Opinion ID: 612544
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Summary of Performance Prong

Text: We recognize that we must affirmatively entertain the range of possible reasons [Foust]'s counsel may have had for proceeding as they did. Pinholster, 131 S.Ct. at 1407 (internal quotation marks omitted). However, `strategic choices made after less than complete investigation are reasonable precisely to the extent that reasonable professional judgments support the limitations on investigation.' Wiggins, 539 U.S. at 528, 123 S.Ct. 2527 (quoting Strickland, 466 U.S. at 690-91, 104 S.Ct. 2052). Put differently, an unreasonably truncated mitigation investigation is not cured simply because some steps were taken prior to the penalty-phase hearing and because some evidence was placed before the jury. Johnson v. Bagley, 544 F.3d 592, 602 (6th Cir.2008) (citing Rompilla, 545 U.S. at 382-83, 125 S.Ct. 2456, in which the Supreme Court found an investigation unreasonable even though the attorneys spoke to the defendant, five family members, and three mental-health witnesses). Foust's attorneys acted similarly to the attorneys in Johnson. In that case, we concluded that counsel failed adequately to investigate and present Johnson's family history, even though a doctor testified at the mitigation hearing that Johnson's family unit was `someplace between terrible and chaotic,' that [the defendant's] neighborhood was `less than optimal,' and that [his mother] `was abusing drugs heavily at the time of Johnson's birth. 544 F.3d at 602 (internal alteration marks and citations omitted). Although Foust's counsel presented some evidence at the mitigation hearing, their investigation was inadequate. Without acquiring rudimentary details, Foust's attorneys could not have made a reasonable professional judgment to limit their investigation. There is simply no strategic reason for Foust's counsel not interviewing family members, not obtaining records, not consulting with Karpawich, and not hiring a mitigation specialist. Because there is no reasonable argument that Foust's attorneys lived up to the minimum standard of representation that the Sixth Amendment ensures, the Ohio Court of Appeals unreasonably applied Strickland.