In the 

United States Court of Appeals 

For the Seventh Circuit ____________________ 

No. 15-3479 

DAVID MARK FRENTZ, 

Petitioner-Appellant, 

v.

RICHARD BROWN, 

Respondent-Appellee. 

____________________ 

Appeal from the United States District Court for the 

Southern District of Indiana, Indianapolis Division. 

No. 1:13-cv-1311-TWP-DKL — Tanya Walton Pratt, Judge. 

____________________ 

ARGUED OCTOBER 25, 2017 — DECIDED NOVEMBER 22, 2017 

____________________ 

Before KANNE and SYKES, Circuit Judges, and DARROW,

District Judge.*

DARROW, District Judge. David Frentz filed a petition for 

writ of habeas corpus pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2254 after the 

Court of Appeals of Indiana affirmed the denial of his petition for postconviction relief in state court. That petition at-

 * Of the Central District of Illinois, sitting by designation. 
2 No. 15-3479 

tacked Frentz’s conviction for the January 24, 2005 murder of 

his housemate, Zackary Reynolds. Before his trial on that 

charge, Frentz had filed a notice that he would pursue a defense of not guilty by reason of insanity, but, after consulting 

with an expert, did not pursue the defense. Frentz was convicted by a jury of the murder, and of associated drug charges, and sentenced to 59 years of imprisonment. He appealed 

to the Court of Appeals of Indiana, which affirmed. He then 

filed his postconviction petition in Indiana court alleging ineffective assistance of counsel for, among other things, not 

having pursued the insanity defense. His petition was denied, and he appealed to the Court of Appeals of Indiana, 

which affirmed the denial. The Indiana Supreme Court denied transfer of the case,1 and Frentz filed a petition for writ 

of habeas corpus in the Southern District of Indiana. The district court denied the petition, and declined to issue a certificate of appealability. This Court then granted the certificate, 

finding that Frentz had made a substantial showing of the 

denial of his right to effective assistance of counsel because 

counsel failed to pursue an insanity defense. 

Because the Indiana appellate court did not unreasonably 

apply federal law in denying Frentz’s postconviction petition, we now affirm the district court’s decision. 

 1 In Indiana, the judgment of the appellate court is final unless the 

Indiana Supreme Court grants a Petition to Transfer, which has the effect 

of vacating the previous appellate judgment and giving the Indiana Supreme Court jurisdiction over the appeal “as if originally filed in the Supreme Court.” Ind. R. App. P. 58(A). 
No. 15-3479 3

I. Background 2

Frentz, who was 53, lived with Reynolds, 23, who 

worked on Frentz’s farm in Orange County, Indiana. Frentz 

was an alcoholic and had been drinking heavily for 35 years; 

on Saturday, January 22, 2005, his doctor told him that he 

would die if he did not stop drinking. His doctor gave him 

medication to deal with delirium tremens, a symptom of alcohol withdrawal. He stopped drinking that day. 

On Sunday, January 23, Frentz ran errands, worked on a 

pickup truck with Reynolds at the house they shared, and 

then ran more errands. On his way back to the house Frentz 

stopped at a fast-food drive-through in Salem, Indiana, between 10:00 and 11:00 in the evening. During this time he 

talked on his cell phone with his friend Carl Brock. Frentz 

told Brock that he had been “feeling bad,” and had been 

having hallucinations, including, according to Brock “either 

light poles or salt shakers dancing or something like that ... 

dogs running across the road laughing at him and stuff like 

that.” Worried, Brock asked Frentz to call him when he got 

home. 

Brock called Frentz an hour or two later. Frentz asked 

Brock and Brock’s wife if either of them had heard from 

Dusty Austin, Frentz’s ex-girlfriend. Frentz claimed to have 

been “fucked over” by a friend, Chuck Woolsey, who he now 

 2 The facts pertaining to the conduct with which Frentz was charged 

are taken, unless otherwise stated, from the Court of Appeals of Indiana 

order denying Frentz’s postconviction petition, Frentz v. State, 875 N.E.2d 

453, 457–462 (Ind. Ct. App. 2007). See 28 U.S.C. § 2254(e)(1); see also 

Caffey v. Butler, 802 F.3d 884, 887–888 (7th Cir. 2015), cert. denied, 136 S. 

