United States Fifth Circuit

Denial of a habeas corpus petition from a sentence for capital murder is reversed where Texas courts were objectively unreasonable under applicable Supreme Court Eighth and Fourteenth Amendment jurisprudence in concluding that defendant's jury had an adequate vehicle during the capital sentencing phase to give mitigating effect to relevant evidence of his low intelligence quotient.

Appellate Information

• Decided 03/01/2006
• Published 03/02/2006

Judges

• BENAVIDES, Circuit Judge:, Before SMITH, BENAVIDES and DENNIS, Circuit Judges.

Court

• United States Fifth Circuit

Counsel

• For Appellant:
  
• Robert Charles Owen, Owen & Rountree, Jordan Meyer Steiker (argued), University of Texas School of Law, Austin, TX, Richard H. Burr, III, Burr & Welch, Hugo, OK, for Tennard., Edward Larry Marshall (argued), Austin, TX, for Dretke.