United States Supreme Court

In capital habeas proceedings, a grant of petitioner's habeas petition is reversed where a state court's rejection of claimed errors regarding jury instructions, verdict forms and ineffective-assistance-of-counsel, was not contrary to, or an unreasonable application of, clearly established federal law as: 1) the jury instructions in the penalty phase made clear that, to recommend a death sentence, the jury had to find unanimously that each of the aggravating factors outweighed any mitigating circumstances, but they did not say that the jury had to determine the existence of each individual mitigating factor unanimously; and 2) even assuming that defense counsel's closing argument was inadequate in the respects claimed by petitioner, there was no reasonable probability that a better closing argument without such defects would have made a significant difference.

Appellate Information

• Decided 01/12/2010
• Published 01/12/2010

Judges

Court

• United States Supreme Court

Counsel