Opinion ID: 2977007
Heading Depth: 5
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Failure to Request a Continuance

Text: We find Jells’s third argument, that his counsel were ineffective in failing to request a continuance to gather mitigation evidence, to be unpersuasive. Dr. Eisenberg testified that, when initially contacted by Jells’s counsel, he informed them that he did not have sufficient time to prepare a psychological evaluation because he needed more time “to collect records, to interview family members, [and] to work with the social worker to prepare a complete and thorough social history of [Jells].” Jells’s counsel did not request a continuance from the Ohio trial court. While the Court should not generally second guess trial strategy decisions such as requests for a continuance, see Strickland, 466 U.S. at 698, counsel’s choice in this case not to seek more time to prepare adequately for the mitigation phase violated their obligation to “conduct a thorough investigation” of potential mitigating evidence. Williams, 529 U.S. at 397. Because Jells’s counsel were under an obligation to investigate fully any potential mitigation evidence and were aware that gathering records of Jells’s social history would have assisted in presenting a psychological evaluation of Jells during the mitigation hearing, counsel’s failure to request more time to gather such evidence was objectively unreasonable. See Tucker v. Prelesnik, 181 F.3d 747, 756 (6th Cir. 1999) (finding that counsel was ineffective in failing to request a continuance when “he was (5) The offender’s lack of a significant history of prior criminal convictions and delinquency adjudications; (6) If the offender was a participant in the offense but not the principal offender, the degree of the offender’s participation in the offense and the degree of the offender’s participation in the acts that led to the death of the victim; (7) Any other factors that are relevant to the issue of whether the offender should be sentenced to death. Ohio Rev. Code § 2929.04(B) (emphasis added). No. 02-3505 Jells v. Mitchell Page 13 unprepared for trial and had not obtained critical evidence of which he was aware”). Nonetheless, it was not an unreasonable application of Strickland for the Ohio Court of Appeals to conclude that counsel’s failure to request a continuance did not constitute ineffective assistance. As noted above, this Court has generally afforded counsel great deference with regard to requesting continuances. See, e.g., Poindexter v. Mitchell, 454 F.3d 564, 575 (6th Cir. 2006). It was not unreasonable for the Ohio court to afford counsel the same deference in this case.