Opinion ID: 4530962
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Denial of Relief on IAC

Text: The district court noted that trial counsel’s strategy at the penalty stage had been to argue that Benson “was a ‘normal’ little boy on the Buchanans’ Petaluma farm, who was not born evil, but was a poor child taken from a normal life at the ranch and exposed to severe deprivation when his father took him and his brothers away from the ranch.” The court then reviewed the mitigating evidence that Benson contends should have been presented including his predisposition to mental illness, exposure to alcohol in his mother’s womb, the physical, sexual, and psychological abuse inflicted on Benson BENSON V. CHAPPELL 37 by the Buchanans, and his numerous serious and longstanding mental deficiencies. The district court nonetheless denied relief on Benson’s IAC claim, reasoning: Having before it, as it did, petitioner’s complete social history and the psychiatric diagnoses of Drs. Able [sic] and Foster, the California Supreme Court could reasonably have concluded that the additional information provided in connection with petitioner’s first state habeas petition would have been insufficient to establish a reasonable probability that at least one juror would be persuaded to sentence petitioner to life without parole instead of the death penalty. Although petitioner’s current account of his history is sordid and awful, his crimes were heinous, and the aggravating evidence presented by the prosecution was also sordid. The state court could reasonably have concluded that presenting petitioner as a normal little boy who was removed from a nurturing environment on the Buchanan farm and exposed to severe deprivation while living with his father might have benefitted petitioner, and that such a person would be more worthy of sympathy and a life sentence than someone who was environmentally and genetically damaged beyond rehabilitation from the beginning. 38 BENSON V. CHAPPELL The district court distinguished the then-most-recent Ninth Circuit case, Stankewitz v. Wong, 698 F.3d 1163 (9th Cir. 2012). The court noted that unlike counsel in Stankewitz, Benson’s counsel did present mitigating evidence,14 and that Benson had “committed four murders which, however callous, were far from impulsive.” The district court concluded that Benson’s claim of IAC at the penalty stage “[did] not survive review under AEDPA.”