Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/21pdf/21-511_o75p.pdf
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SHOOP v. TWYFORD 

Opinion of the Court 

killed Franks out of revenge.  A jury convicted Twyford of 
aggravated  murder,  kidnapping,  robbery,  and  other 
charges, and he was sentenced to death.  The Ohio appel-
late  courts  affirmed  his  conviction  and  sentence,  State  v. 
Twyford,  94  Ohio  St.  3d  340,  763  N. E.  2d  122,  and  this 
Court denied certiorari, 537 U. S. 917 (2002). 

Twyford  then  sought  postconviction  relief  in  Ohio  state 
court.  Relevant here, he claimed that his trial counsel was 
ineffective for failing to present evidence of a head injury 
Twyford sustained as a teenager during a suicide attempt. 
That injury, Twyford argued, left him “unable to make ra-
tional and voluntary choices.”  State v. Twyford, 2001 WL 
301411, *10 (Ohio App. 7th, Mar. 19, 2001).  The Ohio trial 
court and Court of Appeals rejected this claim on the mer-
its, concluding that “a finding of ineffective assistance can-
not be based upon the trial counsel’s choice of one compet-
ing  psychological  explanation  over  another.”  Id.,  at  *13. 
The  Court  of  Appeals  noted  that  Twyford’s  counsel  had 
called  a  psychologist  who  testified  in  support  of  a  com-
pletely different theory: that Twyford’s “commission of the 
murder  was  his  way  of  protecting  the  alleged  rape  victim 
from  the  same  type  of  abusive  behavior  [he]  had  experi-
enced when he was young.”  Ibid.  Unlike the head injury 
theory,  this  one explained  Twyford’s  seemingly  deliberate
and rational actions: planning a fake hunting trip as a ruse 
to lure Franks to a remote location, dismembering his body, 
and disposing of it in such a way as would conceal his iden-
tity.  This  theory  was  also  consistent  with  Twyford’s  own 
written confession, which described his plan in detail.  The 
Ohio Supreme Court denied review.  State v.  Twyford, 95 
Ohio St. 3d 1436, 2002-Ohio-2084, 766 N. E. 2d 1002 (Ta-
ble).

In 2003, Twyford filed a petition in federal court for ha-
beas relief, from which this case stems.  Despite the passing
of  two  decades,  relatively  little  has  happened.   The  State 
moved in 2008 to dismiss many of Twyford’s claims on the