Opinion ID: 4014803
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: “double-edged” evidence

Text: The district court focused on the fact that Wiggins does not necessarily apply when the proposed “new” evidence is “double-edged,” as Wiggins itself explained. Therefore, the two cases the Supreme Court cited in Wiggins for such evidence, Burger and Darden, are worth examining briefly. In Burger, the petitioner’s trial counsel was aware of some, but not all, of his troubled family history, including his “unhappy and unstable childhood,” one of his stepfathers getting him involved in marijuana and alcohol, his running away from home and being placed in a juvenile detention home, and similar facts. 57 During his investigation, trial counsel had talked to the petitioner’s mother, an old friend of the petitioner’s, a psychologist counsel had employed to examine him prior to trial, and others, before deciding not to present evidence of his childhood. 58 Counsel also decided not to have the petitioner testify on the ground that he showed no remorse and might actually brag about the crime on the witness stand. 59 The petitioner argued that his attorney should have conducted more of an investigation, but the Court concluded that the proposed “new” testimony 56 539 U.S. at 535 (emphasis added). 57 Burger, 483 U.S. at 789-90. 58 Id. at 790-91. 59 Id. at 791-92. 26 Case: 15-70019 Document: 00513587138 Page: 27 Date Filed: 07/11/2016 No. 15-70019 could not have helped. The proposed testimony contained only meager mitigation evidence and a substantial amount of aggravating evidence, including the fact that he had spent time in juvenile detention, which had not been disclosed at trial, and that he had violent tendencies and seemed to have a split personality that resulted in unpredictable angry outbursts. 60 As the Court noted, “Even apart from their references to damaging facts, the papers are by no means uniformly helpful to petitioner because they suggest violent tendencies that are at odds with the defense’s strategy of portraying petitioner’s actions on the night of the murder as the result of Stevens’ strong influence upon his will.” 61 In short, the petitioner’s trial counsel in Burger had conducted a fairly extensive investigation into mitigation evidence and had made considered judgments in choosing not to present some seemingly mitigating evidence. The evidence trial counsel failed to discover through his investigation contained a great deal of aggravating evidence and therefore its absence could not have prejudiced him. In Darden, the petitioner argued that he had received ineffective assistance of trial counsel on the ground that his attorney spent insufficient time preparing the mitigation case and had opted to “rely on a simple plea for mercy from petitioner himself.” 62 The Court found that his trial counsel had spent hundreds of hours preparing his case, including mitigation. The problem was that there simply was no mitigating evidence that would not have permitted the state to bring in even stronger aggravating evidence to rebut it. 63 Any argument that he was nonviolent would have allowed the state to bring in 60 Id. at 793-95. 61 Id. at 793. 62 Darden, 477 U.S. at 186. 63 Id. 27 Case: 15-70019 Document: 00513587138 Page: 28 Date Filed: 07/11/2016 No. 15-70019 evidence of his prior convictions, which had not previously been admitted in evidence, and any argument that he was incapable of committing the crimes would have allowed the state to introduce a psychiatric report indicating he very well could have based on his “sociopathic type of personality,” among other damaging rebuttal evidence. 64 Accordingly, the Court concluded that the trial counsel’s decision to rely on a simple plea of mercy, following the investigation and consideration of potentially mitigating evidence, constituted a defensible trial strategy under Strickland. 65