Court Opinion

ID: 9414708
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 16:02:01.12038+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:17:57.492857
License: Public Domain

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                                                   [DO NOT PUBLISH]
                                    In the
                 United States Court of Appeals
                         For the Eleventh Circuit

                           ____________________

                                 No. 20-13752
                           ____________________

        JERRY SCOTT HEIDLER,
                                                    Petitioner-Appellant,
        versus
        WARDEN, GDCP

                                                  Respondent-Appellee.

                           ____________________

                  Appeal from the United States District Court
                     for the Southern District of Georgia
                     D.C. Docket No. 6:11-cv-00109-LGW
                           ____________________

        Before WILSON, LUCK, and LAGOA, Circuit Judges.
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        2                      Opinion of the Court                 20-13752

        LUCK, Circuit Judge:
               In the early morning of December 4, 1997, Jerry Heidler
        broke into the home of Danny and Kim Daniels and shot them and
        two of their children to death. Heidler was convicted and sen-
        tenced to death for the murders. He now appeals the denial of his
        petition for a writ of habeas corpus under 28 U.S.C. section 2254.
                Heidler makes three arguments on appeal. First, Heidler
        contends that the Georgia Supreme Court unreasonably applied
        Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668 (1984), in denying his claim
        that his trial counsel were ineffective in investigating and present-
        ing evidence of his mental health during the guilt phase of his trial.
        Second, he argues that the Georgia Supreme Court unreasonably
        applied Strickland in denying his claim that his trial counsel were
        ineffective in investigating and presenting mitigating evidence dur-
        ing the penalty phase of his trial. And third, Heidler argues that the
        district court erred in concluding that he did not sufficiently plead,
        and did not exhaust, his claim that his trial counsel were ineffective
        because they failed to adequately present information and evidence
        in pretrial motions relating to Heidler waiving his constitutional
        rights while he was being interrogated by the police. After careful
        review of the briefs and the record, and with the benefit of oral
        argument, we affirm.
            FACTUAL BACKGROUND AND PROCEDURAL HISTORY
                                 A.     The Murders
               Danny and Kim Daniels lived in Santa Claus, Georgia—a
        small town in Toombs County—with their seven children, three of
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        20-13752               Opinion of the Court                         3

        whom were foster children. Mrs. Daniels had been in foster care
        herself as a child. And over the years, the Danielses opened their
        home to many foster children—including Heidler’s sister Joanne.
        While his sister was staying there, Heidler would visit the Dan-
        ielses’ home. Even after his sister left their care, Heidler continued
        to visit their home. But Mr. Daniels asked Heidler to stop visiting
        after the twenty-year-old Heidler developed a relationship with the
        Danielses’ sixteen-year-old daughter.
               Around the time that Mr. Daniels told Heidler to stop visit-
        ing the home, Heidler’s girlfriend, Marie Spivey, “got pregnant . . .
        with [Heidler and Ms. Spivey’s] second son.” Six months into Ms.
        Spivey’s pregnancy, though, the baby boy was stillborn. Days later,
        on December 3, 1997, Heidler went to his stillborn son’s funeral.
        Distraught, Heidler left the funeral and drove to the Danielses’
        home. Heidler explained that his “mind just went blank” and that
        he “[j]ust couldn’t take nothing.” All he felt was “rage.”
              When he got to the Danielses’ home, Heidler entered the
        house through a back window, smoked a cigarette, and took a shot-
        gun from Mr. Daniels’s gun cabinet. He then went to the master
        bedroom and shot Mr. and Mrs. Daniels as they slept. Mrs. Daniels
        probably died instantly, but Mr. Daniels survived the initial shot.
        At the time, Mr. Daniels was forty-seven years old. Mrs. Daniels
        was thirty-three.
               After shooting Mr. and Mrs. Daniels, Heidler left their room
        and went to the Danielses’ eight-year-old son’s bedroom. When
        he got there, Heidler killed the sleeping boy with a shot to the head
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        4                              Opinion of the Court                20-13752

        from close range. The Danielses’ sixteen-year-old daughter woke
        up from the commotion and ran to her parents’ bedroom, where
        Heidler shot her in the back of the head, killing her instantly.
        When Heidler noticed that Mr. Daniels was still alive, Mr. Daniels
        threw up his hands and arms to protect himself but Heidler shot
        him a second time. Then a third time. Then a fourth. Those shots
        were fatal.
               After killing Mr. and Mrs. Daniels and two of their children,
        Heidler left the Danielses’ two youngest children—a four-year-old
        boy and a ten-month-old infant—in the house with their dead fam-
        ily members. But Heidler took the Danielses’ three young daugh-
        ters with him to a secluded place where he sexually assaulted one
        of them, who was eight years old. Heidler threw Mr. Daniels’s
        shotgun into a river, dropped the girls off on the side of a dirt road,
        and returned to his stillborn son’s grave. After that, Heidler went
        to his mother’s house to sleep and play video games.
                             B.        Heidler’s Arrest and Confession
                Later that morning, police found the Danielses’ three young
        daughters in the middle of the road in their pajamas. The girls iden-
        tified Heidler as their kidnapper. Police arrested Heidler, informed
                                   1
        him of his Miranda rights, and interrogated him for about four
        hours.

        1
            Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436 (1966).
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        20-13752               Opinion of the Court                           5

               During the interrogation, Heidler said that he remembered
        what had happened in the Danielses’ home “as if it were in a
        dream.” The interrogating police officers asked Heidler if they
        could “come with [him] and walk in this dream with [him]” and
        Heidler then told them “what he remembered from his dream.” At
        the end of the interrogation, the officers videotaped Heidler’s con-
        fession in which he admitted to killing Mr. and Mrs. Daniels and
        two of their children, and to “t[aking] the girls” and “molest[ing]”
        one of them.
              C.     Trial Counsel’s Investigation of Mitigation Evidence
               Two experienced criminal defense attorneys were ap-
        pointed to represent Heidler at trial. The first, Michael Garrett,
        served as lead counsel. Before Heidler’s case, Mr. Garrett had de-
        fended about fifty death penalty cases, including approximately
        forty that he tried first chair. Mr. Garrett had experience presenting
        a mental health defense in “many” capital cases. “Of the nearly fifty
        clients that Mr. Garrett ha[d] represented in death penalty cases[,]
        only two received the death penalty.”
              The second attorney was Kathy Palmer. Ms. Palmer was the
        contract public defender in Toombs County. Before Heidler’s case,
        Ms. Palmer had tried “several” murder cases and first chaired three
        of them. She had also tried a death penalty case involving mental
        health issues before taking Heidler’s case and was “very familiar
        with the process of a death penalty case” and “everything that
        needed to be done in order to prepare for a death penalty case.”
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        6                            Opinion of the Court                         20-13752

              Based on their initial meetings with Heidler, Mr. Garrett and
        Ms. Palmer were “totally convinced” that Heidler was mentally ill.
        Mr. Garrett and Ms. Palmer also determined that “the facts were
        overwhelming as to what happened” on the night of the murders.
        So Mr. Garrett and Ms. Palmer decided to pursue a “guilty but
                                                                     2
        mentally ill” verdict to avoid a death sentence. Mr. Garrett took
        responsibility for “deal[ing] with the mental health issues.” Ms.
        Palmer took responsibility for “mitigation,” which involved “inves-
        tigating [Heidler’s] background and finding out anything that [she]
        could in regards to reasons as to why [Heidler] was mentally ill and

        2
            At the time of Heidler’s trial, Georgia law provided:
                  In all cases in which the defense of insanity is interposed, the
                  jury, or the court if tried by it, shall find whether the defendant
                  is:
                  (A) Guilty;
                  (B) Not guilty;
                  (C) Not guilty by reason of insanity at the time of the crime;
                  (D) Guilty but mentally ill at the time of the crime, but the
                  finding of mentally ill shall be made only in felony cases; or
                  (E) Guilty but mentally retarded, but the finding of mental re-
                  tardation shall be made only in felony cases.
        Ga. Code Ann. § 17-7-131(b)(1) (1998). A “guilty but mentally ill” verdict
        didn’t preclude a death sentence. See id. § 17-7-131(g), (j); Spivey v. Head, 207
        F.3d 1263, 1280 (11th Cir. 2000) (“[B]oth guilty but mentally ill and guilty but
        mentally retarded defendants are sentenced the same as those found guilty of
        the offense except that those found guilty but mentally retarded are not eligi-
        ble for the death penalty.”).
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        20-13752               Opinion of the Court                          7

        what about his past would help to convince a jury that he should
        not receive the death penalty.”
         Trial counsel hired an investigator to assist in their investigation,
               interviewed witnesses, and gathered Heidler’s records
               During Mr. Garrett’s and Ms. Palmer’s initial meetings with
        Heidler, Heidler “was totally nonresponsive.” In later meetings,
        Heidler continued to provide only “minimal” information to Ms.
        Palmer. Beyond interviewing Heidler, Ms. Palmer also hired an
        investigator, Frank Gillis, to help her “find witnesses down in the
        country.” Investigator Gillis sought out Heidler’s “aunts and un-
        cles and cousins” and some of Heidler’s friends. Ms. Palmer also
        “drove up and down the dirt roads” and “went up and down the
        street where [Heidler] lived” going “door to door and around the
        community and at the convenience store” to investigate Heidler’s
        background. Ms. Palmer also went “to the jails,” to the “Juvenile
        Court,” and to the Toombs County Department of Family and
        Children Services (“DFACS”) to speak with caseworkers and
        gather Heidler’s records. And when Investigator Gillis found “an-
        ything helpful,” Ms. Palmer would “follow up [her]self” to inter-
        view the witnesses that Investigator Gillis found.
               Ms. Palmer interviewed Heidler’s mother, his aunt and un-
        cle, and his sister, Lisa Aguilar. Ms. Palmer described Heidler’s
        family members as people who “run from you, they don’t come
        and pour out information at all.” According to Ms. Palmer, Ms.
        Aguilar was the “most sympathetic family member,” while
        Heidler’s mother was “an absolute, raving lunatic.” Heidler’s
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        8                     Opinion of the Court                20-13752

        mother claimed that Heidler “was not guilty,” that “this was a con-
        spiracy,” and that Heidler’s brother Steve (who was in prison)
        “committed the murders.” She was “not helpful” at all. Ms.
        Palmer and Investigator Gillis also interviewed Heidler’s friends,
        but they “weren’t sympathetic” or “helpful.”
               Ms. Palmer also met with a DFACS attorney and casework-
        ers to “put[] together the history of how [Heidler’s] mother had
        mistreated him and his stepfather had abused him and how they
        had run from DFACS and [Heidler had] been in and out of care.”
        Ms. Palmer explained that it was “very hard” to piece together
        Heidler’s history because his mother “had jumped county to
        county.” Ms. Palmer “spent hours” going through Heidler’s
        DFACS records with the DFACS attorney and caseworkers.
               Ms. Palmer used the information from Heidler’s DFACS rec-
        ords to find his former foster parents and people who had inter-
        acted with him while he was under DFACS’s care. But “a lot” of
        them “didn’t want to talk” to Ms. Palmer because “the murder[s]
        [were] so bad.” Heidler’s case “was exceedingly traumatic for the
        people of Toombs County and [DFACS] because of children in
        their care being involved and the fact that many of them knew
        [Heidler].” For example, one of the juvenile probation officers that
        Ms. Palmer interviewed was at first “very sympathetic” and “help-
        ful” over the phone but then claimed not to “remember anything
        about anything” when Ms. Palmer tried to interview him in person.
        And when Ms. Palmer visited the Cedarwood Psychoeducation
        Program, a school for emotionally and behaviorally “disordered”
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        20-13752               Opinion of the Court                        9

        students that Heidler attended during his middle school years, Ms.
        Palmer could find only one teacher, Marilyn Dryden, who would
        testify at Heider’s trial.
           Trial counsel retained two mental health experts to evaluate
                                     Heidler
               Mr. Garrett retained a psychologist, Dr. James Maish, to
        evaluate Heidler. Dr. Maish met with Heidler six times, inter-
        viewed him “extensively,” and gave him a “battery of tests.” Mr.
        Garrett and Ms. Palmer provided Dr. Maish with reports of
        Heidler’s behavior in jail and “several binders” of Heidler’s back-
        ground records, including records “from mental health centers in
        Southeast Georgia,” “DF[A]CS records,” and “reports from juve-
        nile settings.”
               Based on his evaluation of Heidler and his review of
        Heidler’s records, Dr. Maish diagnosed Heidler with “borderline
        personality disorder.” Dr. Maish concluded that Heidler “did not
        meet the standard for not guilty by reason of insanity for the state
        of Georgia” and that Heidler was competent to stand trial because
        he “ha[d] a rational as well as reasonable understanding” of his
        criminal proceedings. But Dr. Maish thought that Heidler “met the
        standard” for a “guilty but mentally ill” verdict because of his bor-
        derline personality disorder diagnosis.
               Mr. Garrett also retained Dr. Albert Olson, a “neurological
        expert,” to evaluate Heidler for “pathological issues,” “brain dam-
        age,” or a “head injury” and to do “neurological testing.” Dr.
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         10                     Opinion of the Court                   20-13752

         Olson’s evaluation “didn’t find anything that [trial counsel]
         thought would be helpful” to Heidler’s case.
          Trial counsel interviewed the court-appointed mental health ex-
                                       perts
                  Because Heidler pleaded not guilty and his trial counsel gave
         notice of his intent to raise a mental illness defense, Georgia law
         required the state trial court to order Heidler to undergo a separate,
         independent psychological evaluation. See Ga. Code Ann.
         § 17-7-130.1; Nance v. State, 526 S.E.2d 560, 564 (Ga. 2000). In line
         with this requirement, the state trial court appointed three mental
         health experts to evaluate Heidler: Drs. Nic D’Alesandro, Gordon
         Ifill, and Everette Kuglar.
                Mr. Garrett provided Heidler’s background records and “an-
         ything that [Ms. Palmer] got” from her background investigation
         to Drs. D’Alesandro, Ifill, and Kuglar and interviewed each of them
         before trial. Based on his interviews, Mr. Garrett understood that
         Drs. D’Alesandro, Ifill, and Kuglar “seemed to agree [with Dr.
         Maish] that [Heidler] was mentally ill.” Mr. Garrett thought that
         Dr. Maish’s testimony “was going to be the strongest” but was
         “confident” that Drs. Ifill and Kuglar would accurately present
         Heidler’s mental health at trial.
         D.     Trial Counsel’s Motion to Suppress Heidler’s Statement to Police
                Before trial, trial counsel moved to suppress “all evidence
         obtained in the course of any illegal search and seizure” and ex-
         plained in their motion that because “discovery and defense inves-
         tigation [were] still ongoing and incomplete,” they “file[d] this
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         20-13752                  Opinion of the Court                              11

         preliminary motion to suppress in general form so as to preserve
         the right to challenge the legality of any search or seizure of evi-
         dence that the [s]tate might introduce at trial.”
                 The state trial court held a Jackson-Denno3 hearing on the ad-
         missibility of Heidler’s statement to police. During the hearing, the
         state called the two police officers who had interrogated Heidler
         after his arrest. Mr. Garrett cross examined the officers about
         Heidler’s statement that he “could remember things if he was in
         his dream” and how the police officers “g[ot] in his dream with him
         and . . . participated as best [they] could.”
                The state trial court denied the motion to suppress Heidler’s
         statement to police. The state trial court “f[ound] from a prepon-
         derance of the evidence that [Heidler] was advised of each of his
         Miranda rights, that he understood them, that he voluntarily
         waived them, and that he thereafter gave his statement knowingly,
         freely[,] and voluntarily without any hope of benefit or fear of in-
         jury.”
                                       E.      The Trial
                Then came the trial—which was split into a guilt phase and
         a sentencing phase. We’ll start with the guilt phase. During the
         guilt phase, the state introduced video and photographs of the

         3
          See Jackson v. Denno, 378 U.S. 368 (1964). In Jackson, “the Supreme Court held
         that, when a defendant objects to the introduction of his statement as invol-
         untary, due process requires a trial judge to make an independent determina-
         tion that the statement is voluntary before permitting it to be heard by the
         jury.” Miller v. Dugger, 838 F.2d 1530, 1535 (11th Cir. 1988).
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         12                     Opinion of the Court                20-13752

         murder scene, evidence that Heidler’s fingerprint was on the back
         window of the Danielses’ home, evidence that Heidler’s DNA was
         on a cigarette butt found at the Danielses’ home, evidence that the
         Danielses’ three daughters identified Heidler as their kidnapper,
         and evidence that Heidler sexually assaulted one of the them The
         state also played Heidler’s videotaped confession and called the
         two police officers who had interrogated him to testify about his
         statements during the interrogation.
                  After the state rested, the state trial court ruled—over the
         state’s objection—that it would call Drs. D’Alesandro, Ifill, and Ku-
         glar as witnesses and would permit Heidler to use the court-ap-
         pointed experts to prove his mental health condition. Based on the
         state trial court’s ruling, Mr. Garrett decided not to call Dr. Maish
         during the guilt phase because he “wanted to let the jury hear the
         mental health evidence on the front end with [Drs. D’Alesandro,
         Ifill, and Kuglar], and then let them hear it all over again [in the
         penalty phase] from someone who [Mr. Garrett] thought would
         . . . give the strongest testimony.” Thus, trial counsel rested their
         case without calling any witnesses during the guilt phase but pre-
         sented mental health evidence through Drs. D’Alesandro’s, Ifill’s,
         and Kuglar’s testimony. We’ll walk through that testimony now.
           Trial counsel’s guilt phase presentation of mitigation evidence
                                     Dr. D’Alesandro
                 Dr. D’Alesandro was employed by Georgia as a “coordina-
         tor of forensic services” and “forensic psychologist” at the Georgia
         Regional Hospital in Savannah. Dr. D’Alesandro testified that he,
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         20-13752               Opinion of the Court                       13

         together with Dr. Ifill, performed “a fairly extensive evaluation” of
         Heidler that included two “clinical interview[s]” and “a review of
         the voluminous records that were provided . . . by both the [state]
         as well as [trial counsel].” The records that Dr. D’Alesandro re-
         viewed included records from Satilla Mental Health (a mental
         health institution where Heidler had been treated), “mental health
         histories,” “school records,” “prior mental health evaluations,” and
         “clinical documents.” Those records also included “police re-
         ports,” “witness statements,” and “investigating officers’ reports.”
         Dr. D’Alesandro also “talked to the jail employees that were . . .
         watching [Heidler] during the time of his incarceration.”
                 Dr. D’Alesandro explained that the state trial court had
         posed two questions for him to answer when it appointed him to
         evaluate Heidler: “[o]ne, is the defendant competent to stand
         trial”; and two, “was [Heidler] affected by some form of mental ill-
         ness such that it would make him incompetent or make him not
         responsible for his behaviors.” As to Heidler’s competency to stand
         trial, Dr. D’Alesandro concluded, based on his evaluation, that
         Heidler was not mentally disabled and was competent to stand trial
         because Heidler “understood the proceedings” and “was able to
         work with his attorney in the preparation of his defense.”
                 As to whether Heidler was not guilty by reason of insanity,
         Dr. D’Alesandro concluded, “based on the information [that he and
         Dr. Ifill] had and on the [Georgia] statutes,” that Heidler “was re-
         sponsible for his behaviors during that time frame [of the mur-
         ders].” Dr. D’Alesandro said that “there had been no indication
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         14                     Opinion of the Court                 20-13752

         that [Heidler] was psychotic” when he killed the Danielses, which
         would have meant “that [Heidler] was out of contact with reality
         or that he was unaware of what he was doing.” Instead, Dr.
         D’Alesandro testified that “what [Heidler] was doing was volitional
         and it was fairly goal directed.” For this reason, Dr. D’Alesandro
         concluded that Heidler “kn[ew] the difference between right and
         wrong, and . . . d[id] not meet the criteria for not guilty by reason
         of insanity.”
                Dr. D’Alesandro diagnosed Heidler with alcohol and sub-
         stance abuse and “a number of personality disorders which have
         influenced his behaviors, have affected the way he perceive[d]
         things, [and] the way he [thought] about things.” Dr. D’Alesandro
         “found severe emotional problems beginning in [Heidler’s] child-
         hood” that Heidler “was still suffering from” at the time of his eval-
         uation.
                Dr. D’Alesandro explained that Heidler “probably would
         best be identified as a borderline and/or an antisocial personality
         disorder,” which meant that, “through his upbringing, . . . he’[d]
         developed behavioral patterns which [were] basically in conflict
         with society.” Dr. D’Alesandro testified that a person with border-
         line personality disorder would be “really unstable,” have “a very
         poor sense of themselves,” “overreact to stimuli,” and “at times be-
         come very dramatic” and “impulsive.” Dr. D’Alesandro stated that
         a person with antisocial personality disorder “doesn’t really care
         about the rights of others,” “do[es] things that are in conflict with
         society,” and “know[s] what they’re doing, but at the same time
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         20-13752               Opinion of the Court                       15

         they’re willing to go ahead and suffer the consequences.” Dr.
         D’Alesandro agreed that this “severe disorder” would “influence
         [Heidler’s] decision-making capacity.”
                Dr. D’Alesandro said that, “[f]rom the information [he] got,
         [Heidler] did experience hallucinations . . . during a time that he
         was doing some type of drug.” Dr. D’Alesandro also testified that,
         in examining Heidler’s mental history, “[t]here was a suggestion”
         that Heidler had experienced “psychotic episodes.” Although he
         “did not find sufficient evidence to validate that [Heidler] actually
         was psychotic,” Dr. D’Alesandro explained that “people with this
         type of diagnosis sometimes will get to such an extreme that they
         may temporarily at least function in a psychotic-like state, but it’s
         usually very transient,” meaning that it “[c]omes and goes very
         quickly” in a matter of “[m]inutes.”
                Dr. D’Alesandro testified that Heidler’s mental health prob-
         lems “seemed to be pretty much right from childhood, early child-
         hood.” Dr. D’Alesandro described Heidler’s childhood as “chaotic”
         and “dysfunctional” and said that Heidler was “[d]eprived of the
         familial love and support that one normally would expect to get as
         he’s being brought up.” Dr. D’Alesandro explained that Heidler’s
         mental health issues resulted from “the chaos of someone being
         brought up in that type of environment.” And Dr. D’Alesandro
         agreed that Heidler “ha[d] been subjected to serious traumatic ex-
         periences in his childhood at a very early age.”
              Dr. D’Alesandro gave the jury a few examples of Heidler’s
         traumatic childhood experiences. Dr. D’Alesandro testified, for
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         16                     Opinion of the Court                  20-13752

