Court Opinion

ID: 9496645
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 16:31:32.871207+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:57:42.130750
License: Public Domain

BATCHELDER, Circuit Judge,
dissenting.
I respectfully dissent from the granting of the writ, although I agree that counsel’s assistance during the penalty phase of Hamblin’s capital trial was deficient. The majority opinion correctly reflects that pri- or to both the 2003 revisions to the 1989 ABA Guidelines, and the Supreme Court’s decision in Wiggins v. Smith, — U.S. -, 123 S.Ct. 2527, 156 L.Ed.2d 471 (2003), this circuit handed down several cases requiring that defense counsel in a capital case perform a complete mitigation investigation, including inquiry into the defendant’s social, physical, medical and mental history. This case law, which involved assistance of counsel rendered prior to the 1989 ABA Guidelines, sets a standard that is very similar to those 1989 Guidelines. And under the standard articulated by this court in, for example, Glenn v. Tate, 71 F.3d 1204 (6th Cir.1995), Ham-blin’s counsel failed to do the mitigation inquiry required.
I dissent from the granting of the writ because I do not agree with the majority opinion that defense counsels’ failure to make the necessary mitigation investigation resulted in the degree of prejudice necessary to meet the Strickland require*497ment. Hamblin is not like the defendant in Wiggins, who had been physically abused as a child and, more importantly insofar as the Court was concerned, had been sexually abused repeatedly in foster care throughout his childhood and adolescence. See, e.g., Wiggins, — U.S. at -, 123 S.Ct. at 2537 (“Had counsel investigated further, they may well have discovered the sexual abuse later revealed during state post-conviction proceedings.”); at 2539 (“[T]he records contain no mention of sexual abuse, much less of the repeated molestations and rapes of petitioner detailed in the Selvog report.”); at 2539 (“The [Maryland Court of Appeals] also assumed, erroneously, that the social services records cited incidences of sexual abuse.”) Hamblin, although having a history of physical abuse, had no history of sexual abuse. Unlike Wiggins, who had no prior history of violence or criminal activity, Hamblin had a criminal history that involved acts of violence. Unlike the petitioner in Glenn, Hamblin cannot point to any medical opinion establishing neurological impairment or global brain damage, nor can he demonstrate mental retardation. And unlike the petitioner in Glenn, Hamblin cannot complain that while his own counsel failed to present evidence of his mental and psychological deficits, the prosecutor presented expert testimony that he suffered from no such deficits.
Because I do not agree that there is a reasonable probability that Hamblin’s jury, had it been presented with the evidence of Hamblin’s ugly childhood, would not have imposed the death penalty, I dissent from the granting of the writ.