Opinion ID: 564919
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: johnson's claim of ineffective assistance of counsel at sentencing: contentions

Text: 15 Johnson argues he received ineffective assistance of counsel during the sentencing phase of his trial. He contends that his court-appointed counsel at sentencing and the court-appointed psychologist who assisted counsel and testified at the sentencing hearing were unprepared to put on an effective defense. He further asserts that counsel should have and inexplicably failed to inform the psychologist of Johnson's long history of drug abuse and addiction. Had this evidence been developed, he argues, sentencing counsel would have been able to create a record that probably would have influenced the sentencing judge to agree with the jury that life imprisonment was the appropriate sentence. Even if the judge did override the jury verdict, Johnson charges, the Supreme Court of Florida would have reversed that decision pursuant to Florida's Tedder standard. That standard requires that [i]n order to sustain a sentence of death following a jury recommendation of life, the facts suggesting a sentence of death should be so clear and convincing that virtually no reasonable person could differ. Tedder v. State, 322 So.2d 908, 910 (Fla.1975). 16 The State argues the claim is procedurally barred and even if the claim is not procedurally barred, the decision not to develop the drug abuse evidence was a strategic one and thus cannot constitute ineffective assistance of counsel. The district court agreed that the claim is procedurally barred. The court noted that Johnson sought to raise the claim in his Florida Rule 3.850 proceedings. The Supreme Court of Florida, however, rejected the claim because Johnson had not filed his rule 3.850 petition within the rule's time constraints. Therefore, the supreme court refused to review the claim on the merits. Johnson III, 536 So.2d at 1011.