         example, that “there was some indication of voodoo and cultism
         brought in that was practiced in [Heidler’s] family.” He explained
         that, “as a child, [Heidler] evidently was placed in a number of fos-
         ter homes throughout his developmental years, and as a result this
         in effect caused some type of lasting effect on him in terms of where
         he had problems or he felt abandoned by his family.” Dr.
         D’Alesandro told the jury that Heidler’s records showed that he
         had “attempted on several occasions to smother his sister,”
         “bec[ame] involved in fights in school,” and “was engaged in sui-
         cidal and homicidal episodes when he was eight and nine years
         old.”
                Dr. D’Alesandro described Heidler’s suicidal episodes. He
         said that “[t]here were indications from the record that at times
         past [Heidler] would stand in the middle of the road waiting for a
         car to try and hit him,” and one time, “a tractor-trailer jackknifed
         in [an] attempt[] to avoid hitting him.” Dr. D’Alesandro testified
         that Heidler had a history of “recurrent suicidal behavior, gestures,
         or threats, or self-mutilating behavior,” and that “the first time [he]
         saw him [Heidler] had cigarette burns up and down his arms,”
         which “certainly would signify self-mutilation.”             And Dr.
         D’Alesandro said there were at least two instances in Heidler’s
         childhood where he “was brought to the mental health center after
         attempting suicide.”
              Thus, Dr. D’Alesandro said, there was “no question about”
         whether Heidler “ha[d] some mental health issues,” and he
         thought that “there [was] sufficient clinical documentation to
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         20-13752               Opinion of the Court                         17

         substantiate a consideration of a guilty but mentally ill [verdict] if
         that would be the [c]ourt and the jury’s decision.” Dr. D’Alesandro
         explained that “the qualification for the guilty but mentally ill [ver-
         dict] [was] not predicated on the personality disorder, [or] on the
         antisocial,” but was instead “predicated on some of the behaviors
         that [Heidler] demonstrated in the past,” including “examples of
         depression that in some occasions led [Heidler] to self-mutilate or
         to attempt suicide.” This was evidence, not of a “personality dys-
         function,” but of a “mental disorder.”
                On cross examination, Mr. Garrett asked Dr. D’Alesandro
         whether he had “an opinion within a reasonable degree of psycho-
         logical certainty whether the facts support[ed] a finding of guilty
         but mentally ill.” Dr. D’Alesandro answered that he was “going to
         hedge on that,” saying that “[t]he ultimate decision [he] th[ought]
         would be in the trier of fact, the jury or the judge, on whether the
         information [he] provide[d] me[t] that legal standard.” But Dr.
         D’Alesandro conceded that the pretrial report that he had prepared
         and signed said that the facts of Heidler’s case “could also support
         a finding of guilty but mentally ill.”
               And when Mr. Garrett asked whether Heidler was taking
         medication when Dr. D’Alesandro evaluated him, Dr. D’Alesandro
         answered that he “believed he was” but couldn’t recall the name of
         the medication. Dr. D’Alesandro told the jury that Heidler “con-
         ceivably could have been” taking Haldol at the time, which he ex-
         plained was “an antipsychotic medication” that “help[ed a patient]
         reorganize or organize their thinking process” and “aid[ed] in
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         18                    Opinion of the Court                20-13752

         behavioral control.” Dr. D’Alesandro assumed that “the physician
         that consults with the jail probably” prescribed Haldol to Heidler.
                On cross examination by the state, Dr. D’Alesandro con-
         ceded that he “wouldn’t know” if Heidler had fooled him about his
         mental illness since “[t]hat’s the nature of being fooled,” but that
         he “felt [Heidler] was fairly forthcoming” during his two clinical
         interviews and didn’t think Heidler tried to “fool” him. While
         “[t]here were some indications that [Heidler] may have been not
         totally cooperative,” “for the most part [Dr. D’Alesandro] w[as]
         able to get enough information [that he] felt comfortable in [his]
         assessment.” And based on his interaction with Heidler “in the last
         several months,” Dr. D’Alesandro thought that “the symptoms [of
         Heidler’s mental illness] seem[ed] to be somewhat in remission”
         because “[s]ome of the things that [they] looked at or [they] saw
         from early childhood d[idn]’t appear to be happening right now”
         and the seriousness of his mental illness was “not so bad that he
         require[d] hospitalization.”
                                         Dr. Iﬁll
                Dr. Ifill, a board-certified psychiatrist at Georgia Regional
         Hospital in Savannah, testified that he and Dr. D’Alesandro per-
         formed a psychiatric evaluation of Heidler. Dr. Ifill explained that
         their evaluation of Heidler consisted of “a review of an extensive
         number of reports from several sources,” “two separate inter-
         views,” “the completion of a mental status examination,” and “a
         complete neurological evaluation” to “rule out organic brain dam-
         age.” The records that Dr. Ifill reviewed included “reports from
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         20-13752               Opinion of the Court                        19

         school,” “reports from DF[A]CS,” reports from mental health cen-
         ters, “reports from the police investigations,” and “a report from a
         private psychiatric evaluation.”
                 Dr. Ifill testified that he asked Heidler “a lot of questions
         about his background, his childhood, his upbringing, [and] his fam-
         ily relationships” and reviewed “[m]any records . . . with regard to
         his childhood, treatments received, referrals made, [and] evalua-
         tions that were done.” Dr. Ifill also “reviewed some historical in-
         formation which described some bizarre behaviors” and “behav-
         iors [that were] out of control and self-destructive.” The records
         showed that Heidler had exhibited “these kinds of behaviors since
         childhood.” Dr. Ifill “found that [Heidler] was suffering from se-
         vere emotional disorders beginning in childhood and continuing
         up until the present.” Like Dr. D’Alesandro, Dr. Ifill said that he
         saw self-inflicted cigarette burn marks on Heidler’s skin. Dr. Ifill
         also told the jury that Heidler’s “history recorded recurrent
         thoughts of wanting to kill himself and several attempts to do so,”
         including a time when he was admitted to “the hospital in Savan-
         nah.”
                Dr. Ifill testified that Heidler’s childhood records “indicated
         that the household was chaotic, disorganized, that [Heidler] was
         unable to get the ordinary nurturing that a growing child would
         need to have for normal development in the household, [and] that
         there was violence or threats of violence or neglect within the
         household.” He said that the records also “suggested that there
         was a lot of drinking in the home, there was alcoholism in the
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         20                      Opinion of the Court                  20-13752

         household.” And he said that the records “indicated emotional and
         physical abuse.” According to Dr. Ifill, Heidler’s childhood envi-
         ronment was “likely . . . a significant contributing factor” to
         Heidler’s personality disorders.
                Based on his evaluation, Dr. Ifill concluded that Heidler
         “was suffering from many elements of the borderline personality
         disorder” but was “able to distinguish between right and wrong”
         and was not “mentally retarded.” Dr. Ifill thought that Heidler was
         “responsible” for his actions and was not “insane.” Dr. Ifill testified
         that Heidler had “a long history of out of control behavior” and
         “discreet episodes of bizarre behavior.” But Dr. Ifill said that he did
         not have any evidence that Heidler was suffering a “psychotic epi-
         sode” on the night of the murders and that he did not think that a
         psychotic episode had anything to do with Heidler’s actions that
         night. And as to Heidler’s neurological examination, Dr. Ifill said
         that the results “were all normal.”
                 On cross, Dr. Ifill testified that there was “one reference to
         one of the evaluations where [Heidler’s] behavior at one point
         might have been thought of being psychotic.” He also explained
         that “there are many instances where a person who is not normally
         psychotic may have psychotic episodes.” Mr. Garrett also asked
         Dr. Ifill if those suffering from a personality disorder may be “trig-
         gered into a psychotic episode.” In response, Dr. Ifill said: “[t]here
         is only one personality disorder with which a brief or transient psy-
         chotic episode is associated[,] . . . and that is the borderline person-
         ality disorder.”
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         20-13752                Opinion of the Court                           21

                  When asked by Mr. Garrett whether he had an opinion
         about “whether [Heidler] would be eligible or meet the criteria as
         [he] underst[ood] the[m] for guilty but mentally ill under Georgia
         law,” Dr. Ifill answered that Heidler “d[id] not qualify on the basis
         of a serious mental disease or disorder of thinking or mood,” but
         “[w]hether a personality disorder [would] qualify [he] l[eft] to the
         judgment of the trier of fact and to the [c]ourt.” When Mr. Garrett
         pointed out that Dr. Ifill had signed a report stating that the evi-
         dence in Heidler’s case “could support a verdict of guilty but men-
         tally ill,” Dr. Ifill said that the evidence “could be considered . . . in
         making such a decision.”
                                          Dr. Kuglar
                Dr. Kuglar, a psychiatrist, testified that he examined Heidler
         and reviewed Heidler’s records, including reports from Georgia
         Regional Hospital in Savannah, written neurological reports from
         Central State Hospital, and “some reports by Dr. James Maish.”
         Dr. Kuglar testified that Heidler’s records showed he “had a terrible
         childhood . . . . He was sort of kicked around from pillar to post,
         his home environment was not very good, et[ ]cetera.” Dr. Kuglar
         said that Heidler “was constantly . . . off and on during those years
         threatening to kill himself, doing disruptive things.” Heidler had
         been “admitted after some sort of self-harm attempts on a couple
         of occasions to the Regional Hospital, and at times he was threat-
         ening to kill other people.”
               When he interviewed Heidler, Dr. Kuglar saw “where
         [Heidler] had cut himself and what appeared to be cigarette burns,
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         22                     Opinion of the Court                 20-13752

         some kind of burns on his body, and where he had . . . pick[ed] at
         small lesions on his face until he had sort of created sores.” Dr.
         Kuglar said that while Heidler’s behavior “was certainly a little bit
         weird, odd, or bizarre” when he interviewed him, Heidler “pre-
         sented himself as someone who was in contact with reality at the
         time that [Dr. Kuglar] talked to him.” Dr. Kuglar also said that
         Heidler “seemed to show . . . some probable degree of depression.”
         It “was [Dr. Kuglar’s] understanding that [Heidler] had been on
         some medicine while he was incarcerated in the county detention
         center.”
                Dr. Kuglar said that during his interview, Heidler “basically
         indicated that he committed the crime with which he [was] ac-
         cused, that he did the actual acts” because “he was upset over the
         very recent death of his infant child by a lady who was not part of
         the crime scene . . . and that he was upset because of conflicts be-
         tween one of the young ladies who was killed by him who was
         about age [fifteen] or [sixteen] . . . and his other girlfriend.”
                Based on his evaluation, Dr. Kuglar concluded that Heidler
         “d[id] not meet the [s]tate of Georgia’s criteria for a defense of be-
         ing not guilty by reason of insanity” because “he d[id] not have a
         mental illness which prevent[ed] him from appreciating the differ-
         ence between right and wrong, nor d[id] he have delusions, that is,
         ideas that exist[ed] only in his head which played a role in the al-
         leged crime.” Dr. Kuglar did not think that Heidler was mentally
         disabled.
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         20-13752               Opinion of the Court                        23

                But Dr. Kuglar testified that Heidler met the criteria for a
         guilty but mentally ill verdict based on his “primary diagnosis” of
         borderline personality disorder. Dr. Kuglar also explained that peo-
         ple with borderline personality disorder have “very poor” judg-
         ment, “often make poor decisions,” and have “outbursts of anger”
         which they “certainly have a problem controlling.” Dr. Kuglar ex-
         plained that people with borderline personality disorder “often
         have very brief episodes of being psychotic.” Dr. Kuglar said that
         Heidler talked about “the hearing of voices” and hearing “a baby
         crying,” but Dr. Kuglar thought that “based upon the time and
         other things [that he] c[ouldn’t] be absolutely certain that what
         [Heidler was] saying [was] true there.”
                              Mr. Garrett’s Closing Argument
                 In his guilt-phase closing argument, Mr. Garrett explained to
         the jury that all he was “asking for in this case[] [was] a verdict
         based on the evidence.” He noted that Heidler was not “trying to
         get away with murder.” Heidler had “told the police what hap-
         pened.” “It is obvious,” Mr. Garrett said, “that there is overwhelm-
         ing evidence that [Heidler] did it.” Mr. Garrett explained that he
         “would be insulting [the jury] if [he] said find him not guilty.” So,
         rather than focusing on guilt, Mr. Garrett argued that “[t]he issue
         in this case [he] th[ought] that [the jury] should pay the most atten-
         tion to and spend the most time on [was] whether [Heidler] was
         mentally ill as defined by Georgia law when these acts occurred.”
                To support this guilty but mentally ill defense, Mr. Garrett
         highlighted: (1) Dr. D’Alesandro’s testimony that there was
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         24                     Opinion of the Court                 20-13752

         evidence from which the jury could determine that Heidler was
         guilty but mentally ill; (2) Dr. Ifill’s testimony that there was evi-
         dence that could support a guilty but mentally ill verdict; and
         (3) Dr. Kuglar’s testimony that Heidler met the criteria for being
         mentally ill at the time of the offense. Mr. Garrett argued that, alt-
         hough Drs. D’Alesandro and Ifill had hedged their opinions on
         whether Heidler qualified for a guilty but mentally ill verdict as be-
         ing “for the jury” to decide, they only hedged their opinions be-
         cause they did “not want to do what we lawyers call invading the
         province of the jury.”
                Mr. Garrett pointed to testimony about how Heidler said
         “he just went berserk” and how Heidler described the scene as “like
         being in a dream.” He reminded the jury of expert testimony that
         Heidler was “self-abusive, that he mutilate[d] himself, he burn[ed]
         himself with cigarettes, he cut[] himself on the arms, . . . [and he]
         pick[ed] at his face until there [were] open sores.” Mr. Garrett re-
         called the expert testimony about Heidler’s self-mutilation and the
         testimony that Heidler “began at the age of eight and nine to show
         bizarre and self-destructive behavior,” including standing “out on
         the highway in front of trucks and [not] mov[ing].” Mr. Garrett
         also emphasized Dr. D’Alesandro’s testimony that Heidler was be-
         ing given Haldol, a “very strong antipsychotic drug.” Mr. Garrett
         ended his closing argument by asking the jury to “consider the very
         strong and unrebutted evidence that [Heidler] was mentally ill as
         defined by Georgia law at the time” of “this horrible tragedy” in
         rendering its verdict.
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         20-13752                Opinion of the Court                           25

                                    The jury’s verdict
               The jury returned a unanimous guilty verdict on four counts
         of malice murder, three counts of kidnapping, one count of aggra-
         vated sodomy, one count of aggravated child molestation, one
         count of child molestation, and one count of burglary. The jury
         did not find that Heidler was guilty but mentally ill.
          The state’s penalty phase presentation of aggravation evidence
                Then, the penalty phase began. The state called five wit-
         nesses: (1) a patrol officer with the Toombs County Sheriff’s Office
         who testified that he found a “shank” hidden in Heidler’s prison
         uniform; (2) a booking officer at the Toombs County Detention
         Center who testified that Heidler said he “wasn’t through collect-
         ing souls” and likened himself to a fictional character who “went
         around killing families while they slept”; (3) a jailer at the Toombs
         County Detention Center who testified that Heidler had removed
         the brass locks from his cell door, placed them in a sock, and threat-
         ened to kill the jailer and other prison officials; (4) a jail administra-
         tor at the Toombs County Detention Center who testified that
         Heidler had removed locks from his cell door and had also escaped
         from the jail for almost twelve hours by sawing through a bar of
         his cell window with a hacksaw blade; and (5) a prosecutor with
         the Georgia Bureau of Investigation who testified that Heidler
         called him from prison and identified himself by saying “nine little
         piggies, four dead” in reference to the Daniels family.
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         26                     Opinion of the Court                 20-13752

         Trial counsel’s penalty phase presentation of mitigation evidence
                Mr. Garrett and Ms. Palmer called nine witnesses, including
         Heidler’s family members, DFACS workers, and Dr. Maish, to tes-
         tify about Heidler’s difficult childhood and mental health prob-
         lems. They also introduced Heidler’s mental health and DFACS
         records.
                                       Mary Mosley
                Mary Mosley, Heidler’s mother, testified about Heidler’s up-
         bringing and his mental health. She testified that she divorced
         Heidler’s father when Heidler was four years old. Mrs. Mosley said
         that Heidler’s father was an alcoholic and “wasn’t all that good” to
         their children. When Heidler was six years old, Mrs. Mosley mar-
         ried Heidler’s stepfather. She said that Heidler’s stepfather was also
         an alcoholic, but he “didn’t beat [Heidler]” and only sometimes got
         into “fusses” and used “bad words” with Heidler.
                Mrs. Mosley testified that Heidler “had mental problems”
         growing up. Mrs. Mosley told the jury that Heidler had attempted
         to commit suicide by “jump[ing] in front of a semi truck on a main
         highway” and by “tr[ying] to hang hi[m]self by a store to get atten-
         tion from people at the store.” She also testified that Heidler had
         “imaginary friends” since he was a small child. Mrs. Mosley added
         that Heidler was “really upset” after his son was stillborn.
                                       Lisa Aguilar
               Lisa Aguilar, Heidler’s sister, testified about their childhood.
         She explained that their family “move[d] a lot,” that their father
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         20-13752               Opinion of the Court                       27

         “was a[n] alcoholic,” and that their stepfather “did drink.” She also
         said that their stepfather “was mean to everybody” but “only
         talked” and “never hit [her] or nobody.” Ms. Aguilar did not re-
         member whether Heidler had been hospitalized because of a sui-
         cide attempt. She asked the jury not “to kill [her] brother.”
                                    William Johnston
                William Johnston was a program manager with the Georgia
         Department of Juvenile Justice who had worked with Heidler and
         his family. Mr. Johnston testified that Heidler entered the juvenile
         justice system at age fourteen or fifteen because of an “altercation”
         between Heidler and his stepfather. Mr. Johnston supervised
         Heidler after he was placed on probation.
                Mr. Johnston testified that he went to Heidler’s home and
         could tell “from the odor and from discussions” that Heidler’s step-
         father had been drinking. He also said that “there was some dis-
         cussion” that Heidler’s family “may [have] be[en] involved in . . .
         devil worship.” Mr. Johnston testified that Heidler’s family
         “move[d] a lot” and normally lived in “small houses” that were in
         “poor” condition. But Mr. Johnston testified that Heidler “didn’t
         give any indication that he had a problem with his family.”
                When Ms. Palmer asked Mr. Johnston if he remembered
         taking “action” to have Heidler evaluated by mental health profes-
         sionals, Mr. Johnston said he did remember but that he no longer
         had any records on Heidler. Ms. Palmer moved for the state trial
         court to allow her to question Mr. Johnston as a hostile witness
         because “his answers [were] not those answers that he ha[d] given
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         28                     Opinion of the Court                20-13752

         [her] in the past and [she] would ask to be able to use leading ques-
         tions.” The state trial court granted Ms. Palmer’s request, but Mr.
         Johnston continued to testify that he didn’t remember anything
         else about Heidler.
                                    Cathy McMichael
                Cathy McMichael, a social services case manager with
         DFACS’s foster care unit, explained that she worked with Heidler’s
         family when his sister entered foster care in 1995. During Ms.
         McMichael’s “aftercare” visits to the family’s home to check on
         Heidler’s sister, Ms. McMichael saw Heidler but said that he did
         not “cause [her] any problem.” Ms. McMichael also testified that
         she had brought Heidler’s DFACS records to the trial pursuant to
         the state’s subpoena.
                                     Willene Wright
                Willene Wright, a social services worker with DFACS, testi-
         fied that she first contacted Heidler’s family in 1985 when she in-
         vestigated Heidler’s mother’s failure to enroll her children in
         school after they moved to a different county. Ms. Wright testified
         that DFACS started another investigation of Heidler’s family in
         1986 because of “unsupervision of the children.” In 1987, Ms.
         Wright “investigated a complaint concerning inadequate supervi-
         sion of [Heidler]” and recommended that Heidler’s mother “make
         an appointment with mental health” because Ms. Wright was con-
         cerned that Heidler had “some mental health problems.” And in
         1988, Heidler was placed into foster care, but his foster mother
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         20-13752               Opinion of the Court                        29

         requested that Heidler be removed from her home “because of be-
         havior.”
                Based on her interactions with Heidler’s family, Ms. Wright
         said that Heidler’s mother wasn’t “affectionate towards [Heidler]”
         and wasn’t a “nurturing mother.” Ms. Wright explained that
         Heidler’s mother did not “praise the children for doing good,
         work[] with affection, touch[] or hug[] them or show[] signs of af-
         fection towards the children.” Ms. Wright also testified that
         DFACS provided Heidler’s family with Christmas gifts, transporta-
         tion to get to and from health care and mental health care appoint-
         ments, and energy assistance to keep gas, lights, and heat on in their
         home because the family “needed that kind of assistance.”
                                      Joanne Oglesby
                 Joanne Oglesby, a DFACS employee, testified that she met
         Heidler in 1990 during a “child protective services case.” She ex-
         plained that DFACS “received a report alleging physical abuse,
         emotional abuse, [and] neglect,” and that DFACS “confirmed ne-
         glect” and worked with Heidler’s family until the family moved to
         a different county.
                Ms. Oglesby testified that she had received a report that
         Heidler “had tried to tie a rope to a tree in the yard and hang him-
         self” but Heidler denied that it happened when Ms. Oglesby went
         to investigate. And, although DFACS “had numerous reports that
         maybe [physical abuse] was occurring,” DFACS “couldn’t” confirm
         it. Ms. Oglesby described Heidler’s family as “very closed” because
         “they knew how to talk to DF[A]CS and not tell them anything.”
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         30                     Opinion of the Court                20-13752

