Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca4-07-00010/USCOURTS-ca4-07-00010-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Gene M. Johnson
Appellee
Robert Stacy Yarbrough
Appellant

Document Text:

PUBLISHED

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT

ROBERT STACY YARBROUGH, 

Petitioner-Appellant,

v.  No. 07-10

GENE M. JOHNSON, Director,

Virginia Department of Corrections,

Respondent-Appellee. 

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the Eastern District of Virginia, at Norfolk.

Jerome B. Friedman, District Judge.

(2:05-cv-00368-JBF)

Argued: December 6, 2007

Decided: March 17, 2008

Before NIEMEYER and TRAXLER, Circuit Judges, and

HAMILTON, Senior Circuit Judge.

Affirmed by published opinion. Judge Niemeyer wrote the opinion,

in which Judge Traxler and Senior Judge Hamilton joined. 

COUNSEL

ARGUED: F. Nash Bilisoly, IV, VANDEVENTER & BLACK,

L.L.P., Norfolk, Virginia, for Appellant. Matthew P. Dullaghan,

Senior Assistant Attorney General, OFFICE OF THE ATTORNEY

GENERAL, Richmond, Virginia, for Appellee. ON BRIEF: Trey R.

Kelleter, VANDEVENTER & BLACK, L.L.P., Norfolk, Virginia;

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Jennifer L. Givens, VIRGINIA CAPITAL REPRESENTATION

RESOURCE CENTER, Charlottesville, Virginia, for Appellant. Robert F. McDonnell, Attorney General, Jerry P. Slonaker, Senior Assistant Attorney General, OFFICE OF THE ATTORNEY GENERAL,

Richmond, Virginia, for Appellee.

OPINION

NIEMEYER, Circuit Judge: 

A jury in Mecklenburg County, Virginia, convicted Robert Yarbrough of the 1997 capital murder and robbery of Cyril Hamby, and

sentenced him to death. The Supreme Court of Virginia vacated his

sentence because of an erroneous jury instruction. On remand, a second jury sentenced Yarbrough to death again, and the Supreme Court

of Virginia affirmed. 

After exhausting state procedures for post-conviction relief, Yarbrough filed the present petition for a writ of habeas corpus under 28

U.S.C. § 2254, asserting six grounds for relief. The district court

denied Yarbrough’s petition, but granted him a certificate of appealability with respect to his claim that his trial counsel was constitutionally ineffective because he failed to request that the trial court appoint

a DNA expert at public expense. We expanded the certificate of

appealability to include Yarbrough’s claim that the trial counsel was

constitutionally ineffective for inadequately investigating and presenting evidence in mitigation at sentencing. 

For the reasons that follow, we affirm the district court’s dismissal

of Yarbrough’s two claims for which a certificate of appealability has

been issued, concluding that in denying these claims on the merits,

the Supreme Court of Virginia neither unreasonably applied clearly

established federal law nor made an unreasonable determination of

the facts. See 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d). 

I

The facts, as stated by the Supreme Court of Virginia in Yarbrough

v. Commonwealth (Yarbrough I), 519 S.E.2d 602, 603-07 (Va. 1999),

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begin with Yarbrough inviting his high-school friend, Dominic Rainey, to join him in his plan to rob Cyril Hamby, the 77-year-old

owner of Hamby’s Store, located a short walk from Yarbrough and

Rainey’s homes on U.S. Route 1 in Mecklenburg County, Virginia.

An eyewitness’ testimony placed the two men walking along the

highway toward the store between 9:30 and 10:30 p.m. on May 8,

1997. The two then waited outside the store until there were no customers inside, entered the store, and locked the door behind them. 

Yarbrough, armed with a shotgun, ordered Hamby to lie on the

floor in an aisle, and, with Rainey’s help, bound Hamby’s hands

behind his back. Yarbrough shut off the store’s outside lights and

demanded that Hamby reveal where guns were hidden in the store.

When Hamby denied having any guns, Yarbrough kicked Hamby in

the head and upper arms. Yarbrough then forced open the cash register and took the money inside. After returning to Hamby, he again

demanded to know the location of the guns. Hamby continued to deny

having any guns, at which point Yarbrough put down the shotgun,

took out a pocketknife, and proceeded to cut deeply into the front and

the back of Hamby’s neck with a sawing motion. According to Rainey, Hamby pleaded with Yarbrough to stop cutting him, but Yarbrough did not stop and inflicted at least 10 deep wounds before

rifling through Hamby’s clothing and taking his wallet. Yarbrough

and Rainey then stole beer, wine, and cigarettes, as well as the money

Yarbrough had taken from the cash register, and exited the store from

the rear. Yarbrough gave Rainey $100 and kept the remainder of the

money for himself. 

The two proceeded to Rainey’s residence, where they changed

clothes, and then went to the nearby home of Conrad Dortch, where

they drank the wine from Hamby’s store and waited for Dortch to

arrive so they could buy marijuana from him. Dortch came home at

approximately 12:45 a.m. and sold Yarbrough a marijuana joint for

$10. According to Rainey, Yarbrough was "flashing" his money. Yarbrough and Rainey then returned to Rainey’s home, where they spent

the rest of the night. The next morning, Yarbrough threw his bloodstained tennis shoes in a trash barrel behind Rainey’s house and left.

