Opinion ID: 149617
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Performance Prong: Family Background/Social History

Text: DeYoung contends his trial counsel Jones and O'Brien were ineffective for not adequately investigating and presenting evidence of DeYoung's family background and social history. The state habeas court's conclusion that DeYoung did not satisfy the performance prong of the ineffective assistance test is not contrary to clearly established federal law, does not involve an unreasonable application of clearly established federal law, and is not based on an unreasonable determination of the facts in light of the evidence presented in the state court proceeding. First, Jones and O'Brien conducted an extensive investigation into possible mitigation evidence. Both attorneys interviewed potential witnesses. O'Brien traveled to Iowa, Ohio, and Michigan to talk to members of DeYoung's family. Trial counsel retained investigator Stellmack and mitigation specialist Leonard. Stellmack subpoenaed DeYoung's school and work records and compiled a list of more than forty possible mitigation witnesses, including DeYoung's relatives, fellow church members, co-workers, friends, neighbors, and college and high school teachers. Someone from the defense team tried to contact every person on the list. [23] DeYoung's counsel argues that some evidence suggests the possibility that DeYoung might have been incestuously abused. What counsel ignores is that neither DeYoung, nor anyone else for that matter, ever testified that DeYoung was abused by either parent. Second, after having DeYoung's mental health evaluated and interviewing numerous possible mitigation witnesses, trial counsel made strategic choices that shaped the course of the final preparation. Before Jones was appointed to represent DeYoung, defense counsel's penalty-phase strategy was to have the psychiatrist talk about parricide and the dysfunction in the family in situations like this. But when Jones joined the defense team as lead counsel, he took a different approach. Jones's penalty-phase strategy was two-fold: to argue residual doubt and to call family members to plead for a merciful sentence. Jones believed the testimony of DeYoung's family members would be particularly compelling because they were also related to the murdered victims in the case: You know, when you have got the family of the victims ... coming in and asking the jury to spare their grandson's life, I don't know how much more compelling mitigation evidence you can get. ... ... I don't know what else we could have presented ... that would have been as good as that. Jones testified that we went with what we thought would work at the time. Trial counsel investigated several avenues of potential mitigation, but Jones wanted to avoid a mitigation approach that would involve trying to trash [DeYoung's] parents because it might alienate the grandparents, whom Jones saw as potentially the most valuable witnesses. [24] Third, as the state habeas court found, many of the witnesses trial counsel contacted, including several who later furnished affidavits to state habeas counsel, were reluctant to testify at trial. After interviewing potential witnesses, Stellmack told O'Brien that no one is exactly jumping at the idea of testifying on [DeYoung's] behalf. Stellmack testified, People were pretty reluctant to even become involved or be associated with the case. Even DeYoung's grandparents were initially reluctant to testify. Nathan DeYoung never returned Stellmack's calls, and Nathan's girlfriend told Stellmack that Nathan had no interest in testifying. DeYoung's minister, Chris Devos, was hesitant to discuss a lot of details, and informed Stellmack only what you would expect from a pastor, that is, that the DeYoungs attended his church, they came to church on a regular basis, they seemed like a nice family. Stellmack tried to interview DeYoung's co-workers, but except for Kathy Albright, they refused to talk to him. Stellmack testified that it was really difficult to find anyone, either in the church group or in the neighborhood[,] that could really shed a lot of light on the family dynamics of the DeYoung family. Moreover, some of the witnesses who eventually provided affidavits to state habeas counsel had information that was harmful. For example, there was evidence that DeYoung sold marijuana at the Burger King where he worked, and Jones and O'Brien were hesitant to call DeYoung's co-workers who might be able to testify to that. And O'Brien was concerned that if DeYoung's college professors testified about a decline in DeYoung's academic performance around the time of the murders, the jury might find that testimony suggestive of the fact that something was going on. Daphne Collins told defense counsel that DeYoung told her he hated his parents and wanted them dead, and Cooper Etheridge told defense