         And Ms. Oglesby explained that it was “really difficult to prove”
         emotional abuse and neglect, even though she knew that “there
         [were] some issues going on with some inappropriate parenting
         things going on.”
                                     Sylvia Boatright
                Sylvia Boatright testified that she was Heidler’s foster
         mother from August 1988 until March 1989, when Heidler was
         eleven years old. Ms. Boatright said that Heidler “was afraid of the
         dark and always talked about a knife cutting him, could a knife
         come through a ceiling and cut him.” Ms. Boatright also testified
         that Heidler attended a school for children with learning disabili-
         ties. And she told the jury that Heidler “always had an imaginary
         mouse” that he would talk to.
                                     Marilyn Dryden
                Marilyn Dryden testified that she taught Heidler during his
         middle school years at the Cedarwood Psychoeducational Pro-
         gram, which she described as a school for students “that were emo-
         tionally behavior disordered.” In describing Heidler, Ms. Dryden
         told the jury that Heidler “was a loner” but “was not physically ag-
         gressive to the other students.” She also said that Heidler would
         “pick at his skin ‘til sometimes it would bleed” and would some-
         times “arrive to school . . . with marks on his body where he appar-
         ently had carved his initials and things on his skin.” According to
         Ms. Dryden, Heidler “would sometimes refer to some type of im-
         aginary friend” and “act like it was in his hand and he would talk to
         it sometimes.”
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         20-13752                Opinion of the Court                          31

                                       Dr. James Maish
                 Dr. Maish, the psychologist hired by Heidler’s trial counsel,
         testified about his “extensive[]” pretrial evaluation of Heidler and
         his review of Heidler’s background records. Dr. Maish testified
         that Heidler wasn’t mentally disabled and didn’t meet the standard
         for a not guilty by reason of insanity verdict because Heidler did
         not have “a delusional idea” or “an inability to resist the urge to . . .
         commit the criminal act.” Dr. Maish also concluded that Heidler
         was competent to stand trial because Heidler “ha[d] a rational as
         well as reasonable understanding” of his criminal proceedings.
                But Dr. Maish explained that, like Drs. D’Alesandro, Ifill,
         and Kuglar, he had diagnosed Heidler with borderline personality
         disorder and said that “apparently you have four people who came
         to the same conclusion” as to Heidler’s diagnosis. According to Dr.
         Maish, having four psychologists reaching the same conclusion
         about an individual’s diagnosis “was unheard of.” Dr. Maish testi-
         fied that Heidler “met eight of the nine” criteria for borderline per-
         sonality disorder, including: (1) “recurrent suicidal behavior . . . or
         self-mutilating behavior”; (2) a “markedly and persistently unstable
         self-image” caused by “a chaotic type of family situation”; (3) “im-
         pulsivity in at least two areas that [were] potentially self-damag-
         ing”; (4) “affective instability due to a marked reactivity of mood”;
         and (5) “inappropriate, intensive anger or difficulty controlling an-
         ger.”
              Dr. Maish testified that Heidler met the standard for a guilty
         but mentally ill verdict “with plenty of room to spare.” He also
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         32                     Opinion of the Court                20-13752

         explained that Heidler met the standard for a guilty but mentally ill
         verdict because Heidler had borderline personality disorder. Dr.
         Maish described Heidler’s borderline personality disorder as “se-
         vere” and said that it affected his ability to make decisions because
         “any kind of stress . . . [would] go[] straight to rage.”
                 Dr. Maish testified that he did not think Heidler was “psy-
         chotic,” explaining that Heidler “was never overtly psychotic at
         any of the six times that [he] saw him.” At the same time, Dr.
         Maish explained that “there are times when” people with border-
         line personality disorder “would probably meet the criteria for be-
         ing psychotic or out of touch with reality.” Dr. Maish said that he
         had reviewed Heidler’s records and that those records “talk[ed] of
         hallucinations” and “transient psychotic disturbances,” but Dr.
         Maish didn’t think that Heidler “was ever overtly psychotic” during
         the thirteen hours he spent interviewing him. Dr. Maish thought
         it was “debatable” whether Heidler had experienced “transient,
         stress-related paranoid ideation or severe dissociative symptoms”
         because Dr. Maish “didn’t see it.”
                Dr. Maish said that Heidler “acknowledged to [Dr. Maish]
         that he committed” the murders but “didn’t have an answer” for
         why he murdered the Danielses and their two children. Dr. Maish
         said that Heidler expressed remorse “about what happened” and
         that Dr. Maish had “seen him cry.” Dr. Maish explained that
         Heidler’s actions on the night of the murders resulted from his “se-
         vere” borderline personality disorder that “impair[ed] virtually
         every area of his functioning” and “a combination” of: (1) “some
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         20-13752                  Opinion of the Court                             33

         neurological difficulties”; (2) “a chaotic background in family”;
         (3) “the lack of a solid family background”; (4) “a father that was
         for the most part gone”; and (5) “emotional difficulties” and “years
         of being in and out of mental health centers, . . . hospitals, . . . [and]
         judicial settings.”
                                 Heidler’s Background Records
                 At the close of their penalty phase presentation, Heider’s
         trial counsel entered into evidence two sets of Heidler’s back-
         ground records. The first set was Heidler’s DFACS records—over
         1,100 pages worth—which Ms. McMichael had brought with her
         to trial pursuant to the state’s subpoena. The second set was “a
         certified and authenticated copy of the records of the Georgia Re-
         gional Hospital . . . in Savannah,” which consisted of 109 pages of
         documents. With that, the trial came to a close.
                                 Heidler’s death sentences
                The jury unanimously recommended the death penalty for
         each of the four murders, finding two aggravating circumstances:
         (1) that each murder “was committed while [Heidler] was involved
         in the commission of other capital felonies”—the other three mur-
         ders; and (2) that each murder “was committed while [Heidler] was
         involved in the commission of the offense of burglary of the home
         of Danny and Kim Daniels.” The state trial court sentenced
         Heidler to death consistent with the jury’s recommendation.4 The

         4
          The state trial court also sentenced Heidler to life imprisonment for kidnap-
         ping with bodily injury, twenty years for each kidnapping, life imprisonment
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         34                        Opinion of the Court                     20-13752

         state trial court denied Heidler’s motion for a new trial and his mo-
         tion to vacate his death sentences.
                                  Heidler’s direct appeal
                On direct appeal, the Georgia Supreme Court affirmed
         Heidler’s murder convictions and death sentences.5 Heidler v. State,
         537 S.E.2d 44 (Ga. 2000). In affirming Heidler’s convictions, the
         Georgia Supreme Court rejected Heidler’s argument that his state-
         ment to police had been involuntary. Id. at 49–50. The Georgia
         Supreme Court pointed out that “[t]he police read Heidler his
         rights” and that Heidler “signed” the “waiver-of-rights form.” Id.
         at 49. Heidler “was lucid, not intoxicated, and he appeared to un-
         derstand his rights.” Id. “He was not handcuffed, and was provided
         with cigarettes and a soft drink.” Id. “He was neither coerced,
         threatened, nor promised anything in exchange for his statement.”
         Id. Nor did he “request a lawyer or ask that the questioning cease.”
         Id. Heidler’s confession was voluntary. Id.
                Against all that, Heidler pointed to the fact that, when the
         investigating officers asked him “about the sequence of events and
         why they occurred, [he] said several times that he was unsure be-
         cause it was like ‘a dream.’” Id. “One of the interrogating officers

         for aggravated sodomy, thirty years for aggravated child molestation, twenty
         years for child molestation, and twenty years for burglary, with all sentences
         to be served consecutively.
         5
          The Georgia Supreme Court reversed Heidler’s conviction for aggravated
         child molestation because it “merged into the aggravated sodomy conviction
         as a matter of fact.” Heidler, 537 S.E.2d at 55.
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         20-13752                 Opinion of the Court                         35

         volunteered to ‘get in the dream with him,’ and Heidler claim[ed]
         that this was coercive.” Id. The Georgia Supreme Court disagreed,
         explaining that “a review of the record show[ed] that the offer was
         simply an attempt on the part of the officer to prod Heidler’s
         memory.” Id. The Georgia Supreme Court, “[v]iewing the totality
         of the circumstances,” concluded “that the trial court properly de-
         nied Heidler’s motion to suppress his statement on the ground that
         it was involuntary.” Id. at 49–50.
                The United States Supreme Court denied Heidler’s petition
         for a writ of certiorari. Heidler v. Georgia, 532 U.S. 1029 (2001), reh’g
         denied, 533 U.S. 965 (2001).
                             F.     State Habeas Proceedings
                Heidler filed a habeas petition in the Superior Court of Butts
         County, Georgia. Heidler asserted a general ineffective assistance
         of counsel claim and listed instances of his “[t]rial counsel’s ineffec-
         tiveness” in forty-two bullet points. Three of the bullet points
         claimed that trial counsel were ineffective in their investigation and
         presentation at trial because they: (1) “failed to conduct an ade-
         quate pretrial investigation into the . . . defenses available to
         [Heidler], including but not limited to the psychological, medical,
         and psychiatric factors affecting [Heidler’s] mental state during, be-
         fore, and after his alleged participation in the murders”; (2) “failed
         to conduct an adequate pretrial investigation into [Heidler’s] life
         and background to uncover and present to the jury evidence in mit-
         igation of punishment, failed to present a complete picture of
         [Heidler’s] background, and failed to locate, interview, and present
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         36                     Opinion of the Court                  20-13752

         as witnesses numerous individuals who had compelling mitigating
         evidence regarding [Heidler]”; and (3) “failed to obtain those rec-
         ords, including educational, medical, and mental health records of
         [Heidler] and his family which would have assisted in formulating
         and supporting defenses in the guilt/innocence phase.”
                 In another set of three bullet points, Heidler claimed that
         trial counsel were ineffective in failing to suppress Heidler’s confes-
         sion because they: (1) “failed to adequately raise and litigate that
         [Heidler’s] statement to law enforcement was the result of an ille-
         gal arrest and should be suppressed”; (2) “failed to conduct an ade-
         quate pretrial investigation into the voluntariness of [Heidler’s]
         statements to law enforcement personnel, and specifically failed to
         investigate the effect of [Heidler’s] mental capacity, and his medical
         and psychological history on [Heidler’s] mental state at the time he
         provided the incriminating statements”; and (3) “failed to ade-
         quately present information and evidence in pretrial motions and
         proceedings at trial relating to [Heidler’s] allegedly voluntary
         waiver of constitutional rights during interrogation by police.”
                           Heidler’s state habeas evidence
                In 2006, the state habeas court held an evidentiary hearing
         on Heidler’s petition. At the hearing, Heidler presented live testi-
         mony, affidavits, and deposition testimony from more than thirty
         witnesses. Heidler’s witnesses included Ms. Palmer and Mr. Gar-
         rett, one of Heidler’s former foster parents, his teachers, his family
         members, medical providers who had treated Heidler as a child or
         as an inmate, two mental health experts retained by Heidler’s state
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         20-13752               Opinion of the Court                         37

         habeas counsel, and Dr. Kuglar. Most of the witnesses who testi-
         fied at this state habeas proceeding hadn’t spoken with Heidler’s
         counsel before trial and didn’t testify on Heidler’s behalf. Heidler
         did not present evidence on his claim that trial counsel were inef-
         fective in investigating and litigating the suppression of his state-
         ment to police.
                                        Ms. Palmer
                 Ms. Palmer, who by then had become a state superior court
         judge, testified that she met Heidler in jail about five days after the
         murders. During Ms. Palmer’s meeting with Heidler, Heidler was
         “[d]isheveled,” “not willing to make any contact with [her],” and
         “not helpful.” Ms. Palmer spoke with the chief jailer, who de-
         scribed Heidler’s strange behavior to her. Based on her initial ob-
         servations of Heidler and the chief jailer’s description of his behav-
         ior, Ms. Palmer “knew that [Heidler] was mentally ill.” Ms. Palmer
         testified that Heidler continued to provide only “minimal infor-
         mation” about his background after their first meeting.
                Ms. Palmer said that she and Mr. Garrett decided that their
         theory of the case would be “[t]hat [Heidler] was mentally ill and
         that we were going to concentrate on the mental illness” because
         “it [was] a rather difficult and bad crime, but [Heidler’s] life had
         been so bad, and, of course, the [s]tate’s examiners said he was
         mentally ill[, o]ur forensic psychologist said he was mentally ill,”
         and “the court’s expert witness [Dr. Kuglar] . . . said that [Heidler]
         was mentally ill.”
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         38                     Opinion of the Court                  20-13752

                 Ms. Palmer testified that she would follow up on investiga-
         tive leads that Investigator Gillis identified because she was “sort of
         a hands-on kind of defense attorney” who “like[d] to interview and
         talk to the witnesses [her]self” and did not “want to depend on an
         investigator’s little synopsis to [her] about what someone is going
         to say.” Ms. Palmer testified about her efforts to go “door to door”
         in Heidler’s community and schools to learn about his background.
         Ms. Palmer also testified about the many hours she spent piecing
         together Heidler’s DFACS records. And when questioned about
         her billing records for work she performed in Heidler’s case, Ms.
         Palmer explained that she “th[ought she] did a lot more work that
         [she] didn’t document.”
                In preparing for trial, Ms. Palmer and Mr. Garrett “talked
         about all the witnesses and who to use and who not to use.” For
         example, they decided to call only the DFACS caseworkers, teach-
         ers, and foster parents who “could better articulate [Heidler’s] true
         behavior and had seen significant evidence of mental illness and
         could convey that to the jury in a heartfelt way.” Ms. Palmer chose
         to call only the DFACS caseworkers who were “the most articu-
         late,” “had the most contact with Heidler,” and “were the most
         sympathetic towards his plight.” And Ms. Palmer explained that
         she was “trying to bring out some specific highlights” in Heidler’s
         DFACS records through the caseworkers’ testimony and “tried to
         hit the really tough parts, where [Heidler] was truly harmed” be-
         cause “we would have spent days and days with the jury had we
         tried to go through that entire stack of records.”
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         20-13752               Opinion of the Court                       39

                Ms. Palmer explained that she “struggled with whether or
         not to put [Heidler’s mother] on the witness stand” because she
         was “explosive” and “irrational.” Ms. Palmer explained that she
         decided to put Heidler’s mother on the stand for only a few ques-
         tions because “[w]e could not get to her, we couldn’t ask her to ask
         the jury to spare her son’s life,” and there was not “one helpful bit
         of information we ever got out of that woman.” Ms. Palmer testi-
         fied that “everybody said that” Heidler’s stepfather beat him but
         that Heidler’s mother and Ms. Aguilar testified that his stepfather
         didn’t abuse Heidler because of “[f]amily protectiveness.”
                 Ms. Palmer said that she and Mr. Garrett relayed “all the bi-
         zarre episodes that happened with [Heidler] at the Toombs County
         Jail” to Dr. Maish. According to Ms. Palmer, she and Mr. Garrett
         met with Drs. D’Alesandro and Ifill and “made sure that they knew
         all of those kinds of things [about Heidler’s behavior in prison],
         too.” And they “spent most of [a] day” with Dr. Kuglar preparing
         for trial and knew that “Dr. Kuglar was totally and 100 percent con-
         vinced that . . . Heidler was very, very, very mentally ill.” Ms.
         Palmer and Mr. Garrett also knew that Drs. D’Alesandro and Ifill
         “were on [their] page” about Heidler’s mental health problems.
         Ms. Palmer confirmed that she gave Drs. Maish, D’Alesandro, Ifill,
         and Kuglar “everything [she] had” about Heidler’s bizarre behav-
         iors and told them about reports that Heidler had imaginary
         friends.
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         40                     Opinion of the Court                 20-13752

                                        Mr. Garrett
                Like Ms. Palmer, Mr. Garrett concluded that Heidler “obvi-
         ously needed a psychological evaluation” during their first meeting
         because “everything he did screamed out that he was having men-
         tal health problems.” Mr. Garrett said that he “couldn’t communi-
         cate with [Heidler] at all” and that Heidler “didn’t provide [him]
         with any kind of information in his case.”
                Mr. Garrett explained that his and Ms. Palmer’s trial strategy
         was to approach Heidler’s trial like “one long penalty phase, with
         the psychiatric evidence put at the front end and then mitigation
         put in afterwards.” Mr. Garrett said that he and Ms. Palmer “be-
         lieved that if [they] argued to the jury that [Heidler] was guilty but
         mentally ill, that it would be consistent with the evidence and that
         [they] would retain credibility with the jury and that perhaps the
         jury would be sympathetic and spare [Heidler’s] life.”
                Mr. Garrett testified that he interviewed Drs. Maish,
         D’Alesandro, Ifill, and Kuglar before trial and gave them all the ev-
         idence from Ms. Palmer’s background investigation. Mr. Garrett
         thought that all four doctors agreed that Heidler was mentally ill
         and he intended to use Drs. D’Alesandro’s, Ifill’s, and Kuglar’s tes-
         timony to show “[t]hat [Heidler] was qualified for a verdict of
         guilty but mentally ill, that he was mentally ill at the time that the
         killings were committed.”
                Mr. Garrett “believe[d] that [he] had developed evidence
         that [Heidler] was at periods psychotic” and said that Dr. Maish had
         explained that people with borderline personality disorder “could
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         20-13752                Opinion of the Court                          41

         have psychotic features such as [they] had seen with [Heidler],” like
         “hallucinations and hearing voices.” Mr. Garrett testified that he
         had discussed Heidler’s “psychotic episodes” and Heidler’s “audi-
         tory or visual hallucinations” with Drs. Ifill and Kuglar but
         that“[e]verybody’s conclusion [was] that [Heidler] could have
         been” having “a psychotic episode on the night of the crime” but
         there was “no way of knowing it.”
                Mr. Garrett explained that he and Ms. Palmer selected the
         witnesses that they called at trial based on who they “thought could
         help the most.” And, like Ms. Palmer, Mr. Garrett testified that
         “there probably was” a “significant amount of work [he] did on
         [Heidler’s] case that [he] didn’t bill for.”
                    Heidler’s foster parents, teachers, and family members
                Heidler presented testimony from his foster parents, teach-
         ers, and family members. Ms. Boatright, Heidler’s foster mother
         who had testified at trial, submitted an affidavit in which she said
         that Heidler “spoke often about an invisible creature he called a
         ‘mouse’” and would often “beat the mouse with a belt” as a form
         of disciplining the mouse. Ms. Boatright said that she had spoken
         with Ms. Palmer before Heidler’s trial “for a short time on the
         phone,” and she’d spoken to Ms. Palmer again “only one more
         time” in the hotel lobby the night before her trial testimony.
               Joan Pickren testified that she taught Heidler at the Cedar-
         wood Center, that Heidler was “very unkempt,” seemed de-
         pressed, and constantly “cut himself.” Ruth Davis, the parent liai-
         son at the Cedarwood Center when Heidler was a student,
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         42                     Opinion of the Court                  20-13752

         submitted an affidavit in which she said that Heidler “was one of
         the most ill, emotionally disturbed kids [she] h[ad] ever seen,” “was
         always pretty dirty and looked sickly,” “had a malnourished look
         about him,” and “had some sort of imaginary friend” that he would
         talk to.
                George Heidler, Heidler’s father, submitted an affidavit in
         which he said that Heidler’s mother “beat on her stomach very
         hard, screaming ‘I’ll kill this bastard’” many times while she was
         pregnant with Heidler. And Ms. Aguilar, Heidler’s older sister who
         had testified at trial, submitted an affidavit in which she said that
         their stepfather was “usually” drinking and “was mean when he
         was drinking.” She also said that their stepfather would hit Heidler
         and “threatened to kill him; he threatened to slit his throat.” And
         Ms. Aguilar said that Heidler “talked to himself a lot.”
                Ms. Aguilar explained that she “did not understand the pur-
         pose of [her] testimony” when she testified at Heidler’s trial and
         remembered that she had met with Mr. Garrett twice and had met
         with Ms. Palmer “for a few minutes” before she took the stand.
         Ms. Aguilar said that “no one had ever asked [her]” “many of the
         questions [she] was asked on the stand,” and she “just wasn’t ready
         to be asked so many personal questions about [Heidler].” Accord-
         ing to Ms. Aguilar, “[i]f anyone had taken the time to prepare [her]
         about what [she] would be asked and why it mattered, [she] would
         have been able to tell the stories” that she included in her affidavit.
               Elaine Towns, Heidler’s aunt, submitted an affidavit in
         which she said that “each time [she] visited [Heidler’s family], [she]
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         20-13752               Opinion of the Court                        43

         saw [Heidler’s] father beating on one of his kids with a belt.” Ms.
         Towns also said that Heidler’s stepfather “beat” Heidler and that
         she “saw some of the beatings when [she] was over to their house”
         and “saw a lot more of the marks [Heidler’s stepfather] left on
         [Heidler].”
                Junior Towns, Ms. Towns’s son, submitted an affidavit in
         which he said that he was friends with Heidler while they were
         growing up. Mr. Towns said that Heidler’s stepfather “laid a hand
         on [Heidler] whenever any one of us got on his nerves” and would
         beat Heidler with “his hand, a belt, a cord, a shoe, and a water
         hose.” Mr. Towns also remembered that Heidler “held a pocket
         knife to his wrist and talked about cutting himself.”
                                Medical treatment providers
                 Dr. Adrienne Butler, a pediatrician at Satilla Medical Center,
         testified that she treated Heidler when he was twelve years old. Dr.
         Butler’s notes from her encounter with Heidler said that “[i]n the
         office today he [was] obviously having auditory hallucinations,”
         that Heidler’s “eyes [were] darting,” and that Heidler “smiled and
         respond[ed] to voices which [were] calling his name.” Dr. Butler’s
         notes also stated that she had referred Heidler to Georgia Regional
         for in-patient evaluation. Dr. Butler testified that she had an inde-
         pendent recollection of her encounter with Heidler because she
         “almost never saw a psychotic child in that setting, and [Heidler]
         stuck in [her] memory.” On cross examination, Dr. Butler con-
         ceded that she was “probably not” qualified to give a mental illness
         diagnosis.
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         44                      Opinion of the Court                  20-13752

