United States Supreme Court

In a capital murder prosecution, the Georgia Supreme Court's affirmance of a denial of post-conviction relief is vacated where the state post-conviction trial court failed to apply the correct prejudice inquiry the Court has established for evaluating defendant's ineffective assistance claim, because: 1) the court curtailed a more probing prejudice inquiry because it placed undue reliance on the assumed reasonableness of counsel's mitigation theory; and 2) the Court never limited the prejudice inquiry under Strickland to cases in which there was only "little or no mitigation evidence" presented.

Appellate Information

• Decided 06/29/2010
• Published 06/29/2010

Judges

• Per Curiam

Court

• United States Supreme Court

Counsel