holding that the Florida Supreme Court’s holding that a petitioner had not shown prejudice was not unreasonable in part because “most of the new mitigation evidence is cumulative of the nonstatutory mitigating circumstances presented during resentencing”
How later courts described this case
- holding that the Florida Supreme Court’s holding that a petitioner had not shown prejudice was not unreasonable in part because “most of the new mitigation evidence is cumulative of the nonstatutory mitigating circumstances presented during resentencing”
- describing sentencing phase testimony as explaining that the petitioner was exposed to “considerable physical abuse” such as being beaten with a belt or switch while bound at the wrists, being forced to sit with a broom handle between his legs while being struck by his grandfather, that neighbors observed him with bruises and told him not to go home, and that petitioner was sexually abused by relatives and while working in a migrant labor camp
- holding that, “[i]t is well established that the Supreme Court’s decision in Strickland is the controlling legal authority to be applied to ineffective assistance of counsel claims”
- describing collateral child abuse evidence as consisting of evidence that the defendant was also beaten with “belts, electric cords, or whatever,” and would be beaten if he stopped picking crops for his grandfather
Written by the judges who cited it.
The opinion
EDMONDSON, Chief Judge,
concurring in the judgment:
As I understand AEDPA, deciding this case accurately is no complicated or laborious task. I easily accept that the pertinent decisions of the Supreme Court of Florida were not contrary to and did not involve unreasonable applications of clearly established federal law.