                 Lisa Fesperman, a school psychologist, submitted an affida-
         vit in which she said that she evaluated Heidler in 1988. Ms. Fesper-
         man said that she determined “that . . .Heidler was severely emo-
         tionally disturbed,” partly because he “told [her] he sometimes saw
         things coming off the wall.”
               George Dykes, a nurse at the Toombs County Detention
         Center, testified that Heidler told him, while he was in jail after the
         murders, that he was afraid to go to sleep because “he was seeing
         people who w[ere] trying to get him.” Nurse Dykes said that he
         thought that Heidler was burning himself with cigarettes to help
         him stay awake. Nurse Dykes referred Heidler to Pineland Mental
         Health Center for treatment because Heidler was “hallucinating
         and he was hearing voices” and “continuing to injure himself.”
               Dr. David Faulk, a psychiatrist at Pineland Mental Health
         Center, submitted an affidavit in which he said that he treated
         Heidler five times between July 1998 and January 1999 (i.e., pend-
         ing Heidler’s trial). Dr. Faulk said that following his third visit with
         Heidler in 1998, he diagnosed Heidler with “psychotic disorder, not
         otherwise specified” and stated the diagnosis in his clinical notes.
         Dr. Faulk prescribed Haldol to “help control [Heidler’s] psychotic
         symptoms,” including seeing “visions of people” and “hear[ing] a
         baby crying all the time.” But Dr. Faulk confirmed that Heidler’s
         discharge diagnosis from Pineland Mental Health Center “d[id] not
         incorporate” Dr. Faulk’s findings about Heidler’s psychotic symp-
         toms and stated only that Heidler had been diagnosed with “adjust-
         ment disorder with anxiety and antisocial personality disorder.”
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         20-13752               Opinion of the Court                        45

         Dr. Faulk also noted that he “did not receive any background in-
         formation” about Heidler prior to making his diagnosis.
                Dr. Jack Matteson, a licensed psychiatrist at Georgia Diag-
         nostic and Classification Prison, testified that he had been Heidler’s
         treating psychiatrist in prison since March or April 2003 and saw
         Heidler “on a regular basis.” Dr. Matteson testified that Heidler
         “ha[d] a mood disturbance as well as a psychotic disturbance” and
         that “[t]he psychotic component comes and goes.” Dr. Matteson
         said that he had observed Heidler “in a psychotic state” and ex-
         plained that Heidler reported “hearing voices.” On cross examina-
         tion, Dr. Matteson conceded that his “work with [Heidler] ha[d]
         been done primarily through [Dr. Matteson’s] contact with him,”
         and was “based on [Heidler’s] current presentation” and not “all of
         [Heidler’s] previous volumes of records.” Dr. Matteson agreed
         that his “sole purpose” was to evaluate Heidler’s “mental health
         now” and that he did not know “what sort of mental illnesses
         [Heidler] was suffering from at the time of the [murders].”
                                   Mental health experts
                Heidler’s state habeas counsel retained two mental health
         experts to evaluate Heidler. The first, Dr. Sarah DeLand, was a
         board-certified forensic psychiatrist who evaluated Heidler in Oc-
         tober, November, and December 2005—shortly before the state
         habeas court’s evidentiary hearing. Dr. DeLand’s evaluation of
         Heidler included a review of his medical and mental health records,
         school records, DFACS records, jail records, and some of the trial
         testimony and state habeas affidavits.
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         46                     Opinion of the Court                 20-13752

                 Dr. DeLand diagnosed Heidler with “schizoaffective disor-
         der,” “probable post-traumatic stress disorder,” and “a borderline
         personality disorder.” She also said that Heidler “was psychotic on
         every day that [she] saw him,” including a time when he was “ac-
         tively hallucinating while [she] was speaking to him.” Dr. DeLand
         testified that Drs. D’Alesandro’s, Ifill’s, Kuglar’s, and Maish’s pre-
         trial evaluations of Heidler happened while Heidler was taking Hal-
         dol, which “improve[d Heidler’s] psychotic symptoms.” Thus, Dr.
         DeLand agreed that it “would be important for those mental health
         experts to understand that [Heidler was] being medicated with an-
         tipsychotropic drugs.”
                Dr. DeLand didn’t know what Heidler’s mental state was on
         the day of the murders but she thought that, “in light of everything
         that [she’d] reviewed,” it “would be most likely” that Heidler
         would meet the criteria for a guilty but mentally ill verdict. On
         cross examination, Dr. DeLand conceded that her diagnosis of
         Heidler was “on the same page” as the diagnoses of Drs.
         D’Alesandro, Ifill, Kuglar, and Maish. The only thing Dr. DeLand
         could have added to the testimony of the four mental health ex-
         perts who testified at trial was “more information about the
         longstanding nature of [Heidler’s] illness” and Heidler’s “repeated
         psychotic episodes.”
               The second mental health expert retained by Heidler’s state
         habeas counsel was Dr. John Carton, a Ph.D. in clinical psychiatry
         and an expert in forensic psychiatry. Dr. Carton testified that he
         evaluated Heidler and found him “to be a very mentally ill
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         20-13752               Opinion of the Court                       47

         individual, who struggled with a thought and mood disorder as
         well as a variety of other illnesses, and that there had been a
         longstanding history of these problems.” Dr. Carton reviewed the
         state habeas affidavits submitted by people who had witnessed the
         physical abuse and “deplorable conditions” during Heidler’s child-
         hood and testified that Heidler’s background “help[ed] provide” a
         “theory for why [Heidler] was behaving the way he was when [Dr.
         Carton] met him.” According to Dr. Carton, the state habeas affi-
         davits were “very important . . . in terms of corroborating what
         [he] was seeing in [Heidler’s] history.”
                Dr. Carton testified that he was “certain” that, on the day of
         the murders, Heidler was suffering from a mental illness as defined
         under Georgia’s guilty but mentally ill verdict statute. On cross
         examination, Dr. Carton explained that he “underst[ood] why
         [Drs. D’Alesandro, Ifill, Kuglar, and Maish] gave [Heidler] a border-
         line personality disorder” and that he “probably would have given
         [Heidler] that [diagnosis], too.” But Dr. Carton said that he would
         have also “given [Heidler] an additional diagnosis” based on
         Heidler’s “other mood and thought disorder symptoms.”
                                        Dr. Kuglar
               Dr. Kuglar submitted an affidavit in which he stated that
         “the records [he] had at the time of [his pretrial] evaluation [of
         Heidler] suggested that [Heidler] experienced brief psychotic
         breaks during his history.” But, Dr. Kuglar said, “[he] did not have
         background materials that indicated a history of more longstanding
         or recurrent psychotic episodes nor did [he] have concrete
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         48                     Opinion of the Court                  20-13752

         examples or descriptions of [Heidler’s] psychotic episodes that [he]
         could have described to a jury.” Dr. Kuglar testified that Heidler’s
         state habeas counsel had given him additional information, includ-
         ing: (1) letters written by Heidler to trial counsel from jail;
         (2) Heidler’s jail medical logs; (3) Heidler’s treatment records from
         Pineland Mental Health Center; and (4) the state habeas affidavits
         submitted by Heidler’s foster parents, teachers, family members,
         and healthcare providers.
                 Dr. Kuglar explained that these other records “docu-
         ment[ed] many more symptoms of mental illness than [he] was
         aware existed” when he testified at Heidler’s trial. For example,
         Dr. Kuglar explained that Nurse Dykes’s affidavit stated that
         Heidler “reported hearing voices and seeing dead people in his cell”
         and that Heidler “burned himself with cigarettes in order to stay
         awake and avoid having dreams of people telling him to kill him-
         self.” And Dr. Kuglar noted that Heidler’s letters to trial counsel
         said that he “was hearing voices and wanted to kill himself” and
         that “[t]he incident reports from the jail also recount several suicide
         attempts by [Heidler].”
                 According to Dr. Kuglar, the other records “present[ed] a
         fuller history of [Heidler’s] psychotic episodes.” For example, Dr.
         Kuglar pointed to Dr. Butler’s observation that Heidler was “hear-
         ing voices” and “actively hallucinating” and said that affidavits
         from other individuals who knew Heidler “at different points in his
         life also describ[ed] behavior indictive of probable psychosis, such
         as [Heidler] carrying on conversations when no one was around,
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         20-13752               Opinion of the Court                         49

         cutting himself, and having an imaginary pet who he disciplined.”
         Dr. Kuglar also explained that Heidler’s jail records showed that
         Heidler was taking Haldol—an anti-psychotic medication—and
         that Haldol was “a likely explanation why [Heidler] was not psy-
         chotic during our meeting and why it had been ‘some time’ since
         [Heidler] heard voices.” Dr. Kuglar said that he “had no knowledge
         that [Heidler] was prescribed Haldol” when he evaluated him.
                Dr. Kuglar explained that the other records also “contain[ed]
         evidence that [Heidler] was suffering from an extreme mental or
         emotional disturbance at the time of the offense” because of the
         death of his stillborn son. Dr. Kuglar said that he had “recently
         learned that [Heidler] wrote letters to his trial attorneys, repeatedly
         complaining that he was hearing his baby son . . . crying for him
         every day” and that Heidler’s Pineland Mental Health Center rec-
         ords “reiterate[d Heidler’s] complaints that he was hearing a baby
         crying and also state[d] that on the night of the offense, [Heidler]
         woke up on top of his son’s grave.” According to Dr. Kuglar, “at
         minimum, this information indicate[d] that [Heidler’s] mental
         health was severely impacted by the death of his child.”
                In sum, in his affidavit, Dr. Kuglar said that the added infor-
         mation that Heidler’s state habeas counsel provided was “signifi-
         cant.” If trial counsel had provided Dr. Kuglar with the same infor-
         mation, then Dr. Kuglar “would have testified with more certainty
         that [Heidler] ha[d] a serious mental illness” because the “new in-
         formation confirm[ed] the presence of a thought disorder
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         50                      Opinion of the Court                  20-13752

         component of his mental illness in addition to a mood disorder
         component.”
              The state habeas court denied Heidler’s habeas petition
                 The state habeas court denied Heidler’s petition. Applying
         Strickland, the state habeas court denied Heidler’s ineffective assis-
         tance of counsel claim. The state habeas court determined that
         trial counsel’s investigation of Heidler’s background and mental
         health wasn’t deficient because trial counsel: (1) “conducted an ex-
         haustive investigation of [Heidler’s] background by interviewing
         family members, teachers, friends, DFACS caseworkers, and
         [Heidler’s] juvenile probation officer”; (2) interviewed “employees
         of the Toombs County Detention Center”; and (3) “gathered volu-
         minous documents from the various schools, including the psycho-
         educational centers [Heidler] attended, the numerous mental
         health centers records, DFACS records, [Heidler’s] Toombs
         County Detention Center records[,] and medical records.” The
         state habeas court also concluded that Heidler had not shown that
         he “was prejudiced by trial counsel’s investigation” into his back-
         ground and mental health.
                The state habeas court determined that trial counsel reason-
         ably presented evidence on Heidler’s mental health during the guilt
         phase because trial counsel “provided all background records they
         obtained” to all of the mental health experts and because Drs.
         D’Alesandro, Ifill, and Kuglar “testified that they were aware of
         [Heidler’s] auditory and visual hallucinations, yet they concluded
         that this was a feature of his [b]orderline [p]ersonality [d]isorder, in
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         20-13752               Opinion of the Court                        51

         that [Heidler] could have brief psychotic episodes.” The state ha-
         beas court also found that trial counsel made a “logical and effec-
         tive” strategic decision not to call Dr. Maish during the guilt phase.
         The state habeas court determined that Heidler wasn’t prejudiced
         by trial counsel’s presentation of his mental health “given the ab-
         horrent nature of the crimes committed and the extensive mental
         health evaluations conducted by the mental health experts at trial.”
                 The state habeas court determined that trial counsel’s miti-
         gation presentation during the penalty phase wasn’t deficient be-
         cause “[t]rial counsel diligently sifted through” the information
         they gathered during their investigation of Heidler’s background
         and “chose the witnesses they felt would provide the best testi-
         mony.” The state habeas court found that the witnesses trial coun-
         sel called during the penalty phase “testified to the terrible child-
         hood [Heidler] had to endure and to his mental illnesses” and that
         trial counsel presented an “abundant amount of mitigating evi-
         dence.” The state habeas court found that “trial counsel’s strategy
         of presenting [Heidler’s] DFACS records en mass, without a
         lengthy and cumulative review with the jury, was reasonable.”
         And trial counsel’s presentation of mitigation evidence during the
         penalty phase didn’t prejudice Heidler, the state habeas court con-
         cluded, “given the copious amount of mitigating evidence pre-
         sented at trial and the nature of [Heidler’s] crimes.”
                The state habeas court did not specifically address Heidler’s
         claim that trial counsel were ineffective in their efforts to suppress
         his statements to police. The state habeas court “deem[ed] . . .
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         52                     Opinion of the Court                 20-13752

         abandoned” claims for which Heidler “failed to present evidence
         [to] support” at the evidentiary hearing. But the state habeas court
         also said that, “[u]nless otherwise specified, to the extent that
         [Heidler] ha[d] not briefed the other claims of ineffective assistance
         of counsel, [it] f[ound] that [Heidler] ha[d] failed to establish the
         requisite prongs of Strickland as to these claims.”
         The Georgia Supreme Court denied Heidler a certiﬁcate of prob-
                             able cause to appeal
                Heidler applied to the Georgia Supreme Court for a certifi-
         cate of probable cause to appeal the denial of his state habeas peti-
         tion. Heidler’s application did not include argument about trial
         counsel’s alleged ineffectiveness in investigating and litigating the
         suppression of Heidler’s statement to police. Instead, in a footnote,
         Heidler’s application said,
               Heidler does not abandon any of the claims he previ-
               ously made in his amended petition and briefs or at
               hearings in this case, which are not herein addressed.
               He incorporates by this reference all of the claims and
               arguments raised in his Petition, Amended Petition,
               Second Amended Petition, briefs and all other plead-
               ings he has ﬁled, and in the evidentiary hearing.
               Heidler requested an extension of the 30-page limit
               for this pleading, but was only allowed 40 pages. The
               page limitation has prevented him from setting out all
               his claims herein.

         The Georgia Supreme Court summarily denied Heidler’s applica-
         tion.
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         20-13752               Opinion of the Court                         53

                           G.     Federal Habeas Proceedings
                 Heidler filed a section 2254 petition in the Southern District
         of Georgia. Heidler claimed that trial counsel were ineffective in
         investigating and presenting his mental health and background. In
         support of his claim, Heidler asserted that trial counsel: (1) “failed
         to conduct an adequate pretrial investigation into the [s]tate’s case
         and defenses available to [Heidler], including but not limited to the
         psychological, medical[,] and psychiatric factors affecting
         [Heidler’s] mental state during, before, and after his alleged partic-
         ipation in the murders”; (2) “failed to conduct an adequate pretrial
         investigation into [Heidler’s] life and background to uncover and
         present to the jury evidence in mitigation of punishment, failed to
         present a complete picture of [Heidler’s] background, and failed to
         locate, interview, and present as witnesses numerous individuals
         who had compelling mitigating evidence regarding [Heidler]”; and
         (3) “failed to present evidence and to raise defenses at the guilt/in-
         nocence phase of the case, including but not limited to evidence
         and defenses based upon [Heidler’s] mental state at the time of the
         alleged offenses, [and Heidler’s] actions in the days surrounding the
         offense.”
                 Heidler also claimed that trial counsel were ineffective in in-
         vestigating and litigating the suppression of his statement to police.
         In support of his claim, Heidler asserted that trial counsel:
         (1) “failed to adequately raise and litigate that [Heidler’s] statement
         to law enforcement was the result of an illegal arrest and should be
         suppressed”; (2) “failed to conduct an adequate pretrial
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         54                     Opinion of the Court                 20-13752

         investigation into the voluntariness of [Heidler’s] statements to law
         enforcement personnel, and specifically failed to investigate the ef-
         fect of [Heidler’s] mental capacity, and his medical and psycholog-
         ical history[,] on [Heidler’s] mental state at the time he provided
         the incriminating statements”; and (3) “failed to adequately present
         information and evidence in pretrial motions and proceedings and
         at trial relating to [Heidler’s] allegedly voluntary waiver of consti-
         tutional rights during interrogation by the police.”
                 The district court denied Heidler’s section 2254 petition.
         The district court denied Heidler’s claim that trial counsel were in-
         effective in investigating and presenting evidence of his mental
         health because “the state habeas court’s thorough discussion of
         [Heidler’s] trial counsel’s investigatory efforts” showed that the
         state habeas court reasonably concluded that trial counsel per-
         formed a reasonable investigation and presentation of evidence
         about Heidler’s mental health. The district court denied Heidler’s
         claim that trial counsel were ineffective in investigating and pre-
         senting mitigating evidence because the state habeas court didn’t
         unreasonably decide that trial counsel’s investigation and presenta-
         tion of mitigation evidence was constitutionally adequate. The dis-
         trict court reasoned that “the record show[ed] that Ms. Palmer
         spoke with [Heidler’s] family members, located witnesses, and
         found records within a timely manner” and “the state habeas court
         listed numerous pieces of mitigating evidence that [Heidler’s] trial
         counsel presented in its decision,” showing “that [Heidler’s] trial
         counsel were not deficient in their investigation or presentation of
         mitigating evidence.”
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         20-13752                Opinion of the Court                         55

                The district court denied Heidler’s ineffective assistance
         claim relating to the suppression of his statement to police for four
         reasons. First, the district court concluded that the claim was “not
         properly before the [district court]” because “Heidler generally
         raise[d] the[] claim[] in his [section 2254 petition]” but did not “pro-
         vide[ a] factual basis for [it].” Second, even if the claim had been
         properly pleaded, the district court concluded that the claim was
         unexhausted because Heidler “failed to include [it] in his applica-
         tion for a [certificate of probable cause to appeal to] the Georgia
         Supreme Court.” Third, the state hadn’t waived its exhaustion de-
         fense. And fourth, the district court found that Heidler “ha[d] not
         attempted to show cause and prejudice for this failure [to exhaust]
         or that procedural default would result in a miscarriage of justice.”
                The district court denied a certificate of appealability.
         Heidler appealed, and we granted a certificate of appealability as to
         three issues:
                1. Whether the district court erred in concluding
                   that the state habeas court did not unreasonably
                   apply Strickland . . . in finding that trial counsel
                   was not ineffective in investigating and presenting
                   evidence of Mr. Heidler’s mental health for the
                   guilt phase of the trial.
                2. Whether the district court erred in concluding
                   that the state habeas court did not unreasonably
                   apply Strickland . . . in finding that trial counsel
                   was not ineffective in investigating and presenting
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         56                     Opinion of the Court                  20-13752

                   mitigating evidence for the penalty phase of Mr.
                   Heidler’s trial.
                3. Whether the district court erred in concluding
                   that Mr. Heidler did not sufficiently plead[,] and
                   did not exhaust, his claim that trial counsel was in-
                   effective by failing to adequately present infor-
                   mation and evidence in pretrial motions relating
                   to Mr. Heidler’s waiver of constitutional rights
                   during interrogation by the police.
                 In other words, we granted a certificate of appealability on
         (1) trial counsel’s investigation and presentation of mental health ev-
         idence during the guilt phase, (2) trial counsel’s investigation and
         presentation of mental health and background evidence in the penalty
         phase, and (3) trial counsel’s efforts to exclude Heidler’s statements
         to police.
                             STANDARD OF REVIEW
                 “We review de novo the district court’s denial of a 28 U.S.C.
         [section] 2254 petition.” Smith v. Comm’r, Ala. Dep’t of Corr., 924
         F.3d 1330, 1336 (11th Cir. 2019). This appeal is governed by the
         Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act (“AEDPA”). Id.
         When a state court has adjudicated a habeas petitioner’s claim on
         the merits, we review its decision under AEDPA’s “highly deferen-
         tial standards.” Davis v. Ayala, 576 U.S. 257, 269 (2015). Under
         those highly deferential standards, a federal court may not grant a
         section 2254 petition unless the state court’s adjudication was
         (1) “contrary to, or involved an unreasonable application of, clearly
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         20-13752                Opinion of the Court                           57

         established [f]ederal law, as determined by the Supreme Court of
         the United States” or (2) “based on an unreasonable determination
         of the facts in light of the evidence presented in the [s]tate court
         proceeding.” 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d).
                A state court’s factual findings—both express and implied—
         are “presumed to be correct,” and the petitioner bears “the burden
         of rebutting [that] presumption of correctness by clear and con-
         vincing evidence.” Id. § 2254(e)(1); see Green v. Sec’y, Dep’t of Corr.,
         28 F.4th 1089, 1145 (11th Cir. 2022) (explaining that the petitioner
         “has the added burden under [section] 2254(e)(1) of rebutting by
         ‘clear and convincing evidence’ the presumption of correctness
         given to state court factual findings, both express and implied”); see
         also Reese v. Sec’y, Fla. Dep’t of Corr., 675 F.3d 1277, 1287 (11th Cir.
         2012) (“[O]ur review of findings of fact by the state court is even
         more deferential than under a clearly erroneous standard of re-
         view.” (quotation omitted)).
                 A habeas petition “must show far more than that the state
         court’s decision was merely wrong or even clear error.” Shinn v.
         Kayer, 141 S. Ct. 517, 523 (2020) (quotation and citation omitted).
         The question is not whether we “believe[] the state court’s deter-
         mination was incorrect but whether that determination was unrea-
         sonable—a substantially higher threshold.” Schriro v. Landrigan,
         550 U.S. 465, 473 (2007). A state court’s decision is not unreasona-
         ble “so long as fairminded jurists could disagree on the correctness
         of the . . . decision.” See Harrington v. Richter, 562 U.S. 86, 101 (2011)
         (quotation omitted). In other words, we may only grant habeas
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         58                      Opinion of the Court                   20-13752

