Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/boundvolumes/558bv.pdf
Page Number: 169.0

8 

BOBBY  v.  VAN  HOOK 

Per Curiam 

stability,  family  relationships,  and  the  like,  will  be  relevant, 
as will mitigating circumstances surrounding the commission 
of the offense itself.”  Id., at 4–55. 

Quite  different  are  the  ABA’s  131-page  “Guidelines”  for 
capital defense counsel, published in 2003, on which the Sixth 
Circuit relied.  Those directives expanded what had been (in 
the  1980  Standards)  a  broad  outline  of  defense  counsel’s  du­
ties in all criminal cases into detailed prescriptions for legal 
representation of capital defendants.  They discuss the duty 
to investigate mitigating evidence in exhaustive detail, speci­
fying  what  attorneys  should  look  for,  where  to  look,  and 
when to begin.  See ABA Guidelines 10.7, comment., at 80– 
85.  They  include,  for  example,  the  requirement  that  coun­
sel’s  investigation  cover  every  period  of  the  defendant’s  life 
from “the moment of conception,” id., at 81, and that counsel 
contact  “virtually  everyone  .  .  .  who  knew  [the  defendant] 
and  his  family”  and  obtain  records  “concerning  not  only  the 
client,  but  also  his  parents,  grandparents,  siblings,  and  chil­
dren,” id., at 83.  Judging counsel’s conduct in the 1980’s on 
the basis of these 2003 Guidelines—without even pausing to 
consider  whether  they  reﬂected  the  prevailing  professional 
practice at the time of the trial—was error. 

To  make  matters  worse,  the  Court  of  Appeals  (following 
Circuit  precedent)  treated  the  ABA’s  2003  Guidelines  not 
merely  as  evidence  of  what  reasonably  diligent  attorneys 
would do, but as inexorable commands with which all capital 
defense  counsel  “ ‘must  fully  comply.’ ”  560  F.  3d,  at  526 
(quoting Dickerson v.  Bagley, 453 F. 3d 690, 693 (CA6 2006)). 
Strickland  stressed,  however,  that  “American  Bar  Associa­
tion  standards  and  the  like”  are  “only  guides”  to  what  rea­
sonableness means, not its deﬁnition.  466 U. S., at 688.  We 
have  since  regarded  them  as  such.1  See  Wiggins  v.  Smith, 

1 The narrow grounds for our opinion should not be regarded as accept­
ing  the  legitimacy  of  a  less  categorical  use  of  the  Guidelines  to  evaluate 
post-2003 representation.  For that to be proper, the Guidelines must re­
ﬂect  “[p]revailing  norms  of  practice,”  Strickland,  466  U. S.,  at  688,  and