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Page Number: 187

26 

WONG  v.  BELMONTES 

Per Curiam 

clear  that  it  would  come  in  for  certain  rebuttal  purposes, 
id., at 2256, 2332–2334.  When Schick elicited testimony that 
Belmontes was not violent, for example, the judge ordered it 
stricken and warned Schick that he would admit the Howard 
murder  evidence—to  let  the  prosecution  “go  into  the  whole 
background”—if Schick pressed forward.  Id., at 2334. 

In  balancing  the  mitigating  factors  against  the  aggrava­
tors, the Court of Appeals repeatedly referred to the aggra­
vating  evidence  the  State  presented  as  “scant.”  529  F.  3d, 
at  870,  873,  874,  875,  878.  That  characterization  misses 
Strickland’s point that the reviewing court must consider all 
the evidence—the good and the bad—when evaluating preju­
dice.  See Strickland, 466 U. S., at 695–696, 700.  Here, the 
worst  kind  of  bad  evidence  would  have  come  in  with  the 
good.  The  only  reason  it  did  not  was  because  Schick  was 
careful  in  his  mitigation  case.  The  State’s  aggravation  evi­
dence  could  only  be  characterized  as  “scant”  if  one  ignores 
the  “elephant  in  the  courtroom”—Belmontes’  role  in  the 
Howard  murder—that  would  have  been  presented  had 
Schick  submitted  the  additional  mitigation  evidence.  Bel­
montes v.  Ayers, 551 F. 3d 864, 867 (CA9 2008) (Callahan, J., 
dissenting from denial of rehearing en banc). 

Even  on  the  record  before  it—which  did  not  include  the 
Howard murder—the state court determined that Belmontes 
“was  convicted  on  extremely  strong  evidence  that  he  com­
mitted  an  intentional  murder  of  extraordinary  brutality.” 
Belmontes, 45  Cal. 3d, at 819,  755 P. 2d, at  354.  That court 
also  noted  that  “[t]he  properly  admitted  aggravating  evi­
dence  in  this  case—in  particular,  the  circumstances  of  the 
crime—was simply overwhelming.”  Id., at 809, 755 P. 2d, at 
348  (citation  omitted).  The  Ninth  Circuit  saw  the  murder 
differently.  It  viewed  the  circumstances  of  the  crime  as 
only “conceivably signiﬁcant” as an aggravating factor.  529 
F. 3d, at 871.  In particular, the Court of Appeals concluded 
that “[t]he crime  here did not involve .  . . needless suffering 
on the part of the victim.”  Ibid.