         relief if the state court’s decision is “so obviously wrong that its er-
         ror lies beyond any possibility for fairminded disagreement.”
         Shinn, 141 S. Ct. at 523 (quotation omitted). “If this standard is dif-
         ficult to meet, that is because it was meant to be.” Harrington, 562
         U.S. at 102.
                 Our focus under section 2254(d) is on the “last reasoned”
         state court decision. See McGahee v. Ala. Dep’t of Corr., 560 F.3d
         1252, 1261 n.12 (11th Cir. 2009) (quotation omitted). When the
         final state court decision on the merits doesn’t come with rea-
         sons—as here, where the Georgia Supreme Court summarily de-
         nied Heidler a certificate of probable cause to appeal—we “‘look
         through’ the unexplained decision to the last related state-court de-
         cision that does provide a relevant rationale” and “then presume
         that the unexplained decision adopted the same reasoning.” Wilson
         v. Sellers, 138 S. Ct. 1188, 1192 (2018).
                But, in assessing whether the state court’s decision was rea-
         sonable, a “federal habeas court reviews only the state court’s de-
         cision and is not limited to the particular justifications that the state
         court supplied.” Pye v. Warden, Ga. Diagnostic Prison, 50 F.4th 1025,
         1037–38 (11th Cir. 2022) (en banc). What that means is that we
         look to “the reasons for the state court’s decision” and then “con-
         sider any potential justification for those reasons.” Id. at 1036. So,
         for example, if “the specific reason for a state court’s decision to
         deny habeas relief was that the petitioner wasn’t prejudiced by his
         counsel’s deficient performance, we can, in evaluating whether
         that reason was reasonable, consider additional rationales that
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         20-13752               Opinion of the Court                         59

         support the state court’s prejudice determination.” Id. at 1036
         (cleaned up). And we defer to the state court’s determination so
         long as it was not “so obviously wrong that its error lies beyond
         any possibility for fairminded disagreement.” Id. (quotation omit-
         ted).
                                    DISCUSSION
                 Our review is limited to the three issues specified in
         Heidler’s certificate of appealability. Murray v. United States, 145
         F.3d 1249, 1251 (11th Cir. 1998) (“[I]n an appeal brought by an un-
         successful habeas petitioner, appellate review is limited to the is-
         sues specified in the [certificate of appealability].”). First, we con-
         clude that the Georgia Supreme Court did not unreasonably apply
         Strickland in denying Heidler’s claim that trial counsel were ineffec-
         tive in investigating and presenting evidence of his mental health
         during the guilt phase of trial. Second, we find that the Georgia
         Supreme Court did not unreasonably apply Strickland in denying
         Heidler’s claim that trial counsel were ineffective in investigating
         and presenting mitigating evidence in the penalty phase of trial.
         And third, even if Heidler sufficiently pleaded and exhausted his
         claim that trial counsel were ineffective in failing to suppress his
         inculpatory statements to police, we explain that the claim fails on
         the merits under de novo review.
                But before we get there, we’ll start with the law that governs
         Heidler’s ineffective assistance of counsel claims. Under Strickland,
         “[a] petitioner asserting a claim of ineffective assistance of counsel
         must demonstrate both deficient performance and prejudice—that
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         60                      Opinion of the Court                   20-13752

         counsel’s performance ‘fell below an objective standard of reason-
         ableness’ and that ‘there is a reasonable probability that, but for
         counsel’s unprofessional errors, the result of the proceeding would
         have been different.’” Hitchcock v. Sec’y, Fla. Dep’t of Corr., 745 F.3d
         476, 485 (11th Cir. 2014) (quoting Strickland, 466 U.S. at 687–88).
         “Because the failure to demonstrate either deficient performance
         or prejudice is dispositive . . . , there is no reason for a court decid-
         ing an ineffective assistance claim to address both components of
         the inquiry if the defendant makes an insufficient showing on one.”
         Windom v. Sec’y, Dep’t of Corr., 578 F.3d 1227, 1248 (11th Cir. 2009)
         (cleaned up).
                 The performance inquiry is “highly deferential,” and courts
         must not succumb to the “all too tempting” impulse “to conclude
         that a particular act or omission of counsel was unreasonable” after
         counsel’s defense “has proved unsuccessful.” Strickland, 466 U.S.
         at 689. “[C]ounsel is strongly presumed to have rendered adequate
         assistance and made all significant decisions in the exercise of rea-
         sonable professional judgment.” Id. at 690. “No absolute rules dic-
         tate what is reasonable performance for lawyers.” Chandler v.
         United States, 218 F.3d 1305, 1317 (11th Cir. 2000) (en banc) (citing
         Strickland, 466 U.S. at 688–89). Instead, “the performance inquiry
         must be whether counsel’s assistance was reasonable considering
         all the circumstances.” Strickland, 466 U.S. at 688.
               In short, if a reasonably competent attorney in counsel’s
         shoes could—but not necessarily would—have performed the
         same, then the representation was adequate. See White v.
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         20-13752               Opinion of the Court                        61

         Singletary, 972 F.2d 1218, 1220 (11th Cir. 1992) (“We ask only
         whether some reasonable lawyer at the trial could have acted, in
         the circumstances, as defense counsel acted at trial.”); Rompilla v.
         Beard, 545 U.S. 374, 381 (2005) (referring to “[a] standard of reason-
         ableness applied as if one stood in counsel’s shoes”). “Strickland
         does not guarantee perfect representation, only a reasonably com-
         petent attorney.” Harrington, 562 U.S. at 110 (quotation omitted).
                In reviewing a state court’s determination that an attorney’s
         performance was not unreasonable, we decide only whether the
         state court’s conclusion about reasonableness was itself reasonable.
         See 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d)(1). So we give “both the state court and the
         defense attorney the benefit of the doubt.” Woods v. Etherton, 578
         U.S. 113, 117 (2016) (quotation omitted). In other words, “because
         the standards created by Strickland and [section] 2254(d) are both
         highly deferential,” our review is “doubly” deferential “when the
         two apply in tandem.” Jenkins v. Comm’r, Ala. Dep’t of Corr., 963
         F.3d 1248, 1265 (11th Cir. 2020) (cleaned up).
                As to Strickland’s second prong, the prejudice inquiry
         doesn’t ask whether “the errors had some conceivable effect on the
         outcome of the proceeding.” See Strickland, 466 U.S. at 693. In-
         stead, where a defendant challenges a death sentence, we ask
         “whether there is a reasonable probability that, absent the errors,
         the sentencer . . . would have concluded that the balance of aggra-
         vating and mitigating circumstances did not warrant death.” Hitch-
         cock, 745 F.3d at 485 (quoting Strickland, 466 U.S. at 695). “A rea-
         sonable probability means a substantial, not just conceivable,
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         62                       Opinion of the Court                  20-13752

         likelihood of a different result.” Shinn, 141 S. Ct. at 523 (quotation
         omitted). “It is a ‘probability sufficient to undermine confidence in
         the outcome.’” Hayes v. Sec’y, Fla. Dep’t of Corr., 10 F.4th 1203, 1210
         (11th Cir. 2021) (quoting Strickland, 466 U.S. at 694).
              A. Heidler’s Claim that Trial Counsel Were Ineﬀective in Investigat-
                  ing and Presenting Evidence of His Mental Health During the
                                            Guilt Phase
                 With that, we turn to Heidler’s claim that trial counsel were
         ineffective in investigating and presenting evidence of his mental
         health during the guilt phase of his trial. Because the Georgia Su-
         preme Court summarily denied that claim, we look to the “last rea-
         soned” state court decision. See McGahee, 560 F.3d at 1261 n.12. In
         our case, that’s the state habeas court’s decision. The state habeas
         court denied Heidler’s claim, reasoning that Heidler failed under
         Strickland’s performance and prejudice prongs. We conclude that
         fairminded jurists could agree with those determinations about the
         guilt phase: that trial counsel’s investigation was not deficient, that
         trial counsel’s presentation was not deficient, and that Heidler has
         failed to show that he suffered any prejudice.
                               Deﬁciency – Investigation
                 The state habeas court concluded that Heidler’s trial coun-
         sel’s investigation into his mental health for the guilt phase was not
         deficient. Under our “doubly” deferential standard of review, we
         can’t say that the state habeas court unreasonably concluded that
         trial counsel weren’t deficient under the circumstances. See Jenkins,
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         20-13752              Opinion of the Court                       63

         963 F.3d at 1265 (quoting Harrington, 562 U.S. at 105). Mr. Garrett
         and Ms. Palmer thoroughly investigated Heidler’s mental health.
                 For starters, both Mr. Garrett and Ms. Palmer visited
         Heidler in jail within days of the murders. Even based on those
         initial meetings with Heidler, Mr. Garrett and Ms. Palmer were
         “totally convinced” that Heidler was mentally ill. Ms. Palmer, for
         example, saw that Heidler “was making babies out of toilet paper
         and doing strange things in his cell.” Ms. Palmer continued to visit
         Heidler every six weeks or so and talk with the chief jailer every
         Thursday “to see how [Heidler] was doing, was he taking his med-
         ication.” Mr. Garrett also met with Heidler at least a dozen times
         before the trial. Trial counsel concluded that Heidler “obviously
         needed a psychological evaluation.”
                Trial counsel’s mental health investigation also included in-
         terviewing Heidler’s family members, including his mother, aunt,
         uncle, and his sister, Lisa Aguilar. Ms. Palmer recounted that
         Heidler’s “family members” all said “[t]hat he had always been
         mentally ill.” At the same time, Heidler’s family members
         “weren’t real helpful” with giving “specific examples of mental
         health problems.” Ms. Palmer also spoke with some of Heidler’s
         teachers and foster parents. One of those teachers, Ms. Dryden,
         worked with Heidler at the Cedarwood School for “mentally ill stu-
         dents.” Ms. Dryden was able to talk about “how sick [Heidler] was
         during the time.” And one of Heidler’s foster parents, Ms. Boat-
         right, explained that Heidler “hallucinated that he had this pet
         friend that was [a] white mouse.” To gather more information,
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         64                     Opinion of the Court                 20-13752

         Ms. Palmer also went “to the jails,” to the “Juvenile Court,” and to
         the DFACS to speak with caseworkers and gather Heidler’s rec-
         ords. And she hired Investigator Gillis, who sought out Heidler’s
         “aunts and uncles and cousins” and some of Heidler’s friends.
               Heidler’s trial counsel also collected extensive records from
         DFACS, medical service providers, mental health centers, and
         schools (including psycho-educational centers). For example, trial
         counsel received records from:
               (1) Harrell Psychoeducational Program; (2) First Dis-
               trict Cooperative Educational Service Agency; (3) Ap-
               pling County Special Education Program; (4) Okefe-
               nokee RESA Child Development Center; (5) Bacon
               County Elementary; (6) Jeﬀ Davis Middle School; (7)
               Georgia Regional of Savannah; (8) Cedarwood Psy-
               choeducational Program; (9) Daisy Youth Clinic (Sa-
               tilla Community Mental Health); (10) Bacon County
               Juvenile Court; (11) DFACS [in] Appling, Bacon and
               Jeﬀ Davis Counties; (12) Pineland Mental Health; and
               (13) Toombs County Detention Center.

         These records revealed, for example, that Heidler was “extremely
         suicidal,” that he “kill[ed] animals,” that he “attempt[ed] to harm
         himself” by “standing in front of logging trucks” and tying “a rope
         around his neck,” and that Heidler had “tremendous [amounts] of
         pent up anger . . . that exhibit[ed] itself in inappropriate and some-
         times psychotic manners.” The records also included Heidler’s
         medication log from while he was detained pending trial, which
         showed that he was prescribed Haldol, “an antipsychotic
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         medication.” Trial counsel also collected letters that Heidler had
         sent to them leading up to trial, including a letter in which Heidler
         said that he “hear[d] a dead baby crying.”
                In assessing Heidler’s mental health, trial counsel also hired
         two experts. Specifically, Mr. Garrett retained Drs. Maish and Ol-
         son to evaluate Heidler. Mr. Garrett testified that he and Ms.
         Palmer gave Dr. Maish reports of Heidler’s behavior in jail and “all
         documents” comprising Heidler’s background records. Dr. Maish
         met with Heidler six times, interviewed him “extensively,” and
         gave him a “battery of tests.” Mr. Garrett also retained Dr. Albert
         Olson to evaluate Heidler for “pathological issues,” “brain dam-
         age,” or a “head injury” and to do “neurological testing.” Beyond
         hiring experts, Mr. Garrett also interviewed the court-appointed
         experts, Drs. D’Alesandro, Ifill, and Kuglar, and gave them
         Heidler’s background records too.
                In short, the record shows that trial counsel’s investigation
         of Heidler’s mental health was comprehensive and thorough.
         We’ve previously held that similar—and even less extensive—in-
         vestigations were constitutionally adequate. See, e.g., Gissendaner
         v. Seaboldt, 735 F.3d 1311, 1331 (11th Cir. 2013) (“The state habeas
         court’s finding of no deficient performance was also reasonable
         with respect to trial counsel’s mental health investigation, which
         included obtaining [the petitioner’s] mental health records and
         consulting with [an expert].”); Raheem v. GDCP Warden, 995 F.3d
         895, 919 (11th Cir. 2021) (finding that trial counsel “conducted an
         extensive [and adequate] investigation into [the petitioner’s]
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         66                     Opinion of the Court                  20-13752

         mental health before trial” where trial counsel “consulted with four
         different mental health experts,” “spoke with [one of the experts]
         often,” and “me[t] with [the petitioner’s] family”). The state habeas
         court’s conclusion that trial counsel performed an adequate inves-
         tigation of Heidler’s mental health was not unreasonable.
                  In response, Heidler makes six main arguments—all unper-
         suasive. First, Heidler argues that trial counsel “[f]ailed to investi-
         gate and develop evidence of Heidler’s continuing severe mental
         illness while awaiting trial.” But trial counsel did investigate
         Heidler’s mental health as he awaited trial. For example, Mr. Gar-
         rett and Ms. Palmer visited Heidler every few weeks. At these vis-
         its, trial counsel learned that Heidler “was making babies out of
         toilet paper and doing strange things in his cell.” When they vis-
         ited, trial counsel saw that Heidler “colored every cement block in
         [his] cell” with crayons, tore up his “sink” and “toilet,” and engaged
         in “self-mutilation within the jail.” Ms. Palmer also spoke with the
         chief jailer every week to check in on Heidler and whether he was
         taking his medication.
                Heidler’s trial counsel also requested—and received—at
         least some records from Pineland Mental Health, including
         Heidler’s medication log from while he was detained, which
         showed that he was prescribed Haldol, an antipsychotic medica-
         tion. The state habeas court also credited Mr. Garrett’s testimony
         that he spoke with Nurse Dykes, the nurse at the Toombs County
         Detention Center, who referred Heidler to Pineland Mental Health
         Center for treatment. Mr. Garrett read his notes from the time as
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         stating that Nurse Dykes “said that [Heidler] needed to go to men-
         tal health.” Given all this, we can’t say that the state habeas court
         unreasonably concluded that trial counsel adequately investigated
         Heidler’s mental health while he was detained pending trial.
                Pushing back, Heidler faults trial counsel for “never
         reach[ing] out to [Nurse] Dykes or to Dr. Faulk, the treating psy-
         chiatrist.” He also criticizes trial counsel for failing to collect cer-
         tain records from Pineland Mental Health Center, which (among
         other things) documented Dr. Faulk’s findings, including a nota-
         tion that Heidler appeared “psychotic.” But the state habeas court
         found that trial counsel did reach out to Nurse Dykes. Even if
         Heidler could undermine that finding by clear and convincing evi-
         dence—and even if trial counsel failed to interview Nurse Dykes
         and Dr. Faulk and failed to obtain certain Pineland Mental Health
         records—that wouldn’t render the state habeas court’s decision un-
         reasonable. See Valdez v. Cockrell, 274 F.3d 941, 951 n.17 (5th Cir.
         2001) (“[I]t is possible that, while the state court erred with respect
         to one factual finding under [section] 2254(e)(1), its determination
         of facts resulting in its decision in the case was reasonable under
         [section] 2254(d)(2).”).
                 Here’s why. We’ll start with the interviews. “A claim of
         failure to interview a witness may sound impressive in the abstract,
         but it cannot establish ineffective assistance when the person’s ac-
         count is otherwise fairly known to defense counsel.” Eggleston v.
         United States, 798 F.2d 374, 376 (9th Cir. 1986) (quoting United States
         v. Decoster, 624 F.2d 196, 209 (D.C. Cir. 1976) (en banc)). Here,
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         68                     Opinion of the Court                20-13752

         Nurse Dykes referred Heidler to Pineland Mental Health Center
         because Heidler was “hallucinating and he was hearing voices” and
         “continuing to injure himself.” And Dr. Faulk diagnosed Heidler
         with “[p]sychotic [d]isorder” and prescribed him Haldol to “help
         control [Heidler’s] psychotic symptoms,” including seeing “visions
         of people” and “hear[ing] a baby crying all the time.” But trial
         counsel already knew about the hallucinations, self-mutilation, and
         signs of psychosis. The state habeas court didn’t unreasonably con-
         clude that this information was fairly known to trial counsel and
         was thus cumulative. See Bobby v. Van Hook, 558 U.S. 4, 11 (2009)
         (“[T]here comes a point at which evidence . . . can reasonably be
         expected to be only cumulative, and the search for it distractive
         from more important duties.”).
                The same goes for the Pineland Mental Health records. A
         petitioner can’t prove ineffective assistance simply by pointing to
         undiscovered records that were “cumulative to what was uncov-
         ered during counsel’s investigation.” Raheem, 995 F.3d at 922; see
         also Darling v. Sec’y, Dep’t of Corr., 619 F.3d 1279, 1284 (11th Cir.
         2010) (“No reasonable jurist could debate the holding that the fact
         that [a petitioner] now has gathered additional evidence about his
         [mental health] that differs in some minor respects from the evi-
         dence actually presented at trial does not render his attorneys’ per-
         formance deficient[.]”). And the state habeas court did not err in
         finding that the Pineland Mental Health records were cumulative
         to what trial counsel already discovered. Those records generally
         reflected that Heidler experienced “suicidal/homicidal ideations,”
         had “attempted suicide” in the past, displayed “antisocial
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         20-13752               Opinion of the Court                         69

         personality traits,” was diagnosed with “antisocial personality dis-
         order,” “[r]eport[ed] hearing voices and seeing things” (including
         “a baby cry”), showed signs of “psychosis,” and was prescribed
         “Haldol.” But counsel were already aware of these things. And
         they already had five mental health experts evaluating Heidler.
         Trial counsel were not required to “scour the globe on the off
         chance” they’d find more evidence of what they already knew.
         Rompilla, 545 U.S. at 383. At the very least, the state habeas court
         was not unreasonable in concluding as much.
                Second, Heidler similarly points to other witnesses that (in
         his view) trial counsel should have interviewed—like Dr. Butler (a
         pediatrician who treated Heidler when he was twelve and saw him
         experiencing “auditory hallucinations”), Ms. Fesperman (a school
         psychologist whom Heidler had told he “sometimes saw things
         coming off the wall”), and Ms. Pickren (a teacher who saw
         Heidler’s “severe depression”). Heidler says that trial counsel’s fail-
         ure to interview these people rendered their investigation consti-
         tutionally inadequate.
                Heidler’s argument doesn’t work. For one thing—this bears
         repeating—trial counsel were aware of Heidler’s mental health
         problems and made them a focal point of trial. And so the state
         habeas court did not unreasonably conclude that these accounts
         were “fairly known” to trial counsel. See Eggleston, 798 F.2d at 376
         (quotation omitted). For another, while Heidler faults trial counsel
         for not interviewing some witnesses who (he says) would have of-
         fered helpful testimony, trial counsel’s “duty to investigate does
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         70                     Opinion of the Court                 20-13752

         not necessarily require counsel to investigate every evidentiary
         lead.” Raheem, 995 F.3d at 909 (quotation omitted). We must af-
         ford a “heavy measure of deference to counsel’s judgments,” mind-
         ful of the “reality that lawyers do not enjoy the benefit of endless
         time, energy, or financial resources.” Williams v. Head, 185 F.3d
         1223, 1237 (11th Cir. 1999) (cleaned up). Here, trial counsel inter-
         viewed Heidler’s family, friends, teachers, and foster parents. They
         went door to door around the community, and they spoke to peo-
         ple at the jails, the juvenile court, and DFACS. They hired two
         mental health experts and worked closely with three others. They
         collected binders (and binders) of Heidler’s records. We can’t say
         that the state habeas court unreasonably found this sufficient.
                 Third, Heidler asserts that trial counsel performed unrea-
         sonably because they “failed to ensure the experts had additional
         important information, such as Heidler’s own letters documenting
         ongoing psychosis.” In those letters, Heidler said he could hear his
         stillborn baby crying. But Ms. Palmer testified at the state habeas
         court hearing that the “letters that [Heidler] had written to [trial
         counsel] . . . were . . . turned over to Dr. Maish and the other men-
         tal health expert[s].” And the state habeas court credited this testi-
         mony. Even if Heidler could show by clear and convincing evi-
         dence that this finding was erroneous (and we doubt he could), the
         evidence shows that the experts were equipped with the
         knowledge that Heidler suffered from hallucinations. By the time
         they testified at trial, for example, Dr. Kuglar knew about Heidler’s
         “auditory delusion[s],” including a “baby crying”; Dr. D’Alesandro
         was aware that Heidler was taking medication that “conceivably
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         20-13752               Opinion of the Court                         71

         could have been” Haldol, an antipsychotic; and Dr. Maish had seen
         “talk in the records” of “hallucinations” and “psychotic disturb-
         ances.” The state habeas court did not unreasonably conclude that
         trial counsel adequately prepared the experts.
                Fourth, Heidler argues that the state habeas court’s factual
         findings about the scope of trial counsel’s pretrial investigation are
         clearly erroneous. Specifically, Heidler argues that the state habeas
         court: (1) “ignored the fact that many of [trial counsel’s] conversa-
         tions [with witnesses] happened in the middle of trial and that most
         of their witness contacts failed to cover critical mitigation topics”;
         (2) “credited” trial counsel with hiring Investigator Gillis even
         though Investigator Gillis “did practically no work on this case”;
         and (3) “took at face value” Ms. Palmer’s testimony about her in-
         vestigation even though Ms. Palmer’s billing records didn’t corrob-
         orate her testimony.
                But Heidler hasn’t shown by clear and convincing evidence
         that the state habeas court’s factual findings about the scope of trial
         counsel’s investigation were incorrect. See 28 U.S.C. § 2254(e)(1).
         To the contrary, the state habeas court’s factual findings are sup-
         ported by Ms. Palmer’s testimony at the state habeas evidentiary
         hearing about the pretrial interviews she conducted, her preference
         not to rely on Investigator Gillis to interview witnesses, and that
         she “did a lot more work” than what was documented in her billing
         records. We have “no license” to question the state habeas court’s
         determination that Ms. Palmer’s testimony was credible. See Mar-
         shall v. Lonberger, 459 U.S. 422, 434 (1983) (“28 U.S.C.
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         72                     Opinion of the Court                  20-13752

