explaining that "[t]he reasonableness of a counsel’s performance is an objective inquiry,” which asks "whether some reasonable lawyer could have conducted the trial in that manner" and requires a petitioner to show that "no competent counsel would have taken the action that his counsel did take”
How later courts described this case
- explaining that "[t]he reasonableness of a counsel’s performance is an objective inquiry,” which asks "whether some reasonable lawyer could have conducted the trial in that manner" and requires a petitioner to show that "no competent counsel would have taken the action that his counsel did take”
- holding that we must evaluate the reasonableness of counsel’s performance based on USCA11 Case: 21-12552 Date Filed: 09/09/2022 Page: 15 of 15 21-12552 Opinion of the Court 15 their perspective at the time and avoid the “distorting effects of hindsight”
- recognizing that because “[sjtacking defenses can hurt a case,” there is “[n]o absolute duty ... to introduce mitigating or character evidence”
- recognizing that counsel’s reliance on a particular defense is “a matter of strategy and is not ineffective unless the petitioner can prove the chosen course, in itself, was unreasonable.”
Written by the judges who cited it.
The opinion
BIRCH, Circuit Judge,
dissenting:
I join in Judge Barkett’s comprehensive, persuasive, and record-relevant dissent. Given the current and continuing concerns about the reliability and, hence, the viability of the death penalty, it is critical for the courts to set a standard of attorney performance which merits the public’s confidence. In this case, the majority places the acceptable level of attorney assistance so low as to risk undermining the public’s confidence in the criminal justice system. The result of this opinion may be to make David Ronald Chandler the first federal prisoner executed by the government of the United States in 37 years. 1
Chandler is the first person to be sanctioned with the death penalty as enacted by Congress in 1988 under the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1988, 21 U.S.C. §§ 848 (e) et seq. Therefore, it represents a unique opportunity for the federal courts to prescribe the minimum requirements for the Government’s taking of a life. Defense counsel’s entire penalty phase effort, from the minute that he asked Deborah Chandler to find mitigation witnesses until the arguments concluded, consisted of less than 24 hours. Before we, as a civilized society, condemn a man to death, we should expect and require more of an advocate.
For all of the reasons that I set forth in the panel opinion in this case, see Chandler v. United States, 193 F.3d 1297 (11th Cir.1999), reh’g en banc granted and opinion vacated, Dec. 3, 1999, I continue, as I did *1344 then, to be convinced that the record in this case compels the conclusion that Chandler received ineffective assistance of counsel during his penalty phase, in violation of the Sixth Amendment guarantees as set forth in Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668 , 104 S.Ct. 2052 , 80 L.Ed.2d 674 (1984). The Supreme Court’s recent decision in Williams v. Taylor, — U.S. -, 120 S.Ct. 1495 , 146 L.Ed.2d 389 (2000), only strengthens my conviction that we should vacate Chandler’s death sentence and remand for re-sentencing.
. See Linda Greenhouse, In Test of New U.S. Law, Death Sentence is Upheld, N.Y. Times, June 22, 1999, at A22 (noting that last federal execution occurred in 1963).