After Hamby’s body was discovered on May 9, 1997, and an

autopsy was conducted, it was determined that Hamby had bled to

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death from multiple deep wounds around his neck. The Commonwealth’s medical examiner described the wounds as "entirely consistent" with "an attempted beheading," but because no major arteries

were cut, it likely took several minutes for Hamby to bleed to death.

The examiner also noted the blunt force injuries on Hamby’s head

and upper arm, which were consistent with having been kicked. 

A day later, Dortch informed the police of his encounter with Yarbrough and Rainey on the night of Hamby’s murder, prompting the

police to obtain and execute a search warrant at Yarbrough’s home

where they recovered clothing and a pocketknife, both stained with

blood. Police also recovered the tennis shoes from Rainey’s home. 

Subsequent forensic analysis of the items recovered, the crime

scene, and samples taken from Hamby, Yarbrough, and Rainey,

strongly supported the conclusion that both Yarbrough and Rainey

were present at the scene of the murder and that Yarbrough was most

likely the person who inflicted the fatal wounds on Hamby. DNA

tests of the shoes and clothing established a match with Hamby’s

blood, and the DNA test of the knife established a mix of Hamby and

Yarbrough’s DNA on the blade. The blood stains on Yarbrough’s

clothes were consistent with a spray of blood resulting from trauma

and were made "in close proximity to the trauma that released the

blood." Prints from Yarbrough’s tennis shoes were found near the circuit box in the store, behind the counter, and in the blood stains near

Hamby’s head. Prints from Rainey’s boots were found near Hamby’s

feet and in the living quarters of the store. 

Following a four-day trial, at which the Commonwealth presented

the testimony of Rainey, other witnesses, police investigators, and

forensic experts, as well as extensive physical evidence, the jury convicted Yarbrough of capital murder and robbery. In exchange for his

testimony, Rainey was charged with first degree murder rather than

capital murder, and he later pleaded guilty, receiving a sentence of 50

years’ imprisonment, 25 of which were suspended. 

At the sentencing phase, which followed immediately upon the

completion of the guilt phase, the Commonwealth argued that the

death penalty was appropriate for Yarbrough because his crime was

"outrageously or wantonly vile, horrible or inhuman in that it

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involved torture, depravity of mind or an aggravated battery to the

victim." See Va. Code Ann. § 19.2-264.2. Yarbrough presented mitigation evidence in the form of testimony from his mother. The jury

sentenced Yarbrough to death for the capital murder conviction and

to life imprisonment for the robbery conviction. 

On direct appeal, Yarbrough assigned several errors, and the Virginia Supreme Court rejected all but one. Because the trial court

failed to inform the jury during the sentencing phase that if it sentenced Yarbrough to life imprisonment, he would be ineligible for

parole, the court vacated the death sentence and remanded the case for

a new sentencing trial. See Yarbrough I, 519 S.E.2d at 611-17. 

The second sentencing trial took place before a newly empaneled

jury. The evidence presented at that trial is summarized by the Virginia Supreme Court in Yarbrough v. Commonwealth (Yarbrough II),

551 S.E.2d 306, 308 (Va. 2001). The Commonwealth presented evidence that Yarbrough stabbed Hamby at least 10 times in the neck

and that the wounds "penetrated to the junction between the neck and

the skull at several locations on the rear of Hamby’s neck." Other evidence described several blows to the head, and indicated that Hamby

was still alive during the infliction of these wounds, remaining alive

for up to 15 minutes as he bled to death. The Commonwealth also

produced Rainey, who testified that Hamby begged for mercy while

Yarbrough continued his "sawing motion" on Hamby’s neck. In addition, several family members and neighbors testified to Hamby’s

warmth, generosity, kindness, and thoughtfulness, as well as to the

devastating impact his murder had on his family. 

In mitigation, Yarbrough again presented testimony from his

mother, who indicated that Yarbrough had lived with her his entire

life except for two years when he lived with his grandmother. Yarbrough also called a prison counselor to testify that he had not

received any adverse disciplinary reports while incarcerated. In opening and closing arguments, Yarbrough’s counsel, Buddy Ward,

attempted to cast doubt on Rainey’s veracity and urged the jury to

"stop the killing" by sparing Yarbrough’s life. 

After less than an hour of deliberation, the jury sentenced Yarbrough to death, finding explicitly that the murder was "vile" and that

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the mitigating evidence did not outweigh this aggravating factor. On

his second direct appeal, the Virginia Supreme Court affirmed, Yarbrough II, 551 S.E.2d at 399-400, and the United States Supreme

Court denied Yarbrough’s petition for a writ of certiorari, Yarbrough

v. Virginia, 535 U.S. 1060 (2002). 

Seeking state post-conviction relief, Yarbrough filed a petition for

a writ of habeas corpus with the Supreme Court of Virginia on July

12, 2002. The petition raised several claims, including, as relevant

here, claims that Yarbrough’s trial counsel (1) was ineffective by failing adequately to challenge the Commonwealth’s forensic evidence,

specifically by failing to request appointment of a DNA expert at public expense, and (2) was ineffective by failing adequately to investigate and present relevant evidence in mitigation at the second

sentencing trial. The Virginia Supreme Court rejected Yarbrough’s

claims and dismissed his petition in an unpublished opinion. Yarbrough v. Warden (Yarbrough III), No. 021660 (Va. May 29, 2003).