         [section] 2254(d) gives federal habeas courts no license to redeter-
         mine credibility of witnesses whose demeanor has been observed
         by the state trial court, but not by them.”).
                 Fifth, Heidler asserts that the state habeas court unreasona-
         bly “blamed [him] for [trial] counsel’s own deficiencies during the
         investigation” because Heidler’s inability to communicate was “a
         symptom of his illness, not an ‘unwillingness to cooperate’” and
         because “even if Heidler had intentionally withheld information,
         counsel would still be obligated to conduct a reasonable investiga-
         tion.” Heidler is correct that his lack of assistance did not relieve
         trial counsel of their duty to perform a reasonable investigation.
         See Porter v. McCollum, 558 U.S. 30, 40 (2009) (“Porter may have
         been fatalistic or uncooperative, but that does not obviate the need
         for defense counsel to conduct some sort of mitigation investiga-
         tion.”).
                 But the state habeas court didn’t conclude that Heidler’s in-
         ability or unwillingness to assist his counsel’s investigation obvi-
         ated counsel’s duty to reasonably investigate his mental health. In-
         stead, the state habeas court considered Heidler’s lack of coopera-
         tion as context for assessing the reasonableness of trial counsel’s in-
         vestigation. This was not unreasonable. See Johnston v. Singletary,
         162 F.3d 630, 642 (11th Cir. 1998) (“In practical terms, counsel’s
         ability to present certain types of evidence may be informed, if not
         sharply curtailed, by a client’s refusal to cooperate”); Thomas v.
         Wainwright, 767 F.2d 738, 743 (11th Cir. 1985) (“A criminal defend-
         ant’s unreasonable refusal to communicate or cooperate with his
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         20-13752                Opinion of the Court                         73

         attorney is one of the ‘circumstances’ that must be considered in
         determining whether an attorney’s assistance was reasonably effec-
         tive.”); Gardner v. Ozmint, 511 F.3d 420, 427 (4th Cir. 2007)
         (“[W]hen determining whether counsel has delivered a constitu-
         tionally deficient performance, a state court also may consider a
         defendant’s own degree of cooperation[.]”); Lorraine v. Coyle, 291
         F.3d 416, 435 (6th Cir. 2002) (“Trial counsel cannot be faulted for
         their client’s lack of cooperation.”); cf. Strickland, 466 U.S. at 688
         (“[T]he performance inquiry must be whether counsel’s assistance
         was reasonable considering all the circumstances.”).
                And sixth, Heidler likens his case to Ferrell v. Hall, 640 F.3d
         1199 (11th Cir. 2011), where we found that “trial counsel’s mental
         health investigation was unjustifiably and unreasonably circum-
         scribed.” Id. at 1227. In Ferrell, trial counsel limited the mental
         health expert “to answering only two questions: [1] whether [the
         petitioner] was mentally retarded and [2] whether he suffered from
         any problems that may have affected his waiver of rights for the
         statements he gave to the police.” Id. “Notably,” the mental health
         expert “had not been asked to look for evidence of brain damage,
         was provided no material from counsel other than school records,
         and was not asked to perform a clinical interview, or do anything
         else for possible use in mitigation.” Id. “Nor, despite [the peti-
         tioner’s] obvious mental disabilities, did defense counsel ever ask
         any of [the petitioner’s] family . . . about any topics related to [his]
         mental health.” Id. at 1228.
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         74                      Opinion of the Court                   20-13752

                 Our case is different. Unlike trial counsel in Ferrell, for ex-
         ample, Heidler’s trial counsel (1) did not limit testimony to only
         mental retardation or competence to waive rights; (2) did obtain a
         second expert to look for evidence of “brain damage”; (3) did pro-
         vide “several binders” of records to the experts, including DFACS
         records, school records, mental health records, and juvenile rec-
         ords; (4) did have their mental health expert interview their client
         “extensively” across six visits; (5) did ask family members about
         Heidler’s mental health; and (6) made his mental health the main
         focus of their investigation. In other words, Heidler’s trial counsel
         did all of the things that trial counsel didn’t do in Ferrell. This isn’t
         a case where a criminal defendant had obvious mental health issues
         and trial counsel simply did nothing. And so Ferrell doesn’t help
         Heidler’s claim.
                               Deﬁciency – Presentation
                  The state habeas court concluded that trial counsel’s presen-
         tation of mental health evidence in the guilt phase was reasonable.
         Fairminded jurists could agree with that assessment. In assessing
         the reasonableness of counsel’s presentation, we’ve explained that
         “[i]t is especially difficult to succeed with an ineffective assistance
         claim questioning the strategic decisions of trial counsel who were
         informed of the available evidence.” Nance v. Warden, Ga. Diagnos-
         tic Prison, 922 F.3d 1298, 1302 (11th Cir. 2019). Indeed, where, as
         here, “strategic choices”—like deciding what theories or witnesses
         to present—are “made after [a] thorough investigation,” those de-
         cisions “are virtually unchallengeable.” Id. (quoting Strickland, 466
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         20-13752               Opinion of the Court                       75

         U.S. at 690). Viewed in this light, the state habeas court’s decision
         was not unreasonable.
                 As we’ve explained, trial counsel realized early on that
         Heidler was “mentally ill.” Ms. Palmer testified that, as soon as she
         “walked in[to] [Heidler’s cell] and saw [the] toilet paper babies,
         [she] knew that he was mentally ill.” Mr. Garrett likewise testified
         that he knew that “mental health” would be an issue in the case
         “[a]lmost right away.” At the same time, trial counsel recognized
         that it would be ineffective to argue that Heidler was innocent be-
         cause “the facts were overwhelming as to what happened.” So trial
         counsel landed on a strategy for the guilt stage of arguing that
         Heidler was guilty but mentally ill. In explaining this strategy, Mr.
         Garrett testified:
               [T]he facts were overwhelming as to what hap-
               pened[,] and it was not a mental health defense so
               much as it was how to go through the guilt/inno-
               cence phase seamlessly connected to the penalty
               phase that was inevitable and . . . be consistent. And
               so it was really one long penalty phase, with the psy-
               chiatric evidence put at the front end and then miti-
               gation put in afterwards. We believed that if we ar-
               gued to the jury that he was guilty but mentally ill,
               that it would be consistent with the evidence and that
               we would retain credibility with the jury and that per-
               haps the jury would be sympathetic and spare his life.

         Heidler doesn’t contend that this strategy was unreasonable. Nor
         could he. See Thomas, 767 F.2d at 747 (finding that trial counsel was
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         76                      Opinion of the Court                   20-13752

         not ineffective where he “advance[d] arguments at sentencing con-
         sistent with those he advanced at the guilt phase”); Watkins v. Mur-
         ray, No. 92-4010, 1993 WL 243692, *9 (July 7, 1993) (4th Cir. 1993)
         (“[I]t was an eminently reasonable trial strategy to offer a theory at
         sentencing consistent with the theory offered at the guilt phase of
         the trial.”); see also Welsh S. White, Effective Assistance of Counsel in
         Capital Cases: The Evolving Standard of Care, 1993 U. Ill. L. Rev. 323,
         357–58 (1993) (noting the importance of “develop[ing] a consistent
         theory to be used at the guilt and penalty phases” and using as an
         example trial counsel “present[ing] an insanity defense at trial” and
         then “present[ing] additional testimony relating to the defendant’s
         mental impairment as mitigating evidence at the penalty trial”).
                 The state habeas court did not unreasonably conclude that
         trial counsel weren’t deficient in implementing this strategy at trial.
         Starting with opening statements, Ms. Palmer told the jury that she
         “expected that mental health issues [were] going to be a very im-
         portant part of this case.” After the state rested, trial counsel then
         sought to present Drs. D’Alesandro, Ifill, and Kuglar during the
         guilt phase to prove that Heidler was mentally ill. Over the state’s
         objection, the state trial court ruled in Heidler’s favor, deciding that
         it would call Drs. D’Alesandro, Ifill, and Kuglar as witnesses and
         would permit Heidler to use the court-appointed experts to prove
         his mental health condition in support of a guilty but mentally ill
         verdict.
               In light of the state trial court’s ruling, Heidler’s trial counsel
         decided not to call Dr. Maish during the guilt phase. In explaining
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         20-13752               Opinion of the Court                        77

         this decision, Mr. Garrett noted that he and Ms. Palmer “thought
         [Dr. Maish’s] testimony was going to be the strongest.” And so
         they “wanted to let the jury hear the mental health evidence on the
         front end with the other three, and then let them hear it all over
         again from someone who [trial counsel] thought would . . . give
         the strongest testimony.” We can’t say that the state court unrea-
         sonably found this to be an effective strategy. Indeed, “[w]hich wit-
         nesses, if any, to call, and when to call them, is the epitome of a
         strategic decision, and it is one that we will seldom, if ever, second
         guess.” Waters v. Thomas, 46 F.3d 1506, 1512 (11th Cir. 1995) (en
         banc).
                 Heidler’s trial counsel then questioned the three expert wit-
         nesses, highlighting Heidler’s severe mental health issues. First,
         Dr. D’Alesandro told the jury that he “found severe emotional
         problems beginning in [Heidler’s] childhood” that Heidler “was
         still suffering from” at the time of his evaluation. Dr. D’Alesandro
         said that Heidler would probably be best identified as having bor-
         derline personality disorder. Dr. D’Alesandro agreed that this “se-
         vere disorder” would “influence [Heidler’s] decision-making capac-
         ity.” The borderline personality disorder could also make Heidler
         “really unstable,” have “a very poor sense of themselves,” “overre-
         act to stimuli,” and “at times become very dramatic” and “impul-
         sive.”
                Dr. D’Alesandro testified that, “[f]rom the information [he]
         got, [Heidler] did experience hallucinations . . . during a time that
         he was doing some type of drug.” Dr. D’Alesandro also testified
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         78                      Opinion of the Court                  20-13752

         that, in examining Heidler’s mental history, “[t]here was a sugges-
         tion” in the records that Heidler had experienced “psychotic epi-
         sodes.” Although he couldn’t validate the psychosis, Dr.
         D’Alesandro explained that “people with this type of diagnosis
         sometimes will get to such an extreme that they may temporarily
         at least function in a psychotic-like state.” Dr. D’Alesandro further
         mentioned that Heidler “conceivably could have been” taking Hal-
         dol, “an antipsychotic medication.”
                 Dr. D’Alesandro also explained that Heidler had a history of
         “depression” and “recurrent suicidal behavior, gestures, or threats,
         or self-mutilating behavior.” He told the jury, for example, that the
         records indicated that Heidler “would stand in the middle of the
         road waiting for a car to try and hit him,” and one time, “a tractor-
         trailer jackknifed in [an] attempt[] to avoid hitting him.” He also
         explained that “the first time [he] saw him [Heidler] had cigarette
         burns up and down his arms,” which “certainly would signify self-
         mutilation.” And he shared his view that “there [was] sufficient
         clinical documentation to substantiate a consideration of a guilty
         but mentally ill [verdict] if that would be the [c]ourt and the jury’s
         decision.”
                 Second, Heidler’s trial counsel reinforced this testimony
         through Dr. Ifill. Dr. Ifill testified that he “found that [Heidler] was
         suffering from severe emotional disorders beginning in childhood
         and continuing up until the present.” Like Dr. D’Alesandro, Dr.
         Ifill said that he saw “self-inflicted” cigarette burn marks on
         Heidler’s skin. Dr. Ifill also told the jury that Heidler’s “history
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         20-13752                Opinion of the Court                          79

         recorded recurrent thoughts of wanting to kill himself and several
         attempts to do so,” including a time when he was admitted to “the
         hospital in Savannah.” Dr. Ifill explained that he’d “found that
         [Heidler] was suffering from many elements of . . . borderline per-
         sonality disorder.”
                 Dr. Ifill told the jury that there “were evaluations where
         [Heidler’s] behavior at one point might have been thought of being
         psychotic.” He explained that “there are many instances where a
         person who is not normally psychotic may have psychotic epi-
         sodes.” Mr. Garrett also asked Dr. Ifill if those suffering from a per-
         sonality disorder may be “triggered into a psychotic episode.” And,
         in response, Dr. Ifill said: “[t]here is only one personality disorder
         with which a brief or transient psychotic episode is associated with,
         . . . and that is the borderline personality disorder.” Dr. Ifill con-
         ceded that Heidler’s case “could support a verdict of guilty but
         mentally ill.”
                 Third, Dr. Kuglar testified (like the first two experts) that the
         “primary diagnosis [he] arrived at” was “borderline personality dis-
         order.” Dr. Kuglar saw “where [Heidler] had cut himself and what
         appeared to be cigarette burns, some kind of burns on his body,
         and where he had . . . pick[ed] at small lesions on his face until he
         had sort of created sores.” Dr. Kuglar said that Heidler “seemed to
         show . . . some probable degree of depression” and that Heidler
         had previously been “admitted after some sort of self-harm at-
         tempts.” Dr. Kuglar explained that people with borderline person-
         ality disorder “often have very brief episodes of being psychotic.”
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         80                     Opinion of the Court                 20-13752

         And he told the jury that Heidler talked about “auditory delu-
         sion[s]” like “hearing . . . voices” and the sound of “a baby crying.”
         Dr. Kuglar concluded by testifying that, “[i]n [his] opinion,”
         Heidler “would qualify for [a] guilty but mentally ill” verdict.”
                To end the guilt phase, Mr. Garrett gave a closing statement.
         Mr. Garrett explained that he was not asking the jury “to find
         [Heidler] not guilty” because there was “overwhelming evidence
         that he did it.” Instead, what he was asking for was a verdict rec-
         ognizing that Heidler “was mentally ill as defined by Georgia law
         when these acts occurred.” In this way, all he was “asking for in
         this case[] [was] a verdict based on the evidence.”
                Mr. Garrett reminded the jury that each of the three court-
         appointed experts opined that there was evidence to support a
         guilty but mentally ill verdict. Mr. Garrett also pointed to testi-
         mony about how Heidler described the scene as “like being in a
         dream.” He reminded the jury of expert testimony that Heidler
         was “self-abusive, that he mutilate[d] himself, he burn[ed] himself
         with cigarettes, he cut[] himself on the arms, . . . [and] pick[ed] at
         his face until there [were] open sores.” Mr. Garrett recalled the
         expert testimony that Heidler “began at the age of eight and nine
         to show bizarre and self-destructive behavior,” including standing
         “out on the highway in front of trucks and [not] mov[ing].” Mr.
         Garrett emphasized the testimony that Heidler was being given
         Haldol, a “very strong antipsychotic drug.” And he ended his clos-
         ing argument by asking the jury to “consider the very strong and
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         20-13752               Opinion of the Court                        81

         unrebutted evidence that [Heidler] was mentally ill as defined by
         Georgia law at the time” of “this horrible tragedy.”
                 In sum, Heidler’s trial counsel brought out, through the ex-
         perts, (1) Heidler’s depression, (2) that Heidler experienced halluci-
         nations, (3) that he had attempted suicide on multiple occasions,
         (4) that he engaged in self-mutilation, and (5) that he had been pre-
         scribed a powerful antipsychotic medication. Trial counsel showed
         that Heidler had suffered from a severe disorder from the time he
         was a child through the time of trial. They also offered powerful
         examples: that Heidler had experienced auditory delusions like a
         baby crying, that Heidler self-mutilated with cigarette burns, and
         that Heidler had tried to kill himself as a child by walking in front
         of cars. We can’t say that the state habeas court’s conclusion that
         this presentation was reasonable was “so obviously wrong that its
         error lies beyond any possibility for fairminded disagreement.” See
         Shinn, 141 S. Ct. at 523 (quotation omitted).
                 Looking to avoid this conclusion, Heidler offers three main
         arguments. None of them are convincing. First, Heidler argues
         that trial counsel were ineffective because they didn’t present evi-
         dence of his “lifelong struggles with serious mental illness marked
         by auditory and visual hallucinations . . . and severe depression.”
         But trial counsel did present evidence of all of those things. As to
         the hallucinations, both Dr. D’Alesandro and Dr. Kuglar testified
         about Heidler’s “delusion[s]” and “psychotic episodes,” including
         the fact that Heidler was “hearing . . . voices” and the sound of “a
         baby crying.” As to depression, Drs. D’Alesandro and Kuglar
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         specifically discussed Heidler’s “depression.” And all of the experts
         told the jury about Heidler’s long history of “recurrent suicidal be-
         havior, gestures, or threats, or self-mutilating behavior.” It’s
         simply not true, then, that trial counsel failed to present evidence
         of Heidler’s hallucinations and depression.
                  Second, Heidler contends that trial counsel’s guilt phase
         mental health presentation was deficient because they “effectively
         abdicated the development of [a guilty but mentally ill] defense to
         the trial court” by “relying solely on the court-appointed experts.”
         But it was not unreasonable for the state habeas court to find that
         trial counsel made a “logical and effective” strategic decision not to
         have Dr. Maish testify during the guilt phase. Mr. Garrett testified
         he made this decision based on his belief that Dr. Maish’s testimony
         was the “strongest” and his “confidence” that Drs. Ifill and Kuglar
         would accurately present Heidler’s mental health in the guilt
         phase. We can’t say that the state habeas court unreasonably con-
         cluded that this was a reasonable strategic decision. See Waters, 46
         F.3d at 1512 (“Which witnesses, if any, to call, and when to call
         them, is the epitome of a strategic decision, and it is one that we
         will seldom, if ever, second guess.”); Ledford v. Warden, Ga. Diag-
         nostic & Classification Prison, 818 F.3d 600, 649 (11th Cir. 2016) (“We
         . . . afford substantial deference to trial counsel’s strategic decision
         to present [the petitioner’s] mother as the only penalty phase wit-
         ness.”); Fortenberry v. Haley, 297 F.3d 1213, 1229–30 (11th Cir. 2002)
         (“Strategic considerations may even reasonably lead defense coun-
         sel to conclude that presenting no mitigating evidence is to the de-
         fendant’s benefit.”).
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                Third, Heidler asserts that trial counsel should have pre-
         sented “credible witnesses who would have given compelling tes-
         timony of Heidler’s psychosis and major depression,” including Dr.
         Butler, Ms. Pickren, and Ms. Fesperman. Dr. Butler was the pedi-
         atrician who saw Heidler “hallucinating” when he was twelve, Ms.
         Pickren was a teacher who could speak to Heidler’s “depression,”
         and Ms. Fesperman was a school psychologist who said Heidler
         had reported “sometimes [seeing] things coming off the wall.”
                 The problem, as the state habeas court pointed out, is that
         all of this testimony would have been cumulative of the evidence
         already presented to the jury. “A petitioner cannot establish inef-
         fective assistance by identifying additional evidence that could
         have been presented when that evidence is merely cumulative.”
         Van Poyck v. Fla. Dep’t of Corr., 290 F.3d 1318, 1324 n.7 (11th Cir.
         2002). In general, “evidence presented in postconviction proceed-
         ings is cumulative . . . to or duplicative of that presented at trial
         when it tells a more detailed version of the same story told at trial
         or provides more or better examples or amplifies the themes pre-
         sented to the jury.” Holsey v. Warden, Ga. Diagnostic Prison, 694 F.3d
         1230, 1260–61 (11th Cir. 2012) (cleaned up) (op. of Ed Carnes, J.).
         That’s exactly what this added testimony would do here. Heidler’s
         trial counsel brought out Heidler’s hallucinations and depressions
         at trial. He can’t show ineffective assistance of counsel by simply
         pointing to more or better examples.
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                                        Prejudice
                 The state habeas court’s conclusion that Heidler’s trial coun-
         sel did not perform deficiently at the guilt stage is sufficient to dis-
         pose of Heidler’s first claim. Windom, 578 F.3d at 1248 (“[T]he fail-
         ure to demonstrate either deficient performance or prejudice is dis-
         positive[.]”). But the state habeas court also found that Heidler
         failed to show that he was prejudiced by trial counsel’s investiga-
         tion and presentation of mental health evidence during the guilt
         phase. We can’t say that this no-prejudice determination was con-
         trary to, or an unreasonable application of, clearly established fed-
         eral law.
                 “[A] petitioner cannot satisfy the prejudice prong of the
         Strickland test with evidence that is merely cumulative of evidence
         already presented at trial.” Rose v. McNeil, 634 F.3d 1224, 1243 (11th
         Cir. 2011); see also, e.g., Cullen v. Pinholster, 563 U.S. 170, 200 (2011)
         (finding “no reasonable probability that the additional evidence
         [from the] state habeas proceedings would have changed the jury’s
         verdict” because “[t]he ‘new’ evidence largely duplicated the miti-
         gation evidence at trial.”); Knight v. Fla. Dep’t of Corr., 958 F.3d 1035,
         1049–50 (11th Cir. 2020) (concluding that the petitioner failed to
         establish prejudice because his “‘new’ mitigation evidence merely
         strengthen[ed]—corroborate[ed], confirm[ed]—the mitigating cir-
         cumstances that [counsel] presented at sentencing”).
               Here, as we’ve explained, the state habeas court did not un-
         reasonably conclude that Heidler’s preferred evidence was merely
         cumulative—that the evidence simply strengthened, corroborated,
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         20-13752               Opinion of the Court                         85