Ct. 1527 (2016) (presuming that the state courts’ account of the facts is 

accurate unless rebutted by clear and convincing evidence). 
4 No. 15-3479 

thought to be involved with Austin. According to Brock, 

Frentz went during this conversation from “feeling ill and 

hallucinating to someone who was very sober and [not] really talkative at all.” Brock made some jokes, hoping to lighten 

the mood; instead, Frentz hung up. Brock tried calling him 

back immediately, with no luck. 

At about 3:30 a.m., Brock was able to reach Frentz on the 

phone. Frentz sounded “freaked out,” and told Brock to call 

the police. Frentz also said during this conversation that “he 

put PCP in that shit and people [are] up here to fuck with 

us.” (Brock assumed this was in reference to Woolsey.) During the conversation, Frentz was “hollering” at Reynolds, 

but Brock never heard Reynolds say anything back. When 

Brock asked to talk to Reynolds, Frentz hung up. When 

Brock’s wife called Frentz back and asked to talk to Reynolds, Frentz hung up again. 

Sometime early that morning, two of Frentz’s neighbors 

saw and heard Frentz’s pickup truck speeding down the 

road. Frentz called 911 at about 5:30 a.m., and said that several people were trying to break into his house. The connection cut out several times, but Frentz conveyed that people 

had broken into his house, that one of them was shooting, 

that his friend had been shot in the chest but was still breathing, that the people were still in his home, that they were 

“trying to get in the windows,” and doors, and that he had 

“locked the door back.” Police officers arrived at his house to 

find no signs of vehicle or foot traffic outside. Frentz was 

standing in his kitchen, looking disoriented and agitated. He 

opened the door for the officers, one of whom saw an SKS 

assault rifle lying on a kitchen chair. The police handcuffed 

Frentz, who was wearing only underwear and a t-shirt and 
No. 15-3479 5

was “sweating really bad.” Frentz told the officers that motorcycle-riding Mexicans had broken into his house and that 

there was someone in his bed. There was no sign of anyone 

in Frentz’s bed, or any struggle or forced entry, but the officers found Reynolds, lying face-up in the hallway in a pool of 

blood, on top of a loaded .22 caliber rifle. 

He was dead, shot three times at close range. There were 

traces of Reynolds’s DNA on Frentz’s shirt. A bullet lodged 

near his spine was confirmed by forensic testing to have 

come from the SKS. There were four shell casings in the 

hallway of the same caliber as the SKS. There were three bullet-holes in the door Reynolds had been standing in front of 

when he was shot, and also several bullet-holes in Reynolds’s bedroom window. More shell casings, of the same caliber, were nearby. 

Frentz told several stories about the events of that morning. First, he told officers at the scene that he had been asleep 

in his bedroom when he heard a scuffle at the other end of 

the house. He said he had grabbed the .22, walked down the 

hallway, and seen two Hispanic men leaving the house 

through the back door. He said that he had had seen Reynolds fighting with a third over the SKS, had put the .22 down 

and grabbed the other man, and then had heard two gunshots. The Hispanic man then left with the other two in a 

sport utility vehicle. The men had gotten in through a window, Frentz said. 

After he had been taken to the police station and mirandized, Frentz gave a substantially similar account, adding 

that before Frentz had gone to sleep, Reynolds had been 

playing cards and drinking beer with two young white men 

Frentz didn’t know, that he had heard a motorcycle engine 
6 No. 15-3479 

when the Hispanic men fled, and that someone had fired 

shots from outside the house that passed through the window and out the back door. 

When interviewed by officers later that day, Frentz said 

that he had stopped drinking “cold turkey” on Saturday after thirty years, and had been given medication. He said 

that, in a conversation he had had with his mother on the 

phone the previous day, he had not told her mother he was 

hallucinating, but that he felt “fuzzy” from the medication. 

He said that Reynolds had been “just outside of his door” 

when he was shot, and that he remembered hearing three 

gunshots. He added that the 911 operator had told him to 

put pressure on Reynolds’s bleeding wounds, that he had 

done so, and that he had loved Reynolds “like my boy.” 

