Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/boundvolumes/558bv.pdf
Page Number: 315

154 

SMITH  v.  SPISAK 

Opinion of the Court 

conform himself ” to the law’s requirements.  8 id., at 2428– 
2429,  2430–2441  (July  16,  1983).  Dr.  Kurt  Bertschinger,  a 
psychiatrist, testiﬁed that Spisak suffered from a schizotypal 
personality disorder and that “mental illness does impair his 
reason to the extent that he has substantial inability to know 
wrongfulness,  or  substantial  inability  to  refrain.”  Id.,  at 
2552–2556.  Dr. Markey, whose testimony had been stricken 
at the guilt phase, again testiﬁed  and agreed with the other 
experts’  diagnoses.  Id.,  at  2692–2693,  2712–2713  (July  18, 
1983). 

In  light  of  this  background  and  for  the  following  reasons, 
we do not ﬁnd that the assumed deﬁciencies in defense coun­
sel’s  closing  argument  raise  “a  reasonable  probability  that,” 
but  for  the  deﬁcient  closing,  “the  result  of  the  proceeding 
would  have  been  different.”  Strickland,  466  U. S.,  at  694. 
We therefore cannot ﬁnd the Ohio Supreme Court’s decision 
rejecting  Spisak’s  ineffective-assistance-of-counsel  claim  to 
be  an  “unreasonable  application”  of  the  law  “clearly  estab­
lished” in Strickland.  § 2254(d)(1). 

First,  since  the  sentencing  phase  took  place  immediately 
following  the  conclusion  of  the  guilt  phase,  the  jurors  had 
fresh in their minds the government’s evidence regarding the 
killings—which included photographs of the dead bodies, im­
ages that formed the basis of defense counsel’s vivid descrip­
tions  of  the  crimes—as  well  as  Spisak’s  boastful  and  unre­
pentant  confessions  and  his  threats  to  commit  further  acts 
of violence.  We therefore do not see how a less descriptive 
closing  argument  with  fewer  disparaging  comments  about 
Spisak could have made a signiﬁcant difference. 

Similarly fresh in the jurors’ minds was the three defense 
experts’ testimony  that Spisak  suffered from  mental illness. 
The  jury  had  heard  the  experts  explain  the  speciﬁc  facts 
upon which they had based their conclusions, as well as what 
they had learned of his family background and his struggles 
with  gender  identity.  And  the  jury  had  heard  the  experts 
draw connections between his mental illness and the crimes.