Opinion ID: 4095301
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: wiggins

Text: This COA application involves essentially the same legal issues which we discussed at length in our recent decision in Trevino v. Davis, 829 F.3d 328 (5th Cir. 2016) (hereinafter Trevino v. Davis), on remand from the Supreme Court in Trevino. Most relevantly, it concerns the Supreme Court’s analysis of a claim for failure to investigate and present mitigation evidence in Wiggins. 8 In Wiggins, the petitioner’s trial counsel did not conduct much of an investigation or put on an actual mitigation case; they merely made a proffer to the trial court of the type of mitigation case they would have presented if the trial court had granted a bifurcation motion. The petitioner sought state habeas relief, asserting an ineffectiveassistance-of-trial-counsel claim for failure to investigate. In support, he submitted a social worker’s “extensive social history report detailing severe physical and sexual abuse by his own father and mother as well as various foster parents,” as well as testimony regarding his trial attorneys’ failure to investigate mitigating evidence. His trial counsel had decided to focus on the 6 28 U.S.C. § 2253(c)(2) and (3). 7 Miller–El v. Cockrell, 537 U.S. 322, 336, 123 S. Ct. 1029, 1039, 154 L. Ed. 2d 931 (2003) (internal quotations and citations omitted). 8 See Trevino v. Davis, 829 F.3d at 341-46. 8 Case: 15-70028 Document: 00513745396 Page: 9 Date Filed: 11/03/2016 No. 15-70028 guilt phase of trial rather than punishment, and they did not retain a social worker to prepare a social history, even though the state had made funds available for that purpose. The state habeas court denied relief on the ground that the trial counsels’ decision to focus on the factual case constituted a trial tactic protected by Strickland’s “heavy measurement of deference.” The Supreme Court eventually reversed. First, it explained that a trial attorney’s decision not to present mitigation evidence is only justified after that attorney has fulfilled his or her “obligation to conduct a thorough investigation of the defendant’s background.” 9 The Court emphasized that under Strickland, courts must objectively review trial counsels’ performance for “reasonableness under prevailing professional norms, which includes a context-dependent consideration of the challenged conduct as seen from counsel’s perspective at the time.” 10 The Court explained that not only was the trial counsels’ extremely limited-scope investigation deficient on its own, but even that deficient investigation disclosed facts which would have led a reasonable attorney to investigate further, including his mother’s alcoholism, his time in various foster homes, his apparent emotional difficulties, and his poor treatment at the hands of caretakers. 11 The Court emphasized that the trial counsels’ decision not to put on a mitigation case was inexcusable because the attorneys had simply failed to conduct any reasonable investigation. 12 It summed up: In finding that [the trial counsels’] investigation did not meet Strickland’s performance standards, we emphasize that Strickland does not require counsel to investigate every conceivable line of mitigating evidence no matter how unlikely the 9 Wiggins, 539 U.S. at 522 (citing Williams v. Taylor, 529 U.S. 362, 120 S. Ct. 1495, 146 L. Ed. 2d 389, 396 (2000), and Strickland, 466 U.S. at 690-91). 10 Id. at 523 (internal quotation marks and citations omitted). 11 Id. at 523-25. 12 Id. at 525. 9 Case: 15-70028 Document: 00513745396 Page: 10 Date Filed: 11/03/2016 No. 15-70028 effort would be to assist the defendant at sentencing. Nor does Strickland require defense counsel to present mitigating evidence at sentencing in every case. Both conclusions would interfere with the “constitutionally protected independence of counsel” at the heart of Strickland. We base our conclusion on the much more limited principle that “strategic choices made after less than complete investigation are reasonable” only to the extent that “reasonable professional judgments support the limitations on investigation.” A decision not to investigate thus “must be directly assessed for reasonableness in all the circumstances.” 13 The Supreme Court also concluded that his trial counsels’ deficient performance also prejudiced him because the mitigation evidence they failed to uncover was “powerful.” It showed a history of severe abuse, starting with his “alcoholic, absentee mother” and continuing through an unbroken series of extreme hardships—“the kind of troubled history we have declared relevant to assessing a defendant’s moral culpability.” 14 Because Wiggins had satisfied both prongs of Strickland, the Supreme Court reversed and remanded.