The next morning, Frentz asked to speak with officers 

again. He told them that he had taken his medication the 

night before and that it had caused him hallucinations like it 

“was givin’ [him] the DT’s” instead of taking them away. He 

added that Reynolds had bought drugs that weekend from a 

person interested in his ex-girlfriend, Austin, and wondered 

whether that person might have altered the drugs and persuaded Reynolds to give him some. He denied, however, 

that his medication or any of the drugs he might have taken 

could have caused him to “just randomly start shootin’ that 

rifle.” 

Frentz also spoke, while in county jail, with two other 

inmates, Troy Brackett and David Turner, both of whom, unfortunately for Frentz, ended up testifying at his trial. Brackett said that Frentz had told him two men, A. J. Guthrie and 

Eric Lloyd, had sold methamphetamine to Reynolds and 

then tried to steal it back. Reynolds had been accidentally 
No. 15-3479 7

shot in the struggle that followed. Brackett also said that later, Frentz told him that Reynolds and he had argued about 

the drugs purchased from Guthrie and Lloyd, who had originally bought the drugs from Woolsey, who was living with 

Austin. According to Brackett, Frentz said he had heard a 

noise that night and “played to his role” and shot Reynolds 

with the SKS. Frentz is also supposed to have said that 

Reynolds “shouldn’t have been messing with [his] old lady.” 

Turner testified that Frentz told him he had come home 

on Sunday and found Reynolds with Guthrie and Lloyd, 

then gone to bed, after rejecting Reynolds’s offer of methamphetamine. Later, Frentz got up and told Reynolds that it 

was a bad idea to have “all that meth” in front of Guthrie 

and Lloyd, who later broke back in to steal it back. Turner 

said Frentz asked him what he, Turner, thought of this story; 

Turner reportedly said that, if he were on a jury, he would 

vote to convict Frentz. Later, Frentz told Turner a version in 

which Woolsey and Austin hired Mexicans to break into the 

house and kill him for his life insurance policy, but shot the 

wrong man. He also said that he had sent Reynolds to persuade Austin to come to his house, but that after Reynolds 

had been gone for a while, Frentz started to suspect Austin 

and Reynolds of being romantically entangled. That night, 

Frentz said he had looked out his window and seen Austin 

standing next to a telephone pole, and, thinking that she and 

Reynolds were planning to run away together, had grabbed 

a gun with which to confront Reynolds. Frentz then shot 

Reynolds, realized he’d made a mistake, and shot Reynolds 

twice more to kill him. Frentz told Reynolds he’d then put 

the .22 underneath Reynolds’s body and driven his truck up 

and down the road in order to simulate the sound of several 
8 No. 15-3479 

vehicles leaving his house. Turner said this story kept changing until it got Turner’s approval. 

Frentz also offered to pay both Turner and Brackett to 

drop .45 caliber shells outside his house and put pry-marks 

on the windows. He told them that his brother had gone into 

his house and removed $700 in cash from his jacket pocket 

and an ounce of methamphetamine from his jeans pocket. At 

one point, while in jail awaiting trial, Frentz received a letter 

from Reynolds’s father sarcastically asking for help with the 

funeral expenses. Both Turner and Brackett testified that 

Frentz threw the included obituary on the floor and told 

Brackett that “if he was going to pay for [Reynolds’s] funeral 

he would have never killed him.” 

On January 27, 2005, Frentz was charged with murder 

and felony drug possession, later amended to include felony 

charges for possessing anhydrous ammonia and receiving 

stolen property. Through counsel, Frentz filed a notice on 

February 22, 2005 that he sought to pursue an insanity defense. See Ind. Code § 35-36-2-1. Counsel consulted with Dr. 

Philip Coons, and named him as an expert witness as to 

Frentz’s physical and mental state at the time of the charged 

offenses.3 

 3 Coons was deposed on December 29, 2005. Coons Dep., ECF No. 

28. This deposition was not offered as evidence at Frentz’s state postconviction hearing, or indeed to any court before this one. However, Dr. 

Masbaum, who offered testimony at Frentz’s Indiana postconviction 

hearing, reviewed and relied on Coons’s deposition. As relevant here, 

the deposition proceeded as follows. 