         or confirmed the theories already presented at trial. For example,
         Heidler argues that he was prejudiced because trial counsel failed
         to “present[] credible witnesses—including Dr. Butler, Dr. Faulk,
         Nurse Dykes, and Ms. Pickren—with first-hand knowledge of
         Heidler’s psychosis and severe depression.” But Drs. D’Alesandro,
         Ifill, and Kuglar testified not only that Heidler could be found guilty
         but mentally ill but also about Heidler’s depression and psychotic
         episodes. The state habeas court did not unreasonably conclude
         that there was no prejudice because this evidence was simply du-
         plicative.
                Along similar lines, Heidler argues that trial counsel failed to
         collect and present (some) Pineland Mental Health records from
         while he was detained pending trial. As we’ve explained, the Pine-
         land Mental Health records generally reflected that Heidler experi-
         enced “suicidal/homicidal ideations,” had “attempted suicide” in
         the past, displayed “antisocial personality traits,” was diagnosed
         with “antisocial personality disorder,” “[r]eport[ed] hearing voices
         and seeing things” (including “a baby cry”), showed signs of “psy-
         chosis,” and was prescribed “Haldol.” But all of this closely
         matched the evidence that trial counsel discovered and then pre-
         sented to the jury during the guilt phase at trial. The state habeas
         court did not unreasonably find no prejudice based on these Pine-
         land Mental Health records.
               More than that, the state habeas court also concluded that
         there was no prejudice resulting from trial counsel’s failure to dis-
         cover Heidler’s Pineland Mental Health records from while he was
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         86                     Opinion of the Court                 20-13752

         detained because those records “would not have benefited
         [Heidler] at trial.” This conclusion was not an unreasonable one.
         A “reviewing court must consider all the evidence—the good and
         the bad—when evaluating prejudice.” Wong v. Belmontes, 558 U.S.
         15, 26 (2009). And here, there was plenty of bad evidence that
         would’ve sharply cut against Heidler’s case. The records, for in-
         stance, reflect that Heidler’s diagnosis at discharge was “antisocial
         personality disorder.” They state that Heidler initially “[r]eport[ed]
         hearing voices and seeing things past three or four months” but
         then said that these “[v]oices were not present prior to murders.” And
         the records reflect that Heidler, at one point, “denie[d] any auditory
         or visual hallucinations.” The records, in other words, may very
         well have cut against trial counsel’s theme that Heidler was likely
         having a psychotic episode on the night of the murders. On these
         facts, it was not unreasonable to find that Heidler suffered no prej-
         udice from the absence of these records.
                We’ve concluded that state courts have reasonably found no
         prejudice in similar circumstances. In Cook v. Warden, Georgia Di-
         agnostic Prison, 677 F.3d 1133 (11th Cir. 2012), for example, trial
         counsel failed to discover “one set of mental health records” from
         while the defendant was “incarcerated awaiting trial.” Id. at 1137.
         Trial counsel “did not know of the [mental health] records and did
         not present [them] to [the] [p]etitioner’s [mental health expert].”
         Id. We concluded that the state court reasonably found no preju-
         dice, though, because the mental health expert “knew much of
         what was contained in the . . . records.” Id. at 1138. And the rec-
         ords were “unhelpful to [the] [p]etitioner’s case in other ways”
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         20-13752                Opinion of the Court                         87

         because they conflicted with other evidence. Id. The same is true
         here. The experts were aware of Heidler’s mental health issues
         during trial and the evidence in the Pineland Mental Health records
         would have cut against Heidler’s defense at trial.
         B.     Heidler’s Claim that Trial Counsel Were Ineﬀective in Investigat-
          ing and Presenting Mitigating Evidence for the Penalty Phase of Trial
                The state habeas court found that “trial counsel’s presenta-
         tion of mitigating evidence [in the penalty phase] was neither defi-
         cient nor was [Heidler] prejudiced by counsel’s performance.” And
         the Georgia Supreme Court summarily adopted this conclusion.
         The state habeas court didn’t unreasonably apply Strickland in
         denying Heidler’s claim that trial counsel were ineffective in inves-
         tigating and presenting mitigating evidence—including evidence of
         Heidler’s mental health and background—in the penalty phase.
                              Deﬁciency – Investigation
                 The state habeas court found that trial counsel’s investiga-
         tion was “exhaustive,” and its determination that trial counsel rea-
         sonably investigated Heidler’s mental health and background was
         not contrary to, or an unreasonable application of, clearly estab-
         lished federal law. Mr. Garrett and Ms. Palmer performed an ex-
         tensive investigation into Heidler’s background. To start, both Mr.
         Garrett and Ms. Palmer met with Heidler. Ms. Palmer continued
         to visit Heidler every six weeks or so and Mr. Garrett also met with
         Heidler at least a dozen times before the trial.
              At these meetings, trial counsel explored Heidler’s back-
         ground and mental health. For example, Ms. Palmer learned that
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         Heidler “had two brothers in jail,” that his mother “practiced all
         kinds of magic,” that Heidler was “upset” about “the baby that
         died,” and some other “background information.” She also ob-
         served Heidler’s “toilet paper babies” and concluded he was “men-
         tally ill.” Mr. Garrett also tried to talk to Heidler about his back-
         ground and testified that Heidler may have told him a little bit
         “about his family.” Ms. Palmer also leveraged her connections as
         the contract public defender in Toombs County to speak with
         guards at the jail, including the chief jailer, who “described to [Ms.
         Palmer] that [Heidler] was not mentally well.
                  Heidler’s trial counsel interviewed family, friends, teachers,
         DFACS caseworkers, and a juvenile probation officer. For exam-
         ple, Ms. Palmer spoke with Heidler’s mother, aunt, uncle, his
         brother Steve, and his sister Ms. Aguilar. Ms. Aguilar, along with
         Heidler’s aunt and uncle, “provide[d] some background infor-
         mation,” including that Heidler was “in and out of foster care.”
         Heidler’s family members all said that “he had always been men-
         tally ill” and that he’d been admitted to Georgia Regional Hospital
         twice for “mental health issues.” “Everybody” said that Heidler’s
         “stepfather had beaten” him. Heidler’s brother said that “the fam-
         ily was dysfunctional” and that Heidler “always had problems.”
         Trial counsel also reached out to some of Heidler’s foster parents,
         including Ms. Boatright, who told them that Heidler “had needed
         more help that he had not gotten” and that he “needed to be rid of
         his [mother] to have any help whatsoever.” Ms. Boatright also told
         trial counsel that “he hallucinated that he had this pet friend that
         was [a] white mouse.”
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                Trial counsel also spoke with at least six DFACS employees.
         Ms. Palmer’s notes from the time show that these DFACS employ-
         ees (for example) “confirmed neglect” and explained that Heidler’s
         mother would “threaten[]” caseworkers and use “voodoo.” The
         DFACS employees explained that Heidler’s mother “had not been
         a good mother at all” and that Heidler had a “pathetic life.” Trial
         counsel’s notes from interviewing Mr. Johnston, a juvenile proba-
         tion officer, stated that Heidler’s family “moved frequently” to
         “avoid unpaid bills,” that Heidler had “[a]dmitted killing animals,”
         that Heidler’s mother was “unstable,” and that Heidler’s parents
         were “heavy drinkers.” Trial counsel also hired an investigator,
         Frank Gillis, to help her “find witnesses down in the country.” And
         Ms. Palmer literally went “door to door and around the commu-
         nity” to investigate Heidler’s background.
                Beyond interviewing Heidler and those who knew him, trial
         counsel also collected extensive records from DFACS, medical ser-
         vice providers, mental health centers, and the schools Heidler at-
         tended. For example, trial counsel received records from:
               (1) Harrell Psychoeducational Program; (2) First Dis-
               trict Cooperative Educational Service Agency; (3) Ap-
               pling County Special Education Program; (4) Okefe-
               nokee RESA Child Development Center; (5) Bacon
               County Elementary; (6) Jeﬀ Davis Middle School; (7)
               Georgia Regional of Savannah; (8) Cedarwood Psy-
               choeducational Program; (9) Daisy Youth Clinic (Sa-
               tilla Community Mental Health); (10) Bacon County
               Juvenile Court; (11) DFACS [in] Appling, Bacon and
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         90                     Opinion of the Court                 20-13752

               Jeﬀ Davis Counties; (12) Pineland Mental Health; and
               (13) Toombs County Detention Center.

         These records, the state habeas court explained, “cover[ed] the ma-
         jority of [Heidler’s] childhood and teen years.” The records
         showed that Heidler’s “mother had mistreated him and his stepfa-
         ther had abused him.” They indicated that Heidler had “been in
         and out of care” and that he had “emotional problems from early
         on.” They revealed, for example, that Heidler was “extremely sui-
         cidal,” that he “kill[ed] animals,” that Heidler’s “parents [were] di-
         vorced,” that his stepfather was “an alcoholic” and “abusive,” that
         Heidler did “not attend school regularly,” that Heidler’s mother
         was “involved in witchcraft,” that his “house was” often “un-
         kempt,” that he “led a life of instability and turmoil,” and that he
         had “tremendous [amounts] of pent up anger . . . that exhibit[ed]
         itself in inappropriate and sometimes psychotic manners.” The
         records included Heidler’s medication log from while he was de-
         tained pending trial, which showed that he was prescribed Haldol.
         Trial counsel also collected letters that Heidler had sent to them
         leading up to trial, including a letter in which Heidler said that he
         “hear[d] a dead baby crying.”
                As we’ve explained, trial counsel also hired two mental
         health experts as part of their investigation. Specifically, Mr. Gar-
         rett retained Drs. Maish and Olson. Dr. Maish met with Heidler
         six times, interviewed him “extensively,” and gave him a “battery
         of tests.” And Dr. Olson evaluated Heidler for “pathological is-
         sues,” “brain damage,” or a “head injury” and did “neurological
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         20-13752               Opinion of the Court                        91

         testing.” Mr. Garrett also interviewed the court-appointed experts,
         Drs. D’Alesandro, Ifill, and Kuglar, and gave them the bulk of the
         background and mental health records they’d obtained from their
         investigation.
                 It’s also worth placing this investigation in context. See
         Strickland, 466 U.S. at 688 (“[T]he performance inquiry must be
         whether counsel’s assistance was reasonable considering all the cir-
         cumstances.”). Trial counsel gathered all of this evidence despite
         limited cooperation. Heidler himself gave trial counsel “minimal”
         information. Mr. Garrett testified that he “couldn’t communicate
         with [Heidler] at all; nobody c[ould].” This obviously posed a chal-
         lenge. See Chandler, 218 F.3d at 1318 (explaining that “the reasona-
         bleness of counsel’s [investigation] . . . depends critically upon in-
         formation supplied by the petitioner” (cleaned up)). Trial counsel
         didn’t do much better with Heidler’s family. Heidler’s mother
         never gave “one helpful bit of information.” His family members
         would “run from you” rather than “come and pour out infor-
         mation.” And as to everyone else, Ms. Palmer testified that “the
         murder was so bad a lot of people didn’t want to talk to us.”
                Heidler’s trial counsel, to sum things up, interviewed broad
         swaths of people in his life and obtained extensive background and
         mental health records. Through this investigation, trial counsel
         learned about Heidler’s background (for example) that his mother
         exhibited strange behaviors, that his stepfather was an abusive al-
         coholic, that Heidler didn’t attend school regularly, that his parents
         struggled to pay the bills, that his home was unkempt, and that he
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         92                     Opinion of the Court                 20-13752

         bounced from place to place. They also learned about his mental
         health: that he exhibited psychosis, experienced depression, at-
         tempted suicide, killed animals, and otherwise had a long history
         of mental health issues. And they learned all this even in the face
         of limited cooperation. We can’t say that the state habeas court’s
         conclusion that this investigation was reasonable was “so obvi-
         ously wrong that its error lies beyond any possibility for fairminded
         disagreement.” Shinn, 141 S. Ct. at 523 (quotation omitted).
                Indeed, we’ve routinely found no error when reviewing
         similar investigations. See, e.g., Ledford, 818 F.3d at 647–48 (attor-
         neys interviewed the petitioner, his family, friends, and mental
         health experts and hired a private investigator to investigate peti-
         tioner’s background); Puiatti v. Sec’y, Fla. Dep’t of Corr., 732 F.3d
         1255, 1280–81 (11th Cir. 2013) (attorneys met with the petitioner,
         interviewed family members, hired a private investigator, and re-
         tained mental health experts); Tharpe v. Warden, 834 F.3d 1323,
         1339 (11th Cir. 2016) (attorneys met with the petitioner and inter-
         viewed prosecutors, law-enforcement officials, former employers,
         friends, and family and retained an expert).
                But, in Heidler’s view, his trial counsel didn’t do enough.
         First, Heidler argues that trial counsel “did not contact readily
         available witnesses who would have testified to the trauma of
         Heidler’s childhood.” This argument doesn’t work. For starters,
         as we’ve explained, “[a] claim of failure to interview a witness may
         sound impressive in the abstract, but it cannot establish ineffective
         assistance when the person’s account is otherwise fairly known to
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         20-13752               Opinion of the Court                         93

         defense counsel.” Eggleston, 798 F.2d at 376. The state habeas
         court’s conclusion that trial counsel conducted a thorough investi-
         gation—and that Heidler failed to identify any non-cumulative ev-
         idence to be gained—was not unreasonable. For another, “[h]ow
         a lawyer spends his inherently limited time and resources is also
         entitled to great deference by the court.” Chandler, 218 F.3d at 1318
         n.22. Trial counsel conducted a comprehensive investigation. The
         state habeas court didn’t unreasonably reject Heidler’s attempt to
         undermine that fact by pointing to more people they could’ve inter-
         viewed. “[T]he Constitution,” we’ve explained, “requires a good
         deal less than maximum performance.” See Atkins v. Singletary, 965
         F.2d 952, 959–60 (11th Cir. 1992) (noting that, “[a]t some point, a
         trial lawyer has done enough” and that “[a] lawyer can almost al-
         ways do something more in every case”).
                Second, Heidler asserts that trial counsel “performed defi-
         ciently in largely neglecting to cover critical mitigation topics” with
         “the witnesses trial counsel did contact.” Heidler points to one ex-
         ample—trial counsel’s interview of his father—noting that his fa-
         ther did not remember “discussing anything about Heidler’s back-
         ground or childhood.” This hardly shows that trial counsel were
         ineffective. Heidler “didn’t have contact with his dad” growing up
         and so there would have been little reason to ask his father about
         Heidler’s background. See Rompilla, 545 U.S. at 383 (“[R]easonably
         diligent counsel may draw a line when they have good reason to
         think further investigation would be a waste.”). And, in any event,
         pointing to a single witness doesn’t say anything about all of the
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         94                     Opinion of the Court                 20-13752

         discussions trial counsel had with all the other people they inter-
         viewed.
                              Deﬁciency – Presentation
                 The state habeas court found that trial counsel’s presenta-
         tion was constitutionally adequate because they presented “sub-
         stantial mitigating evidence on [Heidler’s] behalf,” including his
         DFACS records and witnesses who “testified to the terrible child-
         hood [Heidler] had to endure and to his mental illnesses.” That
         was not an unreasonable determination. Before we get to the evi-
         dence presented at trial, there’s one point worth noting. “When
         courts are examining the performance of an experienced trial coun-
         sel, the presumption that his conduct was reasonable is even
         stronger.” Chandler, 218 F.3d at 1316. In this case, trial counsel had
         significant experience trying capital cases. Indeed, Mr. Garrett had
         defended about fifty death penalty cases, including approximately
         forty that he tried first chair. Only two of his clients (one of whom
         was Heidler) had “received the death penalty.” That’s not to say
         that trial counsel couldn’t have erred. But it means we should be
         cautious before questioning trial counsel’s strategy of who to call
         and when.
                With that said, the state habeas court did not unreasonably
         conclude that trial counsel effectively presented mitigating evi-
         dence at the sentencing phase. To begin, trial counsel’s mitigation
         case effectively started during the guilt phase—when trial counsel
         started presenting evidence of Heidler’s background and mental
         health through Drs. D’Alesandro, Ifill, and Kuglar. We may
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         20-13752               Opinion of the Court                         95

         consider this evidence—from the guilt phase—in assessing
         whether trial counsel effectively presented mitigating evidence for
         the purpose of sentencing. See Ledford, 818 F.3d at 648 (“It is mis-
         leading to assert that trial counsel only called one mitigation wit-
         ness on [petitioner]’s behalf because several witnesses offered mit-
         igation testimony throughout both stages of the trial.”); see also Bell
         v. Cone, 535 U.S. 685, 699–700 (2002) (“Respondent’s suggestion
         that the jury could not fully consider the mental health proof as
         potentially mitigating because it was adduced during the guilt
         phase finds no support in the record.”).
                 Drs. D’Alesandro, Ifill, and Kuglar testified about Heidler’s
         significant mental health issues and difficult background. Here are
         just a few examples. Dr. D’Alesandro told the jury that “[t]here
         was a suggestion” in the records that Heidler had experienced “psy-
         chotic episodes” and he explained that people (like Heidler) who
         have borderline personality disorder “sometimes will get to such
         an extreme that they may temporarily at least function in a psy-
         chotic-like state.” He also testified that Heidler had a history of
         “depression” and “recurrent suicidal behavior, gestures, or threats,
         or self-mutilating behavior,” and had attempted suicide. Dr.
         D’Alesandro also told the jury about Heidler’s “chaotic” and “dys-
         functional” childhood. He explained, for example, that Heidler
         was “shuffled from household to household, person to person.”
         Heidler “was moved about from various foster homes after the
         state took custody of him from his mother.” There was also “some
         indication of voodoo and cultism . . . that was practiced in [his] fam-
         ily.” Dr. D’Alesandro also explained that Heidler was “[d]eprived
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         96                     Opinion of the Court                 20-13752

         of the familial love and support that one normally would expect to
         get as he’s being brought up.”
                Dr. Ifill likewise told the jury about Heidler’s “severe emo-
         tional disorders beginning in childhood and continuing up until the
         present.” He talked about Heidler’s “self-inflicted” cigarette burns
         and “several attempts” to kill himself. He also spoke about “evalu-
         ations where [Heidler’s] behavior at one point might have been
         thought of being psychotic.” And he told the jury that “a brief or
         transient psychotic episode is associated with . . . borderline per-
         sonality disorder.” Dr. Ifill also testified about Heidler’s difficult
         upbringing. He told the jury that Heidler had been “suffering from
         alcoholism since around the age of [eleven].” He explained that
         Heidler’s “household was chaotic, disorganized” and that Heidler
         “was unable to get the ordinary nurturing that a growing child
         would need to have for normal development.” Dr. Ifill testified
         that “there was violence or threats of violence or neglect within the
         household.” He explained that Heidler’s mother “believed in
         witchcraft.” And he shared that “there was a lot of drinking in the
         home” and that the records “indicated neglect” as well as “emo-
         tional and physical abuse.”
                Then came Dr. Kuglar, who also told the jury that Heidler
         “seemed to show . . . some probable degree of depression,” that he
         saw “where [Heidler] had cut himself and what appeared to be cig-
         arette burns, some kind of burns on his body, and where he had . . .
         pick[ed] at small lesions on his face until he had sort of created
         sores,” and that Heidler had talked about “auditory delusion[s]”
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         20-13752               Opinion of the Court                        97

         like “hearing . . . voices” and the sound of “a baby crying.” Dr.
         Kuglar explained that Heidler had a “terrible childhood.” He noted
         that Heidler had been “kicked around from pillar to post” and that
         his “home environment was not very good.”
                And the testimony about Heidler’s mental health and back-
         ground flowed into the sentencing phase—in which trial counsel
         called nine witnesses. Heidler’s mother, for instance, told the jury
         that Heidler “had a mental problem” growing up and that he “went
         to a special school.” She also explained that Heidler had tried to
         commit suicide when he was younger by “jump[ing] in front of a
         semi truck” and “hang[ing] himself.” She also testified that she di-
         vorced Heidler’s biological father when Heidler was four, that
         Heidler’s father “was a[n] alcoholic,” and that his father “wasn’t all
         that good to none of the young’uns.” Heidler’s mother also shared
         that Heidler’s stepfather was an “alcoholic.” Heidler’s sister, Ms.
         Aguilar, similarly testified that their father was an “alcoholic” and
         that their stepfather “was mean to everybody.”
               Mr. Johnston, the juvenile probation officer, testified that
         Heidler entered the juvenile justice system at age fourteen or fif-
         teen because of an “altercation” between Heidler and his stepfa-
         ther. He testified that he could smell “the odor” of alcohol at
         Heidler’s house, that there were rumors that Heidler’s family “may
         [have] be[en] involved in . . . devil worship,” and that Heidler’s
         family “move[d] a lot” and normally lived in “small houses” that
         were in “poor” condition. Ms. Wright, a social services worker
         with DFACS, testified that she first contacted Heidler’s family
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         98                    Opinion of the Court                20-13752

         when she investigated Heidler’s mother’s failure to enroll her chil-
         dren in school after they moved to a different county. She testified
         that she later investigated a lack of “[]supervision.” She explained
         that Heidler’s mother wasn’t “nurturing” and that DFACS pro-
         vided “assistance” because the family couldn’t keep up with bills.
         And she thought that Heidler suffered from “mental health prob-
         lems” at age “ten.”
                 Similar testimony about Heidler’s mental health problems
         and terrible upbringing went on and on. Ms. Oglesby, for example,
         a DFACS employee, testified that DFACS “received a report alleg-
         ing physical abuse, emotional abuse, [and] neglect,” and that
         DFACS “confirmed neglect” and worked with Heidler’s family un-
         til the family moved to a different county. Ms. Oglesby testified
         that she had received a report that Heidler “had tried to tie a rope
         to a tree in the yard and hang himself.” And she noted that DFACS
         “had numerous reports that maybe [physical abuse] was occur-
         ring.” Ms. Boatright, Heidler’s foster mother, said that Heidler
         “was afraid of the dark and always talked about a knife cutting him,
         could a knife come through a ceiling and cut him.” And she told
         the jury that Heidler “always had an imaginary mouse” that he
         would talk to. Ms. Dryden, one of Heidler’s teachers, said Heidler
         went to a school for students “that were emotionally behavior dis-
         ordered.” She said that Heidler would “pick at his skin ‘til some-
         times it would bleed” and would sometimes “arrive to school . . .
         with marks on his body where he apparently had carved his initials
         and things on his skin.” Heidler “would sometimes refer to some
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         20-13752                 Opinion of the Court                            99

         type of imaginary friend” and “act like it was in his hand and he
         would talk to it sometimes.”
                  Dr. Maish also took the stand. Dr. Maish said that he agreed
         with Drs. D’Alesandro, Ifill, and Kuglar that Heidler had borderline
         personality disorder and explained that such a consensus among
         mental health experts was “unheard of.” Dr. Maish also testified
         that Heidler’s “severe” borderline personality disorder “impair[ed]
         virtually every area of his functioning” and that Heidler had “some
         neurological difficulties.” He also observed that Heidler’s records
         “talk[ed] of hallucinations” and “transient psychotic disturbances.”
         As to Heidler’s childhood, Dr. Maish testified that Heidler had a
         “chaotic background in family,” a “lack of a solid family back-
         ground,” a “father that was for the most part gone,” “emotional
         difficulties,” and “years of being in and out of mental health cen-
         ters, . . . hospitals, . . . [and] judicial settings.” At the close of their
         penalty phase presentation, Heider’s trial counsel entered into evi-
         dence two sets of Heidler’s background records: his DFACS rec-
         ords and his Georgia Regional Hospital records.
                 Heidler’s trial counsel got all of this evidence before the jury
         even though they faced resistance from many witnesses. For ex-
         ample, some of Heidler’s “foster parents . . . didn’t want to have
         anything to do with [Heidler], nothing.” Ms. Dryden, Heidler’s
         teacher, was “very helpful” during trial counsel’s investigation but
         then “went kicking and screaming” when it came time to testify.
         Ms. Dryden “was mad at [trial counsel] for subpoenaing her.” But
         trial counsel got her to testify and “her good heart came through.”
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         100                     Opinion of the Court                  20-13752