counsel he was not surprised by news of the murders because DeYoung had mentioned killing his parents and, in fact, said that he wanted to kill everybody. Given the record in this case, the state habeas court's decision that DeYoung's trial counsel's performance was not deficient is consistent with established Supreme Court precedent. Counsel investigated different lines of mitigation and then made a strategic choice to employ residual doubt and family plea for mercy approaches in the penalty phase. Again, strategic choices made after thorough investigation of law and facts relevant to plausible options are virtually unchallengeable; and strategic choices made after less than complete investigation are reasonable precisely to the extent that reasonable professional judgments support the limitations on investigation. Strickland, 466 U.S. at 690-91, 104 S.Ct. at 2066. Under the circumstances, counsel's choices, and their investigation, fell well within the wide range of professionally competent assistance. Id. at 690, 104 S.Ct. at 2066. DeYoung's attempts to analogize this situation to Wiggins v. Smith, 539 U.S. 510, 123 S.Ct. 2527, 156 L.Ed.2d 471 (2003), and Williams v. Taylor, 529 U.S. 362, 120 S.Ct. 1495, 146 L.Ed.2d 389 (2000), are unavailing. In Wiggins, trial counsel performed no investigation into the defendant's personal history other than reading a one-page summary in the presentence investigation report (PSI) and obtaining department of social services (DSS) records. Wiggins, 539 U.S. at 523-24, 123 S.Ct. at 2536. Moreover, Wiggins's counsel did not investigate Wiggins's childhood, even though: (1) the PSI noted Wiggins's misery as a youth, quoted Wiggins's own description of his background as disgusting, and observed that Wiggins spent most of his life in foster care; and (2) the DSS records revealed Wiggins's mother was a chronic alcoholic; Wiggins was shuttled from foster home to foster home and displayed some emotional difficulties while there; he had frequent, lengthy absences from school; and, on at least one occasion, his mother left him and his siblings alone for days without food. Id. at 523-25, 123 S.Ct. at 2536-37. Wiggins's counsel discovered no evidence suggesting that further investigation would be fruitless or a mitigation case counterproductive, and the record showed that counsel's failure to investigate thoroughly resulted from inattention, not reasoned strategic judgment. Id. at 525-26, 123 S.Ct. at 2537. And in Williams, the defendant's trial counsel did not begin to prepare for the penalty phase until a week before trial, and failed to conduct an investigation that would have uncovered extensive records graphically describing Williams' nightmarish childhood, not because of any strategic calculation but because they incorrectly thought that state law barred access to such records. Williams, 529 U.S. at 395, 120 S.Ct. at 1514. The present case is easily distinguishable from Wiggins and Williams, as Jones and O'Brien conducted an extensive investigation and made express strategic choices. This case is more akin to Bobby v. Van Hook, ___ U.S. ___, 130 S.Ct. 13, 19, 175 L.Ed.2d 255 (2009), in which the Supreme Court recognized a point of diminishing returns in the broad search for mitigating evidence: Despite all the mitigating evidence the defense did present, Van Hook and the Court of Appeals fault his counsel for failing to find more. What his counsel did discover, the argument goes, gave them reason to suspect that much worse details existed, and that suspicion should have prompted them to interview other family members-his stepsister, two uncles, and two aunts-as well as a psychiatrist who once treated his mother, all of whom could have helped his counsel narrate the true story of Van Hook's childhood experiences. But there comes a point at which evidence from more distant relatives can reasonably be expected to be only cumulative, and the search for it distractive from more important duties. The ABA Standards prevailing at the time called for Van Hook's counsel to cover several broad categories of mitigating evidence, which they did. And given all the evidence they unearthed from those closest to Van Hook's upbringing and the experts who reviewed his history, it was not unreasonable for his counsel not to identify and interview every other living family member or every therapist who once treated his parents. This is not a case in which the defendant's attorneys failed to act while potentially powerful mitigating evidence stared them in the face, cf. Wiggins, 539 U.S., at 525, 123 S.Ct. 2527, 156 L.Ed.2d 471. ... It is instead a case, like Strickland itself, in which defense counsel's decision not to seek more mitigating evidence from the defendant's background than was already in hand fell well within the range of professionally reasonable judgments. Van Hook, 130 S.Ct. at 19 (citations omitted).