Coons, who had reviewed documentation from Frentz’s visit to the 

hospital the Saturday before the shooting, and from up to and after the 

arrest, indicated that the medication Frentz had been prescribed to help 
No. 15-3479 9

Shortly after Coon was deposed, the state sought leave to 

have its expert examine Frentz. Before this could happen, 

however, Frentz’s counsel withdrew Coons as a witness, 

which effectively prevented him from pursuing the insanity 

defense at trial. See Ind. Code § 35-36-2-2. At trial, Frentz’s 

counsel did present some information that would have supported such a defense, including that doctors had advised 

Frentz to stay in the hospital for at least five days when he 

had gone there the Saturday before the shooting, and that he 

had claimed to be hallucinating to Brock the night before the 

shooting. However, neither Coons nor any other witness 

submitted expert testimony about Frentz’s mental state to 

the jury. 

In his closing argument, counsel argued that Frentz 

lacked the required mental state for murder, pointing to the 

fact that Frentz had quit drinking after 30 years, had been on 

medication, sweating, and had heard mysterious noises just 

before the shooting. Counsel argued, appealing to the jurors’ 

“common sense and experience,” that Frentz had been suf-

 

with alcohol withdrawal was Ativan. Id. at 6–9. Coons described delirium tremens as “a syndrome ... that some people get when they withdraw from alcohol ... characterized by visual hallucinations ... fever, 

rapid heart rate ... [it’s] basically a medical emergency and it requires 

hospitalization when it occurs.” Id. at 10. Frentz also stated, however, 

that Frentz had denied having these symptoms, despite his claim that he 

had suffered from hallucinations, both before and after the time of the 

shooting. Id. at 21. While Coons opined that these hallucinations were 

brought on by alcohol withdrawal, id. at 23, Coons declared himself unable to opine as to whether Frentz had acted voluntarily at the time of 

the shooting, id. at 40. This was because, Coons testified, Frentz had refused to discuss the actual moments of the shooting, while continuing to 

state in a general way that he hadn’t shot Reynolds. Id. 
10 No. 15-3479 

fering from delirium tremens and hallucinating. The jury 

proceeded to find Frentz guilty on all counts on April 10, 

2006. The Court of Appeals of Indiana affirmed, Frentz v. 

State, 875 N.E.2d 453 (Ind. Ct. App. 2007), and the Supreme 

Court of Indiana denied transfer, Frentz v. State, 891 N.E.2d 

36 (Ind. 2008). 

Frentz filed a petition for postconviction relief in Indiana 

on December 11, 2008. An evidentiary hearing was held on 

March 15, 2012, at which Frentz presented the testimony of 

Dr. Ned Masbaum, and of his trial counsel, Bart Betteau. 

Masbaum testified that he had recently interviewed Frentz, 

but had not reviewed police reports, and that in his opinion, 

Frentz was of “unsound mind” as a result of delirium tremens at the time the offense was committed. Postconviction 

Order 15, Appellant’s Br. App. 38. Masbaum also stated that, 

for the first time, Frentz had admitted that he shot Reynolds 

by accident, thinking he was an intruder. Betteau testified 

that he had experience mounting a defense relying on insanity, and that he had no reason to believe that the trial court 

would have refused a request, had he made one, for funds 

for a psychiatric report (presumably, this meant a report authored by Coons, or some other psychiatric professional, that 

Betteau elected not to request). Id. at 17. The postconviction 

court found that Masbaum’s conclusion was based on “selective and incomplete information,” id. at 18, and that in order 

for the result of Frentz’s trial to have been different, had an 

insanity defense been mounted, the jury would have had to 

accept that Frentz had stopped using alcohol and that the 

cessation and resulting delirium tremens had caused him to 

be “unable to appreciate the wrongfulness of the conduct at 

the time of the offense,” the legal standard for avoiding guilt 

by reason of insanity in Indiana. Id. at 15; see Ind. Code § 35-
No. 15-3479 11

41-3-6. The postconviction court found that Frentz had not 

shown his trial counsel’s allegedly deficient performance 

prejudiced him, Postconviction Order 18, and denied 

Frentz’s petition. 

