Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/boundvolumes/558bv.pdf
Page Number: 194.0

Cite as: 558 U. S. 30 (2009) 

33 

Per Curiam 

der  only.  On  direct  appeal,  the  Florida  Supreme  Court  af­
ﬁrmed  the  sentence  over  the  dissent  of  two  justices,  but 
struck  the  heinous,  atrocious,  or  cruel  aggravating  factor. 
Porter  v.  State,  564  So.  2d  1060  (1990)  (per  curiam).  The 
court found the State had not carried its burden on that fac­
tor because the “record is consistent with the hypothesis that 
Porter’s was a crime of passion, not a crime that was meant 
to be deliberately and extraordinarily painful.”  Id., at 1063 
(emphasis deleted).  The two dissenting justices would have 
reversed  the  penalty  because  the  evidence  of  drunkenness, 
“combined  with  evidence  of  Porter’s  emotionally  charged, 
desperate,  frustrated  desire  to  meet  with  his  former  lover, 
is sufﬁcient to render the death penalty disproportional pun­
ishment  in  this  instance.”  Id.,  at  1065–1066  (Barkett,  J., 
concurring in part and dissenting in part). 

In  1995,  Porter  ﬁled  a  petition  for  postconviction  relief  in 
state  court,  claiming  his  penalty-phase  counsel  failed  to  in­
vestigate  and  present  mitigating  evidence.  The  court  con­
ducted a 2-day evidentiary hearing, during which Porter pre­
sented  extensive  mitigating  evidence,  all  of  which  was 
apparently  unknown  to  his  penalty-phase  counsel.  Unlike 
the  evidence  presented  during  Porter’s  penalty  hearing, 
which left the jury knowing hardly anything about him other 
than  the  facts  of  his  crimes,  the  new  evidence  described  his 
abusive childhood, his heroic military service and the trauma 
he suffered because of it, his long-term substance abuse, and 
his impaired mental health and mental capacity. 

The  depositions  of  his  brother  and  sister  described  the 
abuse  Porter  suffered  as  a  child.  Porter  routinely  wit­
nessed his father beat his mother, one time so severely that 
she had to go to the hospital and lost a child.  Porter’s father 
was violent every weekend, and by his siblings’ account, Por­
ter was his father’s favorite target, particularly when Porter 
tried to protect his mother.  On one occasion, Porter’s father 
shot  at  him  for  coming  home  late,  but  missed  and  just  beat 
Porter  instead.  According  to  his  brother,  Porter  attended