Opinion ID: 78459
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 9

Heading: Trial Counsel's Penalty-Phase Opening Statement and Closing Argument

Text: The district court first concluded that the state courts' finding that Leinster's comments, when considered in context, reflect[ed] an acceptable effort to regain credibility with the jury, was a reasonable application of the first prong of Strickland. R3-32 at 46. The district court further agreed with the state courts' finding that Leinster did not concede a lack of mitigation, noting that the record showed that Leinster made a valid argument that the jury should find the mitigating circumstance of extreme mental or emotional disturbance based upon testimony of the State's own witnesses who described Windom on that day as different from the way he had been all of his life. Id. at 47. The district court disagreed, however, with the state courts' conclusion that Leinster's concession of the existence of CCP constituted a reasonable trial strategy ... to be realistic about the facts of the case in order to restore a measure of credibility to the defense. Id. (quotation marks and citation omitted). Noting that there could have been no conceivable benefit to trial counsel conceding one out of only two aggravating circumstances on which the jury was instructed, the court concluded that Leinster's concession that CCP applied `by definition' reflected an obvious misapprehension of the law and therefore could not be `a reasonable' strategy. Id. at 48. Nevertheless, the court found, the state courts' finding that Windom was not prejudiced by Leinster's improper concession of the CCP aggravator was not an unreasonable application of Strickland and thus Windom was not entitled to relief.