The state appellate court affirmed, deeming Frentz’s argument that his trial counsel was ineffective merely an attempt to relitigate the postconviction court’s determination 

that Masbaum’s opinion was based on incomplete information, and noting that Frentz had presented no information 

showing that his trial counsel had had reason to believe 

Frentz met the legal standard for insanity in Indiana. Frentz 

v. State, 989 N.E.2d 383, 2013 WL 2405197, at *8 (Ind. Ct. App. 

May 31, 2013). The appellate court also characterized Betteau’s failure to raise the insanity defense as a strategic decision, based on Coons’s evaluation. Id.

Frentz then filed his § 2254 petition in federal district 

court in the Southern District of Indiana, making several arguments, of which counsel’s failure to raise the insanity defense is the only survivor. Noting that the Court of Appeals 

of Indiana had addressed the insanity argument on its merits, the district court rejected both Frentz’s argument that the 

postconviction court’s unwillingness to credit Masbaum’s 

opinion had been an unreasonable factual determination, 

and his argument that Betteau’s failure to raise the insanity 

defense was deficient performance that prejudiced him. 

Frentz v. Brown, No. 1:13-CV-1311-TWP-DKL, 2015 WL 

5825099, at *13 (S.D. Ind. Oct. 5, 2015). As to the latter, the 

district court reasoned that Frentz had failed to provide evidence sufficient to overcome the strong presumption that 

counsel’s behavior was an exercise of reasonable professional 

judgment. Id. We certified for appeal only the question of 
12 No. 15-3479 

whether counsel was ineffective for not pursuing an insanity 

defense. 

II. Discussion

The Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 

1996 (AEDPA), 28 U.S.C. § 2254, permits us to grant habeas 

relief when, as here, a state court reaches a decision on the 

merits of a claim, but only if that decision was “contrary to, 

or involved an unreasonable application of, clearly established Federal law, as determined by the Supreme Court of 

the United States,” § 2254(d)(1), or “was based on an unreasonable determination of the facts in light of the evidence 

presented in the State court proceeding,” § 2254(d)(2). The 

state court whose decision we review is the last one that 

ruled on the merits of the issue. Cossel v. Miller, 229 F.3d 649, 

654 (7th Cir. 2000). Frentz’s sole claim before us, that his 

counsel rendered ineffective assistance in not ultimately 

electing to mount an insanity defense, is governed by the 

two-part analysis the Supreme Court developed in Strickland 

v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668 (1984). The test requires a petitioner to show “(1) that his counsel’s performance was so deficient as to fall below an objective standard of reasonableness under ‘prevailing professional norms’; and (2) that the 

deficient performance so prejudiced the defense as to deny 

the defendant a fair trial.” Lee v. Davis, 328 F.3d 896, 900 (7th 

Cir. 2003) (quoting Strickland, 466 U.S. at 687–88). 

We review the district court’s findings of fact for clear error, and review its conclusions of law de novo. In re Rovell, 

194 F.3d 867, 870 (7th Cir. 1999). Whether a state court’s holding is an “unreasonable application of” clearly established 

law under § 2254(d)(1) is a mixed question of fact and law 

that we review de novo, but “with a grant of deference to 
No. 15-3479 13

any reasonable state court decision.” Schaff v. Snyder, 190 F.3d 

513, 522 (7th Cir. 1999). A state court’s decision is reasonable 

when “at least minimally consistent with the facts and circumstances of the case.” Hennon v. Cooper, 109 F.3d 330, 335 

(7th Cir. 1997). 

In attacking his trial counsel’s performance, Frentz must 

“overcome the presumption that, under the circumstances, 

the challenged action might be considered sound trial strategy.” Strickland, 466 U.S. at 689 (quotation marks omitted). 

Counsel’s ultimate decision at trial not to pursue an insanity 

defense is not deficient performance if counsel “has made a 

reasonable decision that makes particular investigations unnecessary.” Adams v. Bertrand, 453 F.3d 428, 436 (7th Cir. 

2006) (quotation marks omitted). 

Here, as the Court of Appeals of Indiana held, there is 

abundant suggestion in the record that counsel’s decision not 

to pursue an insanity defense further than he did was within 

the wide spectrum of permissible strategic decision-making. 

