The Supreme Court hears the Alabama death penalty today. All briefing is at the ScotusWiki page for Wood v. Allen.
"Application of AEDPA to Review of State Determinations of Fact (Wood v. Allen Argument Preview)," is at SCOTUS Blog. The preview is written by Tiffany Cartwright.
On November 4th, the Court will hear arguments in Wood v. Allen, a capital habeas case that questions how a federal court should review the facts determined in a state criminal proceeding under the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act (AEDPA).
Petitioner Holly Wood was convicted in Alabama of murdering his former girlfriend. Two of Wood’s appointed attorneys were experienced criminal trial lawyers; the third was a novice with no criminal experience. The less experienced lawyer handled the penalty phase, during which he failed to present mitigation evidence, obtained from a competency evaluation, of Wood’s significant mental impairments. By a vote of ten to two, the jury recommended a death sentence, which the trial judge imposed.
Wood’s conviction and sentence were affirmed on direct appeal. The state courts rejected his petition for post-conviction relief, in which he alleged that his trial counsel’s failure to investigate and present evidence of his mental impairments at the penalty phase constituted ineffective assistance. Instead, the state court held, the failure to present evidence of Wood’s mental impairments was a strategic decision made by Wood’s more experienced counsel.
Wood then filed a federal habeas petition under 28 U.S.C. § 2254, the section of AEDPA that governs petitions by state prisoners. Section 2254 contains two subsections that relate to state court factual findings: subsection (d)(2), which precludes relief unless the state court proceeding “resulted in a decision that was based on an unreasonable determination of the facts in light of the evidence presented in the state court proceeding”; and subsection (e)(1), which creates a presumption that “a determination of a factual issue made by a state court” is correct unless rebutted by clear and convincing evidence.
The district court granted relief, concluding that a “finding by the state courts that a strategic decision was made not to investigate or introduce . . . evidence of mental retardation is an unreasonable determination of the facts in light of the clear and convincing evidence presented in the record.” The court found that Wood’s less experienced lawyer was left unsupervised to investigate mitigating evidence; moreover, the failure to introduce evidence of Wood’s mental impairments stemmed from his counsel’s inexperience rather than a strategic decision.
On appeal, a divided panel of the Eleventh Circuit reversed.
At the ACS Blog Emily Garcia Uhrig of the McGeorge School of Law posts, "SCOTUS Preview: Wood v. Allen."
Mr. Wood's challenge stems from defense counsel's failure to investigate and develop mitigation evidence for the penalty phase of his trial based on his substantial mental deficiencies. (To begin with, Mr. Wood has an IQ estimated in the 60s.) Mr. Wood was represented by three attorneys - two, experienced and one, just out of law school. Experienced counsel assumed responsibility for the guilt phase of Mr. Wood's trial and put new counsel, who had no prior criminal trial or capital case experience, in charge of the penalty phase.
Defense counsel learned from a pretrial competency evaluation that Mr. Wood functioned "in the borderline range of intellect." But despite the fact that issues pertaining to mental capacity often provide fertile ground for mitigation during the penalty phase of capital cases, counsel did not investigate further Mr. Wood's limited intellectual functioning nor introduce any evidence on the subject during the penalty phase. The jury recommended death by a 10-2 margin, the statutory minimum for such recommendation in Alabama. The judge abided by the jury's recommendation and sentenced Mr. Wood to death by electrocution.
Mr. Wood challenged his sentence in state post-conviction proceedings on the ground that he had received ineffective assistance of counsel under Strickland v. Washington during the penalty phase of his trial, in violation of the Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments. He argued that (1) defense counsel was deficient in failing to develop and introduce the mitigation evidence; and (2) there was a reasonable probability that but-for that deficiency, he would not have received a death sentence. The evidence adduced at two state evidentiary hearings on the claim strongly suggested that counsel's omission was due more to professional inexperience and poor communication among defense counsel, than a calculated, tactical decision by the defense team. (Experienced defense counsel's testimony was largely unhelpful in this regard in that, due to the passage of time, they recalled little, if any, of the actual tactical decisions made during the penalty phase.)
And:
In granting certiorari, the Supreme Court agreed to evaluate the merits of the Eleventh Circuit's ruling. But in order to do so, the Court also agreed to consider a threshold issue regarding the level of deference federal courts must give to state factual findings in resolving federal habeas petitions. This issue of statutory interpretation has vexed and divided lower federal courts since the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 ("AEDPA") rewrote the standards that govern federal habeas review. Remarkably, until now, the Court has not provided guidance on the matter.
The debate on the level of deference centers on the interaction of two sections of AEDPA, 28 U.S.C. §§ 2254(d)(2) and 2254(e)(1). Section 2254(d)(2) provides that a federal court may grant a writ of habeas corpus where the state court's adjudication of the claim "resulted in a decision that was based on an unreasonable determination of the facts in light of the evidence presented in the State court proceeding." Section 2254(e)(1), by contrast, provides that "a determination of a factual issue made by a State court shall be presumed to be correct" by a federal court and "the applicant shall have the burden of rebutting the presumption of correctness by clear and convincing evidence." The parties, as well as circuit courts, disagree as to how to reconcile these two provisions.
And:
The issue is a tricky one, with both parties finding support from the canons of statutory interpretation. Guidance from the Court on the issue is long overdue and, though seemingly academic, may have a significant impact on litigants such as Mr. Wood: While the state courts' factual finding that defense counsel's decision not to investigate evidence of his mental deficiencies was tactical may qualify as "unreasonable" under § 2254(d)(2), it may be a more difficult task to rebut that finding by clear and convincing evidence under § 2254(e)(1), particularly where defense counsel, themselves no longer recall their own decision-making. Thus, for Mr. Wood and others like him, the availability of habeas relief - a literal matter of life or death - may ultimately turn on the level of deference given to state court factual findings, as articulated by the relationship between these two statutory provisions.
The Wisonsin Law Journal takes up the case, with others, at, "U.S. Supreme Court scrutinizing lawyers," written by Kimberly Atkins.
I've just read the oral argument transcript and included the link in my blog post, here:
http://short.to/w30t
I'm not optimistic after reading this ....
Terry Lenamon, Esq.
Death Penalty Qualified Crim Dfns Atty - Miami
Terry Lenamon's Death Penalty Blog
Posted by: twitter.com/TerryLenamon | Thursday, 05 November 2009 at 12:55 PM