Sowell v. Anderson, No. 08-3522 (6th Cir. 2011)
Annotate this CaseConvicted of aggravated murder and sentenced to death in 1983, petitioner exhausted Ohio state appeals and collateral attack. After dismissing his first habeas corpus petition, the federal district court granted conditional relief, was overturned by the Sixth Circuit, reopened the petition, and granted relief based on ineffective assistance of counsel during the penalty phase. The Sixth Circuit affirmed. At sentencing, counsel's mitigation strategy was to portray petitioner as a good person who lost his temper under the influence of drugs and alcohol. Counsel pursued this strategy despite having available the reports of several court-appointed mental health experts, which hinted at petitioner's difficult upbringing but did not provide specific details about his severely impoverished and abusive childhood. Despite these reports, counsel did not conduct an investigation into petitioner's background or interview any of his family members. Had they done so, there is a reasonable probability that the additional mitigating evidence would have led at least one of the panel judges to vote against the death penalty.
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