Mann v. Ryan, No. 09-99017 (9th Cir. 2014)
Annotate this CasePetitioner, convicted of murdering two men, appealed the district court's denial of his habeas corpus petition. The court concluded that petitioner was not entitled to habeas relief on his guilt phase claim for ineffective assistance of counsel because, under either version of the facts, counsel's decision not to call petitioner as a witness was strategic. Therefore, the decision fell within the wide range of reasonable professional assistance deemed constitutionally adequate under Strickland v. Washington. However, the district court erred in determining that the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (AEDPA), 28 U.S.C. 2254(d), bars habeas relief on petitioner's claim that his counsel was constitutionally ineffective for failing to investigate and present reasonably available mitigating evidence at sentencing. The district court erred in determining, even if AEDPA does not bar relief, that petitioner failed to establish that counsel's performance prejudiced him under Strickland. The court further concluded that defense counsel's decision not to call petitioner to testify at the guilt phase of his trial was within the wide range of reasonable professional management. Accordingly, the court affirmed in part and reversed in part.
Court Description: Habeas Corpus. The panel affirmed in part and reversed in part the district court’s judgment denying a habeas corpus petition brought by Eric Owen Mann, who was convicted and sentenced to death in Arizona state court for two murders. The panel held that Mann is not entitled to relief on his guilt phase claim of ineffective assistance of counsel because, under either of two competing versions of the facts, counsel’s decision not to call Mann as a witness was strategic, and therefore fell within the wide range of reasonable professional assistance deemed constitutionally adequate under Strickland v. Washington. Regarding Mann’s claim that his counsel was constitutionally ineffective for failing to investigate and present reasonably available mitigating evidence at sentencing, the panel held that the state post-conviction court, which concluded that Mann was not prejudiced by counsel’s performance at sentencing, wrongly held Mann to the more- likely-than-not standard when it imported reasoning from its decision denying Mann a new sentencing hearing based on newly discovered evidence. The panel held that because the state court’s application of this incorrect standard was contrary to clearly established federal law, AEDPA does not constrain this court from finding that Mann was prejudiced by his counsel’s performance. And because the state post-conviction court did not reach the deficiency prong of Strickland analysis, the panel held that this court’s review of that prong was not circumscribed by AEDPA. Reviewing that prong de novo, the panel concluded that counsel’s performance at sentencing was constitutionally deficient. The panel explained that counsel’s performance fell below an objective standard of reasonableness, where counsel failed to expeditiously conduct a reasonable investigation of Mann’s background and potential sources of mitigation, and never followed through after gaining additional time to conduct an adequate investigation; and where nothing indicated that additional investigation would be fruitless or that the omitted mitigating evidence would be harmful. The panel held that the district court also erred in determining that Mann failed to establish that counsel’s performance prejudiced him. The panel explained that counsel’s deficient performance left the sentencing judge and the Arizona Supreme Court with an incomplete and inaccurate picture of Mann, and had counsel performed adequately, there is a reasonable probability that the sentencers would have concluded that the balance of aggravating and mitigating factors did not warrant death. The panel remanded with instructions to grant the writ conditional on the state conducting a new sentencing. Judge Kozinski concurred in the majority opinion’s treatment of the guilt phase claim, but dissented from its treatment of the claim of ineffective assistance of counsel at sentencing. He wrote that the majority seizes upon imprecise language in a single sentence of a state court’s otherwise well-reasoned and comprehensive opinion, and uses it to sweep aside AEDPA’s restrictions on the scope of this court’s review, failing to faithfully apply Supreme Court precedent, and creating a split with two other circuits.
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