Opinion ID: 2974292
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: The Ohio Supreme Court Decision

Text: On direct review, the Ohio Supreme Court held that Petitioner did not receive ineffective assistance of counsel in violation of the Sixth Amendment.2 Williams, 528 N.E.2d at 921. Applying Strickland, the court determined, without analysis, that defense counsel’s failure to investigate and present mitigating evidence was reasonable under prevailing professional norms. See id. In light of its finding that defense counsel did not err, it declined to address whether defense counsel’s performance was prejudicial. Id. 2 The entirety of the Ohio Supreme Court’s decision addressing this issue is reproduced below. Petitioner’s eleventh, seventeenth and twentieth propositions of law concern his contentions that he was denied effective assistance of counsel at the guilt and mitigation phases of his trial and also at the appellate level. Strickland v. Washington . . . sets forth the test to be applied in determining whether a Petitioner has been denied effective assistance of counsel. Applying this test, we find that [Petitioner] received the assistance of counsel to which he was entitled. The first prong of the Strickland test requires [Petitioner] to show that his counsel’s performance was deficient. Here, defense counsel made no errors serious enough to deprive [Petitioner] of the ‘counsel’ guaranteed by the Sixth Amendment. While defense counsel’s trial and appellate strategy might have been debatable, they fell within the wide range of reasonable professional assistance. Therefore, we need not proceed to the second prong of the Strickland test, which requires that [Petitioner] show that counsel’s deficient performance prejudiced his defense. These propositions of law are not well-taken. Williams, 528 N.E.2d at 921. Nos. 04-3515/3585 Williams v. Anderson Page 9