Opinion ID: 799074
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 13

Heading: Failure to investigate and present certain mitigating evidence

Text: At the penalty phase, Stephens' counsel presented ten witnesses to testify to Stephens' good qualities. Stephens argues, however, that counsel failed to adequately investigate other mitigating evidence. The Florida Supreme Court addressed this issue as follows: Counsel testified at the evidentiary hearing that his strategy was to humanize Stephens by calling family and friends to testify that Stephens was a loving person, that he had good relations with children, and that he took care of different children. This strategy was especially important because the case involved the death of a child. Counsel further testified that he was trying to get the jury to hear good things about Stephens in an attempt to get a life sentence. The record demonstrates that counsel did in fact call ten lay witnesses during the penalty phase. All ten witnesses testified that Stephens was a loving, cheerful, and bright person who came from a loving family and who was good with children. Stephens contends that counsel failed to discover many of the details that established compelling mitigation, such as his drug use, an incident where Stephens started a fire at a neighbor's house, and the accidental shooting of Stephens' brother. However, counsel testified that he did not consider these incidents as mitigation and that such information went against his strategy to portray Stephens as a good guy. Stephens II, 975 So.2d at 414. A recent line of cases from this Court emphasizes the importance of penalty phase investigation, particularly where a defendant may have a prior history of mental illness or disability or a history of abuse and neglect in the home. For example, in Williams v. Allen, 542 F.3d 1326 (11th Cir.2008), we held that, where the abuse experienced by a defendant far exceeds that which was presented at the penalty phase, counsel was deficient, and the defendant prejudiced, by counsel's failure to present the additional evidence. Here, however, counsel's strategy was to omit all negative evidence about Stephens' childhood. There was evidence presented at the post-conviction phase regarding abuse that Stephens suffered at the hands of his father, that Stephens was a habitual drug user and had been using drugs on the day of Sparrow III's death, that he had accidentally set fire to his neighbor's house at the age of eight, and that he accidentally shot his brother. Under these circumstances, it was reasonable for counsel to conclude that failure to present such evidence would have undermined his good guy penalty phase strategy. Contrary to the circumstances of Williams v. Allen , where counsel failed to fully investigate the line of defense he actually pursued, and where the jury did not hear all of the mitigating evidence related to that specific defense, here, Stephens claims that counsel was ineffective for failing to present testimony that was opposite to, and would have entirely undermined, counsel's strategy. While counsel has a duty to investigate potentially mitigating circumstances, [2] pursuit of the good guy defense was reasonable in this case, and counsel may reasonably decline to investigate a line of defense thoroughly, where such investigation would lead only to facts that would be harmful to the defense. Chandler v. United States, 218 F.3d 1305, 1318 (11th Cir.2000) ( en banc ). The Florida Supreme Court's conclusion that counsel was not deficient for failing to investigate these additional circumstances was therefore not contrary to or an unreasonable application of clearly established federal law. Stephens' claim that counsel failed to consult and call mental health experts as witnesses in mitigation of his crime likewise fails because it is unsupported by the record: Counsel testified at the evidentiary hearing that he consulted two experts, Dr. Ernest Miller and Dr. Peter Knox. He further testified that he did not consult both experts just to know if Stephens was competent to stand trial or if Stephens was insane at the time of the crime, but also to see if they could help determine if there was any mental health mitigation. Counsel testified that after reviewing the reports of both experts, he believed the experts' conclusions were detrimental to Stephens and that it would not be in Stephens' best interest to present the findings. Stephens II, 975 So.2d at 414. The trial court credited this testimony, and the Florida Supreme Court determined that this was sufficient to investigate Stephens' mental health for purposes of the guilt phase of his capital trial. Additionally, at the evidentiary hearing, counsel testified that he had not wanted to call Dr. Miller because the state would have then been able to highlight several incidents contained in Dr. Miller's report, specifically the arson incident, the accidental shooting, and the fact that Stephens had been expelled from school for fighting. Counsel testified that he did not want the jury to hear about these facts because he believed that they were adverse to counsel's good guy defense strategy. Similarly, Dr. Knox's report indicated that Stephens may have suffered from an anti-social personality disorder. At the evidentiary hearing, counsel told the court that he did not consider such evidence as mitigation evidence, and that I don't ever want the jury to hear that. During the evidentiary hearing, the trial court heard the testimony of a third mental health expert, Dr. Jethrow Toomer, who claimed that he could have made further findings regarding Stephens' mental health and presented these to the jury. However, because Dr. Toomer testified that Stephens' mental health issues were based on low IQ and a troubled family upbringing, the Florida Supreme Court found that . . . Dr. Toomer's findings would have been damaging to the good guy image that counsel was attempting to portray. Counsel cannot be deemed ineffective when he made a strategic decision to focus on the positive aspects of Stephens' life instead of seeking a third opinion. Stephens II, 975 So.2d at 415. See also Haliburton v. Sec'y for Dep't of Corr., 342 F.3d 1233, 1244-45 (11th Cir.2003) (concluding that counsel's decision to humanize the defendant through lay testimony rather than call a mental health expert who might have hurt the defense was not deficient performance). We therefore cannot say that the Florida Supreme Court's resolution of this claim was contrary to or an unreasonable application of clearly established federal law.