Opinion ID: 2806518
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Prejudice at the penalty phase

Text: To determine whether Barranco’s failure to investigate and uncover mitigating evidence prejudiced Bemore, we must consider both whether there is “a reasonable probability that a competent attorney, aware of this [evidence], would have introduced it at sentencing,” and that “had the jury been BEMORE V. CHAPPELL 43 confronted with this considerable mitigating evidence, there is a reasonable probability that it would have returned with a different sentence.” Id. at 535, 536. If no reasonable jurist could disagree that the mitigating evidence a proper investigation would have uncovered “may have meant the difference between a life or death sentence,” Daniels v. Woodford, 428 F.3d at 1210, we must grant relief. See Pinholster, 131 S.Ct. at 1403. The available mitigating mental health evidence was compelling. Even without the benefit of a final diagnosis, Dr. Fineman had determined, before trial, that Bemore had organic brain damage and “a fundamental inability to control his behavior” when his “needs press upon him.” Reviewing Dr. Fineman’s report in light of information about Bemore’s drug use just before the crime and his history of erratic, explosive behavior, Dr. Rosenthal stated that whatever Bemore’s specific condition might be, it was clear at the time of trial that his ability “to appreciate the criminality of his conduct or to conform his conduct to the requirements of the law was impaired.” Cal. Penal Code § 190.3(h). Dr. Fineman’s and Dr. Rosenthal’s conclusions would have been bolstered by Dr. Wright’s statement that “[o]nce Bemore stated using Crack he was no longer able to control his behavior,” and by available testimony from Bemore’s friends that he was prone to uncontrollable manic-like episodes. Troy Patterson, for example, stated in his declaration that, had he been asked, he would have testified that, at the time of the Aztec incident, Bemore was “constantly using mind-altering drugs” that “made him crazy . . . flip out, go out of his mind and lose control of himself.” At the penalty phase, the jury was explicitly instructed to take mental health evidence into account, by considering whether Bemore was “under the influence of mental or emotional disturbance” and whether his “capacity . . . to 44 BEMORE V. CHAPPELL appreciate the criminality of his conduct or to conform his conduct to the requirements of the law was impaired as a result of mental disease or defect or effects of intoxication.” The prosecution affirmatively addressed each of these issues during closing argument, emphatically stating that Bemore “wasn’t under the influence of any extreme mental or emotional disturbance,” and that his capacity to conform his conduct with the law was not diminished by intoxication or mental defect. Had the mental health evidence been presented, this reductive argument could not have been made. At the capital penalty phase, where the jury is given broad latitude to consider all factors that bear on whether a defendant ought to live or die, see Frierson, 463 F.3d at 993, a reasonably competent attorney would have presented that evidence, see Wiggins, 539 U.S. at 535–36. That Cosby received twenty-five years to life for Muck’s murder is also of some relevance to our conclusion regarding Strickland prejudice.21 Cosby, whose attorneys presented evidence of impaired judgment due to drug use and organic brain damage, received this lesser sentence despite his having been concurrently convicted, by a single jury, of a second robbery and murder. In ruling on a motion to reconsider Bemore’s death sentence, Judge Gill stated that the significantly different sentence in the Cosby trial was “in [his] mind.” He was satisfied that the discrepancy was justified, however, because in “the case of Mr. Cosby there was some fairly convincing evidence [of] head trauma he sustained as an infant . . . [and] demonstrable physiological damages and deficits.” He noted that “[t]here’s no such evidence in the case of Mr. Bemore.” Had mental health 21 The result in Cosby’s trial is, of course, not itself a sufficient basis for determining the likely impact of mental health evidence in Bemore’s penalty phase. C.f. Pulley v. Harris, 465 U.S. 37, 43–46 (1984). BEMORE V. CHAPPELL 45 evidence been presented, “there is clearly a reasonable probability that the . . . jury—and the . . . judge—‘would have struck a different balance,’ and it [was] unreasonable to conclude otherwise.” Porter, 558 U.S. at 42 (quoting Wiggins, 539 U.S. at 537). Our conclusions with regard to IAC at the guilt phase further support our conclusion that it would have been objectively unreasonable for the state court to conclude that the Strickland prejudice standard was not met at the penalty phase. First, as a general matter, “[e]vidence that might not rise to the level of defense of a crime may nonetheless be important mitigating evidence.” Stanley v. Schriro, 598 F.3d 612, 624 (9th Cir. 2010). And second, in this instance, counsel’s guilt phase IAC in choosing, between two inadequately investigated defenses, each unlikely to succeed, a weak alibi defense likely to undermine Bemore’s credibility and thus the likelihood of jury sympathy for him, could well have contributed to the outcome of the penalty phase. The two ineffective representation decisions—not putting on a mental health mitigation defense at the penalty phase, and putting on a guilt phase defense both unlikely to succeed and likely adversely to affect the jury’s view of Bemore for the penalty phase—must be viewed cumulatively in determining whether the Strickland prejudice standard was met with regard to the jury’s decision to sentence Bemore to death. See Chambers v. Mississippi, 410 U.S. 284, 290 n.3 (1973); Sanders v. Ryder, 342 F.3d 991, 1001 (9th Cir. 2003). As the state indicates, the prosecution did present significant aggravating evidence, including allegations of assault and rape. But mitigating mental health evidence would have proven a heavy counterweight. In addition to lessening Bemore’s culpability for the Aztec crimes, such testimony would likely have affected the jury’s opinion with regard to the unadjudicated offenses. 46 BEMORE V. CHAPPELL Prejudice under Strickland does not require a showing that counsel’s actions “more likely than not altered the outcome.” Strickland, 466 U.S. at 693. For Bemore to have avoided the death penalty, only one juror need have been persuaded by mitigating evidence to show mercy and vote against a capital sentence. So Bemore need only show that counsel’s errors were “sufficient to undermine confidence in the outcome” reached by a single juror. Id. at 694.22 In denying Bemore’s penalty-phase IAC claim, the state court “either did not consider or unreasonably discounted the mitigation evidence” that could have been presented. Porter, 558 U.S. at 42. We conclude that mitigating mental health evidence, combined with a different guilt phase strategy, “‘might well have influenced the jury’s appraisal’ of [Bemore’s] moral culpability,” Wiggins, 539 U.S. at 538 (quoting Williams, 529 U.S. at 398), and that the state court’s contrary conclusion constituted an unreasonable application of Strickland.