Wood v. Allen

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Argued November 4, 2009. Decided January 20, 2010.

Authorship: Tiffany Cartwright of Stanford Law School

Docket: 08-9156

Issue: Whether the state court’s conclusion–that during the sentencing phase of a capital case the defense attorney’s failure to present the defendant’s impaired mental functioning did not constitute ineffective counsel–was based on an unreasonable determination of the facts and whether the circuit court erred in its application of the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act (AEDPA) to the review of the state court decision.

Contents

Briefs and Documents

Decision

AFFIRMED in a 7-2 decision with an opinion written by Justice Sotomayor. Justices Stevens filed a dissenting opinion, joined by Justice Kennedy. (January 20, 2010)

Oral Argument

Transcript (November 4, 2009)

Merits Briefs

Amicus Briefs

Certiorari-Stage Documents

Opinion Recap

Tiffany Cartwright of Stanford Law School originally wrote the following for SCOTUSblog.

After an oral argument in November that suggested much confusion and little agreement regarding the interaction of two provisions of the Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act (AEDPA), on Wednesday the Supreme Court denied habeas relief to petitioner Holly Wood without resolving the very issue on which it had granted certiorari: how to interpret the provisions at issue. The opinion thus demonstrates the difficulty of obtaining federal post-conviction relief and leaves unsettled a clear circuit split in a confusing area of the law.

Wood was convicted and sentenced to death in Alabama for the 1993 murder of his ex-girlfriend. In his federal habeas petition, he challenged a state court finding that his lawyers’ decision not to present mitigating evidence of his mental impairments resulted from a strategic choice rather than ineffective assistance. AEDPA has two subsections that govern challenges to state factual findings: under 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d)(2), a federal court may grant relief if the state decision “was based on an unreasonable determination of the facts in light of the evidence presented in the State court proceeding”; and under 28 U.S.C. § 2254(e)(1) “a determination of a factual issue made by a State court shall be presumed to be correct” unless the habeas petitioner rebuts the presumption by clear and convincing evidence.

The Court granted Wood’s petition for certiorari to determine whether subsection (e)(1) applies to all challenges brought under subsection (d)(2): in other words, in addition to showing that a state-court factual determination was “unreasonable,” must every habeas petitioner rebut a presumption that