Relying in part on the decision of the United States Supreme Court

in Wiggins v. Smith, 539 U.S. 510 (2003), which was handed down

on June 26, 2003, Yarbrough petitioned the Virginia Supreme Court

for rehearing, claiming that his trial counsel was deficient in failing

to investigate and present mitigation evidence. The Virginia Supreme

Court granted Yarbrough’s petition for a rehearing limited to the mitigation evidence claim, and it ordered the Circuit Court of Mecklenburg County to conduct an evidentiary hearing. See Va. Code Ann.

§ 8.01-654(C). 

At the hearing, Yarbrough presented testimony from his trial counsel, his mother, his father, his mother’s ex-boyfriend, his grandmother, his cousin, and his half-sister. The Commonwealth recalled

Yarbrough’s trial counsel and presented testimony from his trial

counsel’s investigator. Following the hearing, the Circuit Court submitted proposed findings of fact and conclusions of law to the Virginia Supreme Court, recommending a finding that Yarbrough’s trial

counsel’s performance was constitutionally deficient but that it did

not result in prejudice to the outcome of the case and therefore that

Yarbrough was not entitled to relief. Yarbrough v. Warden (Yarbrough IV), No. 021660 (Va. Cir. Ct. May 6, 2004). 

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The Supreme Court of Virginia adopted most of the Circuit Court’s

recommendations for findings of fact, as well as its recommendation

that there was no prejudice, and it dismissed Yarbrough’s petition.

Yarbrough v. Warden (Yarbrough V), 609 S.E.2d 30, 40 (Va. 2005).

Because the Virginia Supreme Court found no prejudice, it did not

review or adopt the Circuit Court’s recommended conclusion that

Yarbrough’s trial counsel was deficient. Id. at 38 n.2. 

Yarbrough commenced the present action by filing a petition for a

writ of habeas corpus under 28 U.S.C. § 2254, raising six issues,

including the ineffective assistance claims for failure to seek public

funds for a DNA expert and for failure to investigate and present mitigating evidence. The district court referred the petition to a magistrate

judge, who submitted a report and recommendation that all six claims

be denied and that Yarbrough’s petition be dismissed. Yarbrough v.

Johnson (Yarbrough VI), No. CIV A 205CV368, 2006 WL 2583418

(E.D. Va. Sept. 5, 2006). The district court adopted most of the magistrate judge’s recommendations, modified others, and arrived at the

same conclusion that all six of Yarbrough’s claims should be denied.

Yarbrough v. Johnson (Yarbrough VII), 490 F. Supp. 2d 694 (E.D.

Va. 2007). Concluding that Yarbrough’s DNA evidence claim was his

"strongest argument," the district court granted Yarbrough’s motion

for a certificate of appealability on that issue. Id. at 740-41. By order

dated October 2, 2007, we expanded the certificate of appealability to

include Yarbrough’s mitigation evidence claim. 

II

Yarbrough contends first that he was denied effective assistance of

counsel during the guilt phase of his state trial because "DNA evidence was critical to the prosecution and the defense in this case not

involving a confession" and his counsel "fail[ed] to request funds to

engage an expert in DNA collection, testing and analysis." The failure

to seek funds to hire an expert, he argues, fell below "prevailing professional norms" as they are defined by the American Bar Association’s Guidelines for the Appointment and Performance of Defense

Counsel in Death Penalty Cases ("ABA Guidelines"), which he

asserts require that "expert assistance should always be requested and

provided" for the "proper preparation of capital cases" (emphasis

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added), and which are not to be taken as "aspirational" but as a minimum standard under the Sixth Amendment. 

The Commonwealth of Virginia contends that the district court

properly dismissed Yarbrough’s habeas claim because Yarbrough

failed "to establish that his trial counsel successfully could have

moved for the appointment of such an expert." Adopting the district

court’s conclusion that public funds for a DNA expert would be available only if Yarbrough established a "particularized need" for the

expert under Husske v. Commonwealth, 476 S.E.2d 920 (Va. 1996),

Virginia argues that because Yarbrough could not establish such a

need, his counsel’s "failure to move for the appointment [could] not

have been deficient." 

Yarbrough first presented his ineffective assistance of counsel

claim to the Virginia Supreme Court in a petition for a writ of habeas

corpus filed on July 12, 2002, relying on Strickland v. Washington,

466 U.S. 668 (1984).1 In dismissing the claim the Supreme Court

ruled:

The Court holds claim (III)(C)(1) satisfies neither the "performance" nor the "prejudice" prong of the two-part test

enunciated in Strickland. Petitioner has failed to allege any

facts that would suggest that counsel’s performance was

inadequate. Petitioner has failed to show a particularized

need for the assistance of an independent expert or that he

was prejudiced by the lack of expert assistance. Husske v.

Commonwealth, 252 Va. 203, 213, 476 S.E.2d 920, 926

(1996). Furthermore, petitioner has failed to identify the

items that were not tested by the Commonwealth or how

testing of those items would disprove petitioner’s guilt.

Thus, petitioner has failed to demonstrate how counsel was

ineffective for failing to obtain an independent expert and

failing to request that the unspecified items undergo testing.

