verdict of a jury that decided the case without hearing the 
substantial mitigating evidence that competent counsel could and should have 
presented.”  (In re Marquez, supra, 1 Cal.4th 584, 609.) 
I would therefore grant the petition for habeas corpus and vacate the 
judgment of death. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
KENNARD,  ACTING C.J. 
JUSTICE 
I CONCUR: 
MORENO, J. 
 
19 
See next page for addresses and telephone numbers for counsel who argued in Supreme Court. 
 
Name of Opinion In re Andrews 
__________________________________________________________________________________ 
 
Unpublished Opinion 
Original Appeal 
Original Proceeding XXX 
Review Granted 
Rehearing Granted 
 
__________________________________________________________________________________ 
 
Opinion No. S017657 
Date Filed: August 26, 2002 
__________________________________________________________________________________ 
 
Court: 
County: 
Judge: 
 
__________________________________________________________________________________ 
 
Attorneys for Appellant: 
 
Fern M. Laethem and Lynne S. Coffin, State Public Defenders, Billie Jan Goldstein, Therene Powell and 
Donald J. Ayoob, Assistant State Public Defenders; and Michael N. Burt for Petitioner Jesse Andrews. 
 
 
 
 
 
__________________________________________________________________________________ 
 
Attorneys for  Respondent: 
 
John K. Van de Kamp, Daniel E. Lungren and Bill Lockyer, Attorneys General, Richard B. Iglehart and 
George Williamson, Chief Assistant Attorneys General, Edward T. Fogel, Jr., and Carol Wendelin Pollack, 
Assistant Attorneys General, Marc E. Turchin, Susan Lee Frierson, William T. Harter, Kerrigan M. Keach 
and Suzann E. Papagoda, Deputy Attorneys General, for Respondent State of California. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
20 
 
 
 
 
Counsel who argued in Supreme Court (not intended for publication with opinion): 
 
Donald J. Ayoob 
Assistant State Public Defender 
221 Main Street, 10th Floor 
San Francisco, CA  94105 
(415) 904-5600 
 
Suzann E. Papagoda 
Deputy Attorney General 
300 South Spring Street 
Los Angeles, CA  90013 
(213) 897-2363