Court Opinion

ID: 9488136
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 12:37:26.658349+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:52:43.103642
License: Public Domain

MORRIS SHEPPARD ARNOLD, Circuit Judge,
dissenting and concurring.
I respectfully dissent from so much of the court’s judgment as affirms the district court because I do not believe that counsel’s strategy was unreasonable and because my confidence in the result reached in this case is not undermined. Insanity defenses are notoriously difficult because jurors are reluctant to accept them. Indeed, many juries are, rightly or wrongly, inflamed by them. I am thus unable to join the court’s conclusion that there is a reasonable probability that the jury in this case would have returned a verdict of not guilty by reason of insanity.
I concur in the opinion of the court in all other respects.