1

Strickland held that to establish a claim under the Sixth Amendment

for ineffective assistance of counsel, the petitioner must demonstrate

"that counsel’s performance was deficient" and that "the deficient performance prejudiced the defense." Strickland, 466 U.S. at 687; see also

Emmett v. Kelly, 474 F.3d 154, 160 (4th Cir. 2007). 

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Furthermore, he has failed to demonstrate that there is a reasonable probability that, but for counsel’s alleged error, the

result of the proceeding would have been different.

Yarbrough III, No. 021660, op. at 8-9. 

In considering this claim again on a petition under 28 U.S.C.

§ 2254, a federal court owes considerable deference to the judgment

entered in the state court proceeding. See 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d), (e).

Section 2254(d) provides:

An application for a writ of habeas corpus on behalf of a

person in custody pursuant to the judgment of a State court

shall not be granted with respect to any claim that was adjudicated on the merits in State court proceedings unless the

adjudication of the claim — 

(1) resulted in a decision that was contrary to, or involved

an unreasonable application of, clearly established Federal

law, as determined by the Supreme Court of the United

States; or 

(2) resulted in a decision that was based on an unreasonable

determination of the facts in light of the evidence presented

in the State court proceeding. 

And § 2254(e)(1) instructs that "a determination of a factual issue

made by a State court shall be presumed to be correct" and that the

petitioner "shall have the burden of rebutting the presumption of correctness by clear and convincing evidence." 

A state decision is "contrary to" clearly established Supreme Court

precedent if "the state court applies a rule that contradicts the governing law set forth in [the Supreme Court’s] cases" or "confronts a set

of facts that are materially indistinguishable from a decision of [the

Supreme Court] and nevertheless arrives at a result different from [its]

precedent." Williams v. Taylor, 529 U.S. 362, 405-06 (2000); Meyer

v. Branker, 506 F.3d 358, 364-65 (4th Cir. 2007). "An ‘unreasonable

application’ occurs when a state court identifies the correct governing

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legal principle from [the Supreme] Court’s decisions but unreasonably applies that principle to the facts of [a] petitioner’s case." Rompilla v. Beard, 545 U.S. 374, 380 (2005) (internal quotation marks

omitted); Lenz v. Washington, 444 F.3d 295, 300 (4th Cir. 2006). In

applying these standards when reviewing a state decision under

§ 2254(d), the question, therefore, is not "whether a federal court

believes the state court’s determination was incorrect but whether that

determination was unreasonable — a substantially higher threshold."

Schriro v. Landrigan, 127 S. Ct. 1933, 1939 (2007) (citing Williams,

529 U.S. at 410); Strong v. Johnson, 495 F.3d 134, 140 (4th Cir.

2007). 

We review the district court’s dismissal of a habeas petition de

novo. Meyer, 506 F.3d at 364.2

In presenting his ineffective assistance of counsel claim to the district court, Yarbrough argued that the performance of his trial counsel,

Buddy Ward, was deficient because, inasmuch as the prosecution’s

case depended on DNA evidence, it was "incumbent on competent

counsel to make some attempt to, at the least, investigate the DNA

analysis and discredit the scientific evidence through an independent

expert and education on DNA analysis." Yarbrough maintained, "Had

the forensic evidence been tested and found to be flawed or even

false, only the testimony of an admitted felon with a deal would have

placed [him] inside Mr. Hamby’s store that night." 

Identifying areas in which an expert could have assisted counsel,

Yarbrough pointed to multiple alleged errors or deficiencies in the

Commonwealth’s forensic analysis. For example, certain samples

were tested at only 10 genetic loci, instead of 23, because the State

only had the capability to test at the 10. Certain samples failed to

yield interpretable results. With respect to certain results, no statistical

2The district court reviewed the Virginia Supreme Court judgment de

novo because it concluded that the Supreme Court had incorrectly

observed that Yarbrough had failed to identify specific items that were

not tested but should have been. Yarbrough VII, 490 F. Supp. 2d at 714-

15. Because our review of the district court is de novo, we also examine

the state court’s judgment directly, as the district court did, giving it the

deference that is due in the circumstances. 

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probabilities were given. Finally, certain items were not tested at all.

But Yarbrough never explained how the test results that were

obtained and that pointed only at him as the murderer could be

reversed or ignored, nor how an expert’s review might otherwise have

helped him in the context of these alleged deficiencies. He simply

hoped that the expert might find something to help his case. 

Yarbrough also never explained how he overcame "the presumption that, under the circumstances, the challenged action [of his attorney] might be considered sound trial strategy," namely, a decision to

focus on advancing arguments that counsel could actually make or

reasonably found more persuasive. Strickland, 466 U.S. at 689 (internal quotation marks omitted). This presumption was especially strong

here in view of the fact that in Virginia state funds were not available

for an expert witness unless a defendant was able to show a "particularized need" for the expert testimony. See Husske, 476 S.E.2d at 925.

And under state law, such a "particularized need" could not have been

demonstrated by conclusory assertions, but rather had to be demonstrated by a specific showing of how expert testimony would assist in

the defense. Id. at 925-26; see also Commonwealth v. Sanchez, 597

S.E.2d 197, 200 (Va. 2004). In Sanchez, the Virginia Supreme Court

denied a request for state funds for an expert specifically because the

defendant’s demonstration of need was not particularized and rested

on nothing more than the petitioner’s "hope or suspicion." In accordance with Strickland, we presume that Ward knew of these barriers

and developed a "sound trial strategy" in light of his inability to surmount them. And Yarbrough has given us no basis to rebut that presumption.