         Heidler’s sister didn’t want to testify either. Ms. Palmer literally
         “begged her to come to trial and ask the jury to spare his life.” And
         she did. Mr. Johnston, the juvenile probation officer, was forth-
         coming about Heidler’s mental health and difficult childhood when
         he was interviewed pre-trial, but then Ms. Palmer had to treat him
         as a hostile witness on the stand when he suddenly suggested he
         didn’t know anything. It’s hard to blame trial counsel when they
         faced opposition at every turn.
                 In any event, although trial counsel faced substantial obsta-
         cles in presenting a compelling case for sentencing, they still were
         able to put on a strong case. As to Heidler’s mental health, they
         presented to the jury, by way of example, that Heidler suffered
         from depression, that he engaged in self-mutilation by burning and
         cutting himself, that he experienced hallucinations of a baby crying
         and of imaginary figures, that he attempted suicide by walking in
         front of a truck and hanging himself, that his records suggested he
         had experienced psychosis, and that he was prescribed a strong an-
         tipsychotic pending trial. As to Heidler’s background, trial counsel
         told the jury about Heidler’s parents’ divorce, about the drinking
         in his household, that his stepfather was cruel, that there were sus-
         picions of abuse, that his life was unstable and he consistently
         changed homes, that his mother didn’t give him the love he needed
         for normal development, that his family practiced witchcraft, that
         he was neglected, that he was addicted to alcohol by age eleven,
         that his family struggled to pay their bills, and that he lived in small
         houses that were in poor condition. The state habeas court did not
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         20-13752               Opinion of the Court                       101

         unreasonably conclude that trial counsel performed effectively in
         presenting this mitigating evidence.
                 Against all this, Heidler raises five main arguments. First,
         Heidler contends that trial counsel “failed to reasonably . . . pre-
         sent . . . evidence” that he “suffered from depression and/or psy-
         choses,” instead painting Heidler’s issues as being “limited to per-
         sonality disorders marked by antisocial conduct.” But that’s just
         not true. Drs. D’Alessandro and Kuglar, for example, specifically
         discussed Heidler’s “depression.” And several witnesses, including
         Dr. D’Alesandro, Dr. Ifill, Dr. Kuglar, Dr. Maish, Heidler’s mother,
         Ms. Oglesby, and Ms. Boatright explained that Heidler had a his-
         tory of self-mutilation and suicide attempts, including that Heidler
         burned himself with cigarettes, cut himself, stepped in front of a
         truck, and hung himself. So trial counsel did present evidence of
         depression.
                Trial counsel also presented evidence that Heidler suffered
         from psychosis. For example, Dr. D’Alesandro told the jury that
         “[t]here was a suggestion” in the records that Heidler had experi-
         enced “psychotic episodes.” Dr. Ifill spoke about “evaluations
         where [Heidler’s] behavior at one point might have been thought
         of being psychotic.” Dr. Kuglar discussed Heidler talking about
         “auditory delusion[s]” like “hearing . . . voices” and the sound of “a
         baby crying.” Ms. Boatright said that Heidler “always talked about
         a knife cutting him, could a knife come through a ceiling and cut
         him.” She also testified that Heidler “always had an imaginary
         mouse” that he would talk to. Ms. Dryden similarly said that
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         102                    Opinion of the Court                 20-13752

         Heidler “would sometimes refer to some type of imaginary friend”
         and “act like it was in his hand and he would talk to it sometimes.”
         So trial counsel did present evidence of Heidler’s depression and
         psychosis. We can’t say that the state habeas court unreasonably
         rejected any argument to the contrary.
                 Second, Heidler argues that he “suffered severe abuse and
         neglect as a child, living with adults who physically hurt him and
         who failed to secure even his most basic needs,” but that trial coun-
         sel “made almost no mention of the trauma.” But, as we’ve seen,
         trial counsel brought out testimony about Heidler’s abuse and ne-
         glect through several witnesses. As to abuse, Dr. Ifill testified that
         “there was violence or threats of violence or neglect within the
         household.” Ms. Oglesby discussed reports “alleging physical
         abuse.” As to neglect, several witnesses testified that Heidler was
         “[d]eprived of . . . familial love and support.” And several wit-
         nesses, including Dr. Ifill, Ms. Oglesby, and Ms. Wright, discussed
         a history of “neglect.” In essence, Heidler appears to argue that
         trial counsel failed to present more or better evidence of Heidler’s
         abuse or neglect. But the state habeas court did not unreasonably
         conclude that that’s not enough. A petitioner cannot show a defi-
         cient presentation simply by pointing to “more or better examples”
         that support “the themes presented to the jury.” Holsey, 694 F.3d
         at 1260–61 (op. of Ed Carnes, J.).
               Third, Heidler repeatedly asserts that witnesses were “not
         prepared” to testify. He says, for example, that trial counsel failed
         to prepare Dr. Maish to testify. But the state habeas court found
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         20-13752               Opinion of the Court                        103

         that trial counsel met with Dr. Maish on at least a dozen occasions,
         that they told Dr. Maish about Heidler’s self-mutilation pending
         trial, and that they reported to Dr. Maish the information they
         learned from witnesses. Heidler has failed to undermine these find-
         ings by clear and convincing evidence. See Kimbrough v. Sec’y, DOC,
         565 F.3d 796, 804 (11th Cir. 2009). Heidler also points to Ms.
         Oglesby, arguing that “her trial testimony reflects a similar lack of
         reasonable preparation.” But the record doesn’t reflect a lack of
         preparation. Ms. Oglesby recalled that she “became involved with
         [Heidler] in a child protective service manner in May 1990”; that
         there was a report “alleging physical abuse, emotional abuse, [and]
         neglect,” and that DFACS “confirmed neglect”; that she had
         “[m]onthly” conversations with Heidler’s family; that she “visited
         [Heidler’s] home” and that “[t]hey lived in two different resi-
         dence[s] during” that time period; and that Heidler’s family told
         her they “had a long history with DF[A]CS” and “had a lot of neg-
         ative feelings about DF[A]CS.” These are simply by way of exam-
         ple, and they render implausible the claim that Ms. Oglesby came
         in unprepared to testify. We can’t say the state habeas court un-
         reasonably concluded that trial counsel did an adequate job prepar-
         ing witnesses.
                Fourth, Heidler argues that trial counsel’s presentation of his
         DFACS records was unreasonable because they “dump[ed them]
         into the record[] without any explanation . . . at the conclusion of
         the penalty phase.” But trial counsel testified that this was a strate-
         gic decision. As Ms. Palmer explained, she spent “hours” with
         DFACS employees going through Heidler’s records and
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         104                    Opinion of the Court                 20-13752

         “ferret[ing] out boxes of records” that weren’t helpful to the case.
         She explained that they were still left with “a stack this high” of
         records “that had relevant information” and that she “redact[ed]”
         all of those records. Rather than go through all of these records
         one by one at trial, trial counsel decided to call certain DFACS case-
         workers “who were the most articulate, who had had the most
         contact with him, and, of course, my perspective, who were the
         most sympathetic towards his plight.” Ms. Palmer explained that
         she relied on these witnesses to present relevant information from
         those records to the jury in a digestible form that wouldn’t bore the
         jurors to sleep:
               Q Now, when you had the caseworkers on the stand
               were you trying to bring out some speciﬁc highlights
               within—?—

               A We did. That’s exactly what we did.

               Q Okay.

               A I mean, you couldn’t possibly, we would have spent
               days and days with the jury had we tried to go
               through that entire stack of records. And we tried to
               hit the really tough parts, where [Heidler] was truly
               harmed . . . by people in his life who were harming
               him and not helping him with his mental health is-
               sues. Other things they did that did nothing but exac-
               erbate the mental illness that he had suﬀered all his
               life. And I don't think there’s a person in the world
               that says [Heidler] has not had mental illness since he
               was very young.
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         20-13752                Opinion of the Court                          105

                Q And all of that was presented to the jury?

                A Yes.

                Q They had all of that information; is that right?

                A That’s correct. That’s correct.

         In line with this testimony, the state habeas court found that trial
         counsel made a strategic decision to “present[ Heidler’s] DFACS
         records en mass, without a lengthy and cumulative review with the
         jury.” “The question of whether an attorney's actions were actu-
         ally the product of a tactical or strategic decision is an issue of fact,”
         Provenzano v. Singletary, 148 F.3d 1327, 1330 (11th Cir. 1998), and
         Heidler has not undermined the state habeas court’s finding by
         clear and convincing evidence. Because trial counsel’s decision as
         to how to present the information in the records was a strategic
         decision, that decision is “virtually unassailable.” Williams, 185
         F.3d at 1242.
                And fifth, Heidler argues that the state habeas court “dis-
         count[ed] to irrelevance” the state habeas affidavits. The Supreme
         Court, it’s true, has held, with respect to evidence adduced from
         deposition testimony during habeas proceedings, that it was “un-
         reasonable to discount to irrelevance the evidence of [the peti-
         tioner’s] abusive childhood, especially when that kind of history
         may have particular salience for a jury evaluating [the petitioner’s]
         behavior.” Porter, 558 U.S. at 43. But a state court’s decision is not
         contrary to nor an unreasonable application of law where it simply
         “review[s] the [p]etitioner’s affidavit evidence with caution” but
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         106                     Opinion of the Court                  20-13752

         does not “discount[] the contents of the affidavits to irrelevance.”
         Pye, 50 F.4th at 1045 (cleaned up).
                And, here, there’s no indication that the state habeas court
         discounted the affidavits “to irrelevance.” The state habeas court
         considered the affidavits, but it credited Ms. Palmer’s testimony
         that Heidler’s family and friends weren’t helpful during her pretrial
         investigation and reasoned that trial counsel “cannot be responsi-
         ble for [Heidler’s] family’s reticence in revealing shameful family
         secrets.” “[T]he state [habeas] court’s decision to view the affidavit
         evidence with caution was neither contrary to nor an unreasonable
         application of clearly established federal law.” Id. (marks omitted).
                 Also, there were inconsistencies between the trial testimony
         and the habeas affidavits. For example, Ms. Aguilar went from tes-
         tifying at the penalty phase that her and Heidler’s stepfather “only
         talked” to writing in her state habeas affidavit that their stepfather
         “threatened to kill [Heidler]” and “threatened to slit [Heidler’s]
         throat.” “[I]t wasn’t unreasonable for the state court to discount
         the affidavits, to some degree, based on the inconsistencies it found
         in several of them[.]” Id. at 1046.
                 In any event, Dr. Kuglar said in his state habeas affidavit that
         Heidler’s state habeas evidence would not have changed his diag-
         nosis; the evidence would have merely allowed Dr. Kuglar to “tes-
         tif[y] with more certainty that [Heidler] ha[d] a serious mental ill-
         ness.” Thus, it wasn’t unreasonable for the state habeas court to
         give little weight to the affidavits in its analysis of trial counsel’s
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         20-13752               Opinion of the Court                        107

         presentation of mitigation evidence. See Van Poyck, 290 F.3d at 1324
         n.7.
                In short, trial counsel investigated Heidler’s background and
         mental health, interviewed his family members, friends, social
         workers, teachers, and mental health experts, had a strategy for the
         penalty phase, and called mitigation witnesses. The Georgia Su-
         preme Court did not unreasonably apply clearly established federal
         law in determining that trial counsel’s performance was not inef-
         fective.
                                       Prejudice
                 The state habeas court concluded that, even if trial counsel’s
         investigation and presentation of mitigation evidence was defi-
         cient, there wasn’t a reasonable probability that the result of the
         penalty phase would have been different “given the copious
         amount of mitigating evidence presented at trial and the nature of
         [Heidler’s] crimes.” That conclusion was far from unreasonable.
         The mitigating evidence not presented as a result of counsel’s defi-
         cient performance must be weighed “against the evidence in aggra-
         vation.” Porter, 558 U.S. at 41. We’ve repeatedly held that even
         extensive mitigating evidence wouldn’t have been reasonably
         likely to change the outcome of sentencing given a particularly hei-
         nous crime and significant aggravating factors. See, e.g., Windom,
         578 F.3d at 1251 (noting that, given “the strength of the state’s case”
         “and the nature of the crimes themselves,” the state court didn’t
         “unreasonably apply Strickland when it found that the available
         mitigating evidence, taken as a whole, did not outweigh the
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         108                    Opinion of the Court                 20-13752

         aggravating nature of Windom’s crimes” (citing Payne v. Allen, 539
         F.3d 1297, 1318 (11th Cir. 2008))); Suggs v. McNeil, 609 F.3d 1218,
         1232 (11th Cir. 2010) (explaining that significant aggravating facts
         are “difficult to overcome” and holding that a state supreme court’s
         prejudice decision wasn’t unreasonable).
                The jury learned about how Heidler shot the Danielses as
         they slept, shot their 8-year-old son and sixteen-year-old daughter
         from close range, shot Mr. Daniels a several more times as Mr.
         Daniels tried to protect himself, kidnapped the Danielses’ three
         young daughters, raped one of them, and dropped them off on a
         remote dirt road before he returned home to play video games.
         The jury also heard that rather than showing remorse, Heidler told
         people that he “wasn’t through collecting souls” and referred to the
         Daniels family as “nine little piggies, four dead.” And the jury
         learned that Heidler hid weapons in his prison uniform, escaped
         from prison, and threatened to kill prison officials. It wasn’t unrea-
         sonable for the state habeas court to weigh these aggravating fac-
         tors heavily in its evaluation of whether the presentation of addi-
         tional mitigation evidence about Heidler’s background would have
         changed the outcome of the penalty phase.
                The state habeas court also found that “none of [Heidler’s
         state habeas] experts or prior mental health experts ha[d] testified
         that [Heidler] was in fact in the throes of a psychotic episode when
         he committed the crime,” and it concluded that “without this
         causal link between the alleged mental illness and the crimes, there
         exist[ed] no evidence that the outcome of [Heidler’s trial] would
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         20-13752               Opinion of the Court                      109

         have been different.” Heidler argues that this conclusion is unrea-
         sonable because it “required a causal link” between the evidence of
         Heidler’s mental health and the crime. Heidler is correct that there
         is no requirement that mitigation evidence have a “causal connec-
         tion” to the defendant’s crimes. See Tennard v. Dretke, 542 U.S. 274,
         287 (2004) (“[W]e cannot countenance the suggestion that low IQ
         evidence is not relevant mitigating evidence . . . unless the defend-
         ant also establishes a nexus to the crime.”). But Dr. D’Alesandro
         testified that “what [Heidler] was doing was volitional and it was
         fairly goal oriented” and that Heidler’s “symptoms seem[ed] to be
         somewhat in remission” because the symptoms “from early child-
         hood d[idn]’t appear to be happening right now.” It therefore
         wasn’t unreasonable for the state habeas court to find and weigh in
         its prejudice analysis the fact that evidence of Heidler’s mental
         health was less likely to influence jurors because it wasn’t strongly
         connected to his crimes. See Shinn, 141 S. Ct. at 525 (concluding
         that “reasonable jurists could debate the extent to which [peti-
         tioner’s bipolar disorder and untreated addictions] significantly im-
         paired his ability to appreciate the wrongfulness of his conduct or
         to conform his conduct to the law at the time of the murder” be-
         cause the defendant’s actions before, during, and after the murder
         “display[ed] a measure of control and intentionality”).
                Finally, Heidler argues that the Georgia Supreme Court un-
         reasonably applied Strickland because it failed to assess prejudice
         cumulatively. Heidler is wrong. The state habeas court “con-
         sider[ed trial] counsel’s representation as a whole” and concluded
         that even if trial counsel’s “alleged errors constituted deficient
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         110                     Opinion of the Court                   20-13752

         performance,” there was not “a reasonable probability[] that but
         for this performance[] the result of either phase of [Heidler’s] trial
         . . . would have been different. And even if the state habeas court
         had only assessed prejudice on an “item-by-item” basis, that would
         “not [be] inconsistent with a cumulative analysis,” and the state ha-
         beas court is “presume[ed]” to have “assessed prejudice cumula-
         tively.” See Allen v. Sec’y, Fla. Dep’t of Corr., 611 F.3d 740, 749–50
         (11th Cir. 2010). Heidler fails to rebut that presumption.
         C.      Heidler’s Claim That Trial Counsel Were Ineﬀective for Failing to
          Adequately Present Information and Evidence in Pretrial Motions Relat-
         ing to Heidler’s Waiver of Constitutional Rights During Interrogation by
                                        the Police
                  The district court denied Heidler’s claim that trial counsel
         were ineffective for failing to adequately litigate Heidler’s waiver
         of constitutional rights during his interrogation by the police be-
         cause, the district court concluded, the claim was unexhausted and
         insufficiently pled. We “may skip over the procedural default anal-
         ysis if a claim would fail on the merits in any event.” Dallas v. War-
         den, 964 F.3d 1285, 1307 (11th Cir. 2020). We’ll take this “‘Ock-
         ham’s razor’ approach” and “skip over the difficult procedural de-
         fault questions and cut to the heart of the matter” because, even
         under de novo review, Heidler’s claim fails because he cannot es-
         tablish prejudice. See id. at 1307 & n.4.
                Heidler argues that he was prejudiced by the state’s presen-
         tation of his videotaped confession and the two police officers’ tes-
         timony about Heidler’s statements during the interrogation
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         20-13752              Opinion of the Court                     111

         because of “the unique importance of a defendant’s confession”
         and “the prosecutor’s reliance on it” during both the guilt phase
         and penalty phase of trial. Indeed, we’ve found that an attorney’s
         “failure to move to suppress the [defendant’s] confessions was ex-
         tremely prejudicial” where the confessions “provided the primary
         evidence offered” and where, “[w]ithout the confessions, convic-
         tion for first degree murder was probably impossible.” See Smith v.
         Wainwright, 777 F.2d 609, 616–17 (11th Cir. 1985). But we’ve also
         found that a defendant “was not prejudiced by the failure of coun-
         sel to suppress the police confessions” where “the state had abun-
         dant evidence (including other confessions) at its disposal with
         which to obtain a conviction.” Zamora v. Dugger, 834 F.2d 956, 959
         (11th Cir. 1987).
                As the Georgia Supreme Court found in affirming Heidler’s
         convictions, there was overwhelming evidence of Heidler’s guilt,
         including: the Danielses’ three daughters each identifying Heidler
         as their kidnapper, Heidler’s fingerprint on the back window of the
         Danielses’ home, and his DNA on a cigarette butt found on the
         floor in the Danielses’ home. See Heidler, 537 S.E.2d at 52. And
         Heidler’s statements to police during his interrogation weren’t the
         only confessions at the state’s disposal. Heidler confessed to the
         murders to both Dr. Kuglar and Dr. Maish during his mental health
         evaluations, and Drs. Kuglar and Maish told the jury what Heidler
         had told them about the murders. Because the state had abundant
         evidence with which to obtain a conviction—including Heidler’s
         confessions to Dr. Kuglar and Dr. Maish—Heidler can’t establish
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         that the jury wouldn’t have sentenced him to death even if the jury
         hadn’t heard his statements to police. See Zamora, 834 F.2d at 959.
                                    CONCLUSION
                 The Georgia Supreme Court didn’t unreasonably apply
         Strickland in denying Heidler’s claims that trial counsel were inef-
         fective in investigating and presenting his mental health during the
         guilt phase and in investigating and presenting mitigating evidence
         during the penalty phase. And even assuming that Heidler’s claim
         that trial counsel were ineffective in litigating the suppression of his
         statement to police isn’t procedurally defaulted, the claim fails un-
         der de novo review because Heidler wasn’t prejudiced. We there-
         fore AFFIRM the district court’s denial of Heidler’s section 2254
         petition.