Frentz’s attorney initially notified the state that he would 

pursue the defense, suggesting that he, like the courts that 

have reviewed this case, thought that Frentz’s recent abstinence, after years of drinking, might at least potentially have 

resulted in hallucinations or other mental incapacity on the 

morning of the shooting. Frentz’s statements shortly after the 

shooting suggest that, at least on some occasions on the day 

before and the days following, he suffered from visual hallucinations. But Coons, the expert retained to evaluate Frentz, 

could offer, at least at the time of his deposition, no further 

opinion as to whether Frentz was suffering from such hallucinations at the time that, the jury determined, he shot Reynolds. Counsel’s decision to retain Coons, consult with him, 
14 No. 15-3479 

and then not pursue the defense further, is consistent with 

researching and deciding for strategic reasons not to pursue 

the insanity defense. 

Such potential reasons practically leap from the record. 

Frentz changed his story several times, suggesting lucid recall of the events and careful attempts to fabricate a cover 

story, rather than confusion or an inability to remember exactly what had happened. The testimony of the jailhouse informants, Turner and Brackett, if credited by the jury, was 

particularly damaging, both in that it showed a callous disregard for Reynolds’s life inconsistent with having killed 

him by accident while hallucinating, and in that it suggested 

that Frentz had attempted to conceal his crime by creating 

cover stories, beginning almost immediately after the commission of the crime itself when he reportedly drove his 

truck up and down the road outside his house (a detail corroborated by other witnesses). A jury could easily have relied on this evidence in disbelieving any claim of mental incapacity Frentz might have sought to offer, particularly if 

there was no evidence to be offered, either via Frentz’s own 

potential testimony or the testimony of experts, that he was 

actually or likely suffering from hallucinations at the time of 

the shooting. Frentz’s attorney could have determined that 

such an unsupported claim would be more likely to inflame 

than to persuade the jury, and strategically not have brought 

it. 

Frentz argues that because Coons didn’t render an opinion as to his sanity at Coons’s deposition, or elsewhere on 

the record, before counsel decided not to pursue the insanity 

defense, counsel must have been deficient in failing to en-
No. 15-3479 15

gage another expert and to present the insanity defense.4

Appellant’s Br. 20–21. But this line of argument assumes, 

without support beyond Masbaum’s testimony, that it was or 

should have been evident to counsel that an insanity defense 

would have been meritorious and should have been pursued. For all the evidence on the record, counsel may well 

have consulted further with Coons, spoken with his client 

more, or asked Coons to speak with Frentz again, and determined on the basis of that research that an insanity defense would be unavailing.5 Frentz offers no evidence to the 

contrary. 

Furthermore, we do not find that the postconviction 

court’s unwillingness to credit Masbaum’s minimally supported opinion was an unreasonable determination of the 

facts. Rather, it appears eminently reasonable for the postconviction court not to have accepted Masbaum’s determina-

 4 Respondent argues that Frentz failed to make this failure to investigate claim as part of his ineffective assistance of counsel argument before the Indiana courts, and that he has therefore procedurally defaulted 

it. Respondent’s Br. 14. However, as explained here, neither counsel’s 

decision not to engage another expert, nor his eventual decision to withdraw the expert and not make an insanity argument before the jury, 

were ineffective in any case. 

5 One suspects, too, reading Coons’s deposition closely, that the doctor may have engaged in a certain amount of strategic hedging when 

asked point-blank by counsel for the government whether Frentz had 

been able to appreciate the wrongfulness of his actions on the morning of 

January 24. Coons was unable to opine even tentatively that Frentz’s alcohol withdrawal had impaired his judgment. Instead he demurred, saying that Frentz’s condition “may have had,” Coons Dep. 40, some effect 

on his ability to make decisions, and attributing his uncertainty to not 

having been able to ask Frentz about the “point in time,” id., when the 

shooting happened. 
16 No. 15-3479 

tion that Frentz was legally insane at the time of the shooting, when that determination was rendered on partial consideration of the record evidence, which showed that Frentz 

never admitted to having hallucinated at the time of the 

shooting, and when Coons’s own evaluation, upon which 

Masbaum claimed to rely, had been indeterminate. In addition, Masbaum’s opinion rested on Frentz’s own potentially 