Yarbrough faced overwhelming forensic evidence that tied him to

the scene, that corroborated Rainey’s testimony, and that placed him

(Yarbrough) in the role of primary perpetrator. Without any indication

or theory about how the DNA evidence might be wrong, any expectation of what benefit might be obtained from retaining a DNA expert

could only be characterized as a dim hope. Ward was fighting an

uphill battle for Yarbrough, and he performed as ably as one could

expect in the circumstances. This is meaningful when recognizing that

Ward was a seasoned criminal lawyer who had tried more capital

cases than he could remember. 

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Not only did the Virginia Supreme Court have all of this information before it, the district court separately and exhaustively examined

Ward’s cross-examination of the Commonwealth’s forensic experts,

noting that he effectively subjected the Commonwealth’s evidence to

adversarial testing such that the proper functioning of the adversarial

process was not undermined and could be relied on to produce a just

result. Yarbrough VII, 490 F. Supp. 2d at 724-27; see also Strickland,

466 U.S. at 685-86. While the district court did acknowledge that

Ward made some errors, which revealed limits of his knowledge, it

did not conclude that these errors in any way lessened Ward’s ability

to test the Commonwealth’s case and to ensure that the trial was reliable. 

In view of these facts, we cannot say that the Virginia Supreme

Court’s conclusion that Ward’s performance was not deficient was an

unreasonable application of federal law, particularly Strickland. See

28 U.S.C. § 2254(d)(1). In determining whether Ward’s performance

was constitutionally deficient, "a court must indulge a strong presumption that counsel’s conduct falls within the wide range of reasonable professional assistance," in order to avoid "the distorting effects

of hindsight." Strickland, 466 U.S. at 689. As the Supreme Court in

Strickland stated:

A convicted defendant making a claim of ineffective assistance must identify the acts or omissions of counsel that are

alleged not to have been the result of reasonable professional judgement. The court must then determine whether,

in light of all the circumstances, the identified acts or omissions were outside the wide range of professionally competent assistance. 

* * *

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. 

Id. at 690-91. 

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To argue that Ward’s performance was "outside the wide range of

professionally competent assistance," Yarbrough relies heavily, and

almost exclusively, on the ABA Guidelines, which were originally

drafted in 1989 and revised in 2003. He argues that the ABA Guidelines establish "prevailing professional norms" that, when applied to

measure Ward’s performance, render it constitutionally deficient. He

asserts that the ABA Guidelines require that "expert assistance should

always be requested and provided" for the proper preparation of capital cases (emphasis added), and that the rules are "not aspirational,"

but minimum constitutional standards. The district court rejected this

argument, holding that the failure to comply with the ABA Guidelines

regarding the requesting of funds for expert assistance does not establish counsel’s performance as constitutionally deficient per se. See

Yarbrough VII, 490 F. Supp. 2d at 723-24. 

We agree. Indeed, the ABA Guidelines themselves deliver a mixed

message about whether they are aspirational or mandatory in every

circumstance. On the one hand they would impose on defense counsel

a mandatory, non-aspirational, minimum requirement to request public funds and obtain expert assistance in the preparation of virtually

every capital case, because everywhere that the Guidelines direct

what counsel "should" do, they advise that the term "should" is to be

construed as a mandatory term. See ABA Guidelines intro. (1989)

("‘Should’ is used throughout as a mandatory term and refers to activities which are minimum requirements"). In this manner, the ABA

Guidelines appear to mandate that "[u]tilization of experts has

become the rule, rather than the exception, in proper preparation of

capital cases," id. 1.1 cmt., and "counsel should demand on behalf of

the client all necessary experts for preparation of both phases of trial,"

id. 11.4.1 cmt. On the other hand, the Guidelines also seem to

acknowledge that a defendant cannot routinely have experts, because

to have them requires calling upon local jurisdictions "to authorize

sufficient funds to enable counsel in capital cases to conduct a thorough investigation . . . and to procure the necessary expert witnesses

and documentary evidence," id. 8.1 cmt., which suggests an aspirational nature to the Guidelines. The Guidelines observe that "funds

available to appointed defense counsel are substantially below those

available to the prosecution" and that "[t]his inequity is unconscionable." Id. In short, the ABA Guidelines say that defense counsel should

— now meaning only "should" — try to use experts more routinely,

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but that this goal depends on government funding which, for now,

does not allow this goal to be achieved routinely. This therefore can

hardly be the mandated minimum standard, as Yarbrough claims. 

Moreover, were we to treat the ABA Guidelines as establishing the

minimum constitutional floor of "prevailing professional norms" for

determining ineffective assistance of counsel, we would be forced to

hold that a defense attorney who failed to obtain the expert assistance

he "should" have secured was constitutionally deficient, even if the

jurisdiction in question would not have provided funds for such an

expert had the attorney asked for them. As the district court noted, the

practice of providing defense attorneys "‘few, if any, resources’ to

hire experts . . . has plainly been held to be constitutional and has continued for decades." Yarbrough VII, 490 F. Supp. 2d at 723. It simply

is not the case that a lawyer who fails to request funds that are not

available, or to which his client is not entitled under governing local

law, has rendered ineffective assistance of counsel. 

More fundamentally, to hold defense counsel responsible for performing every task that the ABA Guidelines say he "should" do is to

impose precisely the "set of detailed rules for counsel’s conduct" that

the Supreme Court has long since rejected as being unable to "satisfactorily take account of the variety of circumstances faced by

defense counsel or the range of legitimate decisions regarding how

best to represent a criminal defendant." Strickland, 466 U.S. at 688-

89. Such a categorical holding would lead to needless and expensive

layers of process with the unintended effect of compromising process.

Would it lead to the requirement, for example, that anytime the government uses a sample of DNA in prosecuting a case, the defense

lawyer would have to retain a DNA expert, regardless of the expert’s

likely contribution to the defense? Would such a rule similarly require

a defense lawyer to retain experts every time the government introduces expert evidence that a substance is, for example, cocaine? Recognition of the ABA Guidelines as the minimum prevailing

community standard would transform defense lawyers’ judgments

into mindless defensive reactions to a potential habeas claim,

divorced from the individualized needs of professional representation.

Those needs call for more nuanced responses than can be provided by

following preestablished mechanical rules of representation. See Roe

v. Flores-Ortega, 528 U.S. 470, 479 (2000); Strickland, 466 U.S. at

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688-89 (cautioning against the fallacy of treating guidelines as a

"checklist for judicial evaluation of attorney performance"); Meyer,

506 F.3d at 372 (same); id. at 371 ("[T]he touchstone of effective representation must be sound, evidence-based judgment, rather than a set

of mandates counsel must programmatically follow without deviation"); Walker v. True, 401 F.3d 574, 583 n.7 (4th Cir. 2005) (noting

that the Strickland inquiry "does not entail the application of per se

rules" derived from ABA standards), vacated on other grounds, 546

U.S. 1086 (2006). 

While the ABA Guidelines provide noble standards for legal representation in capital cases and are intended to improve that representation, they nevertheless can only be considered as a part of the overall

calculus of whether counsel’s representation falls below an objective

standard of reasonableness; they still serve only as "guides," Strickland, 466 U.S. at 688, not minimum constitutional standards. 

Inasmuch as we conclude that the Virginia Supreme Court’s application of Strickland to this case was not unreasonable, we affirm the

district court’s decision dismissing Yarbrough’s claim that his counsel’s performance was deficient. 

Because Yarbrough has not satisfied the deficient-performance

prong of Strickland, we only briefly discuss the prejudice prong.

Although an expert might have helped Buddy Ward poke a few more

holes in the Commonwealth’s case than he accomplished on his own,

there is no basis to assume that any such minor victories would have

created a reasonable probability that Yarbrough would have been

acquitted. Short of expert testimony revealing gross incompetence or

a criminal conspiracy to falsely implicate Yarbrough — and there is

certainly no reasonable probability of either — it is most unlikely

that, even with an expert, Yarbrough could have overcome the totality

of evidence against him, which included not just forensic evidence,

but also Rainey’s testimony, eyewitness testimony placing him in the

vicinity of the store, and Dortch’s testimony regarding his actions

after the murder. 

At bottom, we hold that Yarbrough has established neither the performance prong nor the prejudice prong of Strickland, and his first

claim for habeas relief was properly denied. 

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III

Yarbrough also contends that his trial counsel performed below an

objective standard of reasonableness because he failed adequately to

investigate and present relevant evidence in mitigation at the second

sentencing trial and that, but for this failure, there was a reasonable

probability that the jury would not have sentenced him to death. See

Wiggins v. Smith, 539 U.S. 510, 521, 534 (2003); Strickland, 466 U.S.

at 690, 694. 

When this claim was first presented to the Supreme Court of Virginia, the Court denied it on the merits, holding that Yarbrough had

satisfied neither the performance prong nor the prejudice prong of

Strickland because he had failed "to allege that such mitigation evidence was available to counsel or that petitioner desired such evidence to be presented at sentencing." The Court also gave as a reason

the fact that such mitigation evidence could have been "cross-purpose

evidence capable of aggravation as well as mitigation." Yarbrough III,

No. 021660, op. at 13-14 (citing Barnes v. Thompson, 58 F.3d 971,

980-81 (4th Cir. 1995)). 

After the United States Supreme Court decided Wiggins, the Virginia Supreme Court granted Yarbrough’s petition for rehearing and

directed the Circuit Court of Mecklenburg County to conduct an evidentiary hearing on the claim. The facts developed at this hearing are

related by the Virginia Supreme Court in Yarbrough V, 609 S.E.2d at

33-36. 

The Court described how Yarbrough’s mother, Lorraine Mitchell,

testified that when Yarbrough was seven or eight years old, she

became addicted to crack cocaine, first as a "functional" addict who

managed to provide for herself and her children and later as a "dysfunctional" addict who permitted bills to go unpaid and the cleanliness of her home, herself, and her children to deteriorate. She and her

children — Yarbrough and his half-sister Dorian Jenkins, who was

six years Yarbrough’s junior — were eventually evicted from their

home in Camden, New Jersey, and forced to move to a drug-infested

low-income housing project. Also, Dorian Jenkins’ father, Willis Jenkins, eventually moved out of the home, leaving only Mitchell and the

two children in the house. 