strategic alteration of his story. Frentz had told Masbaum a 

different story than he had told Coons, admitting five years 

after the fact to having shot Reynolds. This could easily be 

construed by the Indiana postconviction court as a selfserving attempt to get a second bite at the apple. One of the 

reasons Coons professed himself unable to say whether 

Frentz had been insane at the time of the shooting is that 

Frentz had not described the moment of the shooting to 

Coons, and maintained that he had not shot Reynolds. A defense of insanity—having shot Reynolds but not being guilty 

of it by reason of mental state—is, at least logically, incompatible with a defense of not having shot Reynolds at all. See 

Wisehart v. State, 693 N.E.2d 23, 38–39 (Ind. 1998) (collecting 

cases where courts have rejected claims of ineffective assistance of counsel for failing to raise a defense based on mental state because such defenses would have conflicted with 

the trial defenses of actual innocence). Frentz’s apparent adamance at the time of trial that he did not shoot Reynolds 

likely posed formidable obstacles to any argument counsel 

might have wanted to make that Frentz did shoot Reynolds 

but was not culpable of it because he was insane. 

Certainly, none of the evidence Frentz has submitted is 

sufficient to show the Court of Appeals of Indiana was unreasonable in finding Frentz’s trial counsel was not ineffective. 
No. 15-3479 17

Turning to the prejudice portion of Strickland, it is also 

easy to see that the appellate court was not unreasonable in 

finding Frentz suffered no prejudice by his attorney’s decision not to bring the insanity defense. Frentz must demonstrate “a reasonable probability that, but for counsel's unprofessional errors, the result of the proceeding would have 

been different.” Strickland, 466 U.S. at 694. “A reasonable 

probability is a probability sufficient to undermine confidence in the outcome.” Id. And, in review of the state court’s 

decision, we must allow “the state court’s conclusion to 

stand if it is one of several equally plausible outcomes.” Hall 

v. Washington, 106 F.3d 742, 749 (7th Cir. 1997). 

As Frentz observes, while his trial counsel did not mount 

an insanity defense, he attempted to use the evidence Frentz 

thinks should have been put toward the insanity defense—

his possible delirium tremens and hallucinations, more or 

less—to negate the intent element of Indiana murder. See 

Ramsey v. State, 723 N.E.2d 869, 871 (Ind. 2000) (murder is the 

knowing or intentional killing of another). Evidence about 

Frentz’s drinking and abstinence was introduced, as was 

Brock’s description of Frentz’s reported hallucinations. And 

counsel argued in closing that Frentz had suffered from hallucinations, and might have suffered from them during the 

crucial moments at which he shot Reynolds. Frentz 

acknowledges all of this, but argues that without scientific 

explanation, in the form of expert testimony, about what delirium tremens is and how it might have affected Frentz’s 

judgment and consciousness, and without an insanitydefense instruction, the jury was unable to determine, as 

they should have, that Frentz was unable to appreciate the 

wrongfulness of his conduct at the time of the offense. See 

Ind. Code § 35-41-3-6. 
18 No. 15-3479 

But Coons’s expert testimony, as conveyed in his deposition, would add little to the layperson’s sense, adequately 

conveyed by the testimony at trial, that Frentz might have 

suffered visual and auditory hallucinations, or been disoriented as to where he was and the identity of the people with 

whom he was interacting. It is difficult to see how the addition of Coons’s (or another doctor’s) medical analysis of such 

symptoms would have lent more weight to counsel’s argument, or how a jury, given the added option to find Frentz 

not guilty by reason of insanity, would have done so on the 

strength of just this evidence, when, in the event, that same 

jury did find him guilty of a knowing or intentional killing. 

In any case, the Court of Appeals of Indiana did not rule unreasonably when it determined that the outcome would have 

been the same had Frentz’s attorney presented the insanity 

defense. See Stevens v. McBride, 489 F.3d 883, 893 (7th Cir. 

2007) (deferring to Indiana Supreme Court’s conclusion that 

no jury could conclude defendant did not appreciate the 

wrongfulness of his acts at the time of a killing). 

For these reasons, we AFFIRM the district court’s denial 

of a writ of habeas corpus.