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Mitchell testified that after she hit "rock bottom" in the summer of

1989 or 1990, when Yarbrough was eleven or twelve years old, Yarbrough’s father, Robert Yarbrough, arranged for Yarbrough to live

with relatives and attend school in Illinois for a year. That same year,

Willis Jenkins permanently removed Dorian from Mitchell’s care.

When Yarbrough returned from Illinois the following summer, Mitchell had substantially recovered from her addiction, and she and Yarbrough thereafter lived in New Jersey, the Eastern Shore of Virginia,

and finally Mecklenburg County, Virginia. During this period Yarbrough sometimes lived with his grandmother in Mecklenburg

County. 

Willis Jenkins, Robert Yarbrough, and Yarbrough’s grandmother,

Annie Mae Riley, also testified and substantially supported Mitchell’s

testimony. All four witnesses agreed that Mitchell had been addicted

to crack cocaine and that she had neglected her parental responsibilities as a result. But they also testified that Yarbrough had always been

a relatively well-behaved and responsible person and that there was

never any indication, hint, or suggestion that Yarbrough had been

physically or sexually abused. Evidence showed that when Yarbrough’s mother was unable to care for herself or her children, Yarbrough would often do so, seeing to it that his half-sister got

something to eat or was safely near her mother before he left for

school. 

Yarbrough’s final two witnesses, his cousin Anthony Riley and his

half-sister Dorian Jenkins, gave testimony about events that occurred

when they were young children, no more than 14 and 5 years old,

respectively. Their testimony roughly tracked that of the adults,

although it painted an even harsher picture about conditions when

Yarbrough and his half-sister lived with Mitchell in New Jersey. 

Buddy Ward, Yarbrough’s trial counsel, testified that both he and

his investigator interviewed Yarbrough, Mitchell, and Mitchell’s

mother extensively, and that they conducted a "deep background

check" that involved school and medical records from New Jersey

and Virginia. According to Ward, none of the people interviewed

were willing to say anything negative to him about Yarbrough’s

childhood or Mitchell’s parenting. The picture Ward got from his

investigation was simply that Mitchell had tried to be a good mother

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but encountered problems and hard times, so she sent Yarbrough to

live with her mother temporarily while she worked through her difficulties. In addition, Ward testified that a court-appointed psychologist, Dr. Evan Nelson, examined Ward and obtained some "clues" as

to Mitchell’s drug problems and a possible mitigation case based on

maternal neglect. But Nelson also warned Ward not to call him as an

expert witness to connect Yarbrough’s upbringing to his crime,

because in his opinion Yarbrough was "dangerous." 

In response to the testimony given at the hearing by the Yarbrough

family members, Ward testified that he had been aware of most of the

circumstances they described, except the extent of Mitchell’s drug

use. While he acknowledged that he would have liked to have presented some of the lay testimony, particularly that of Yarbrough’s

half-sister Dorian Jenkins, he remained concerned that the testimony

would have been a double-edged sword because it would have given

the Commonwealth an opportunity to argue that Yarbrough deserved

the death penalty not only due to the "vileness" of his crime, but also

because he posed a "future danger." See Va. Code Ann. § 19.2-264.2.

After receiving the testimony, the Circuit Court of Mecklenburg

County submitted proposed findings of fact to the Virginia Supreme

Court and recommended finding that Ward had been deficient in failing to uncover, during his investigation, the full extent of Yarbrough’s

childhood difficulties but that Yarbrough had failed to establish prejudice because, after weighing the totality of mitigation evidence

against the aggravating evidence, there was no reasonable probability

that the jury would not have sentenced him to death. Yarbrough IV,

No. 021660, op. at 16-20. The Supreme Court of Virginia accepted

most of the Circuit Court’s proposed factual findings and adopted its

recommendation to deny Yarbrough’s claim because he did not demonstrate prejudice. Yarbrough V, 609 S.E.2d at 37-40. The Supreme

Court did not adopt the Circuit Court’s conclusion that Yarbrough had

established deficient performance and expressed no opinion as to that

dimension of the claim. Id. at 38 n.2. 

Again, federal review of the Virginia Supreme Court’s judgment is

limited to whether the judgment was "contrary to, or involved an

unreasonable application of, clearly established" Supreme Court precedent, or was "based on an unreasonable determination of the facts

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in light of the evidence presented in the State court proceeding." 28

U.S.C. § 2254(d). 

Yarbrough argues that the Virginia Supreme Court "unreasonably

applied" federal law because it "failed to weigh the mitigating evidence in this case independently and appropriately; instead, it merely

compared it to that present in Wiggins and determined that it did not

stack up." Yarbrough VI, 2006 WL 2583418, at *13. The district court

"summarily" rejected this claim, observing that the state court did not

compare the facts of Wiggins, Williams, Rompilla, and Strickland

with the facts of Yarbrough’s case "in a checklist fashion," but rather

"merely for illustrative purposes," and that it weighed the totality of

mitigating evidence against the evidence in aggravation and found no

reasonable probability of a different result. Yarbrough VII, 490 F.

Supp. 2d at 702. The district court concluded that it was "readily

apparent that Yarbrough ha[d] failed to set forth an unreasonable

application of United States Supreme Court precedent." Id.

We agree with the district court. The Virginia Supreme Court did

not apply federal law unreasonably when it compared Yarbrough’s

evidence to that in Wiggins or Williams in order to evaluate its relative strength and ability to offset the aggravating evidence Yarbrough

faced and to show a reasonable probability of a different result.

Indeed, it was appropriate for the Virginia Supreme Court to have

observed that unlike in Wiggins and Williams, Yarbrough presented

no evidence at all of a diminished mental capacity, nor did he present

any evidence to support a finding that he had been physically or sexually abused. Yarbrough V, 609 S.E.2d at 40. Mental capacity and

extreme abuse were significant factors in the United States Supreme

Court’s determination that Wiggins and Williams had established

prejudice, as such evidence was "powerful" in offsetting the State’s

evidence in aggravation in each case. See Wiggins, 539 U.S. at 534-

38; Williams, 529 U.S. at 396-98; see also Rompilla, 545 U.S. at 390-

93. When mitigation evidence presents significantly less hardship

than that found in Wiggins, Williams and Rompilla, however, it follows that the evidence is significantly less "powerful." The question

a reviewing court must answer in determining whether a petitioner

was prejudiced by a failure to present such evidence, then, is not

whether the evidence was as "powerful" as the mitigation evidence in

other cases, but rather whether the evidence was "powerful" enough

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to offset the aggravating evidence and demonstrate a reasonable probability of a different result in the petitioner’s case.

The Supreme Court of Virginia concluded that Yarbrough’s mitigation evidence was not "powerful" enough, when weighed against the

State’s evidence in aggravation, to demonstrate a reasonable probability of a different result. As the Court explained:

The evidence in aggravation at Yarbrough’s second penalty

phase proceeding included the brutal nature of the attack on

Hamby, a 77-year old man, which appeared to be an

attempted decapitation. Also in aggravation was the fact that

Hamby was alive when all ten of the knife wounds were

inflicted on him, and that he may have lived for 15 minutes

as he bled to death. The evidence also showed that Yarbrough continued to cut Hamby’s neck in a sawing motion

even after Hamby pleaded with Yarbrough to stop cutting

him. 

Yarbrough V, 609 S.E.2d at 39-40; see also id. at 32-33 (describing

additional testimony from Hamby’s family, friends, neighbors and

customers). Weighing this evidence against the totality of Yarbrough’s evidence in mitigation, the Virginia Supreme Court held that

the record failed to demonstrate a reasonable probability of a different

result. Id. at 40. 

What is especially lacking from Yarbrough’s claim is any evidence

that attributes his crime to his suboptimal childhood. See Wiggins,

539 U.S. at 535 ("[E]vidence about the defendant’s background and

character is relevant because of the belief, long held by this society,

that defendants who commit criminal acts that are attributable to a

disadvantaged background . . . may be less culpable than defendants

who have no such excuse") (emphasis added) (internal quotation

marks omitted). Yarbrough’s evidence establishes that he came from

a disadvantaged background, but offers no support for the inference

that his murder of Hamby was somehow attributable to that background. To the contrary, all those who testified about his disadvantaged background also maintained generally that he was a

fundamentally decent, well-behaved child and young man. 

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In the absence of any extreme abuse, deprivation, or mental deficiency that would readily permit a jury to attribute Yarbrough’s acts

to his background, or in the absence of any expert testimony to connect Yarbrough’s upbringing to the crime — a connection that Ward

deliberately chose not to draw because of its double-edged nature —

we cannot conclude that there was a reasonable probability that a jury

would decide Yarbrough’s fate differently if it heard this evidence.

Indeed, it seems reasonably probable that the jury would wonder why,

after so many years of being mature and responsible beyond his years

to care for his mother and his sister when necessary, Yarbrough suddenly lashed out and committed such a vile act of violence against an

elderly man. A jury hearing this evidence might therefore be led to

find Yarbrough more culpable for his criminal acts, rather than less.

See Bowie v. Branker, 512 F.3d 112, 121 (4th Cir. 2008); Moody v.

Polk, 408 F.3d 141, 152 (4th Cir. 2005). 

Considering the Virginia Supreme Court’s weighing of the evidence and the deficiencies in the mitigation evidence available, we

conclude that its decision was not an unreasonable application of federal law. 

Yarbrough also takes issue with several factual findings made by

the Virginia Supreme Court. But he has offered no new evidence in

rebuttal. He simply contests determinations made by the Court, pointing to other portions of the evidentiary hearing transcript that, in his

view, support the characterization of the facts he prefers. 

The Supreme Court of Virginia’s factual findings regarding the

evidence in mitigation are, of course, presumptively correct. See 28

U.S.C. § 2254(e)(1). Moreover, they appear to us to be substantially

correct, or if not correct, at least a reasonable summation of the testimony presented at the evidentiary hearing. See id. § 2254(d)(2). 

Accordingly, we affirm the district court’s judgment that the

Supreme Court of Virginia did not unreasonably apply clearly established federal law in rejecting Yarbrough’s claim of prejudice due to

Ward’s failure to present additional mitigating evidence at sentencing

and that the Virginia Supreme Court’s decision was not based on an

unreasonable determination of the facts. 

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Therefore, on the two claims included within the certificate of

appealability, we affirm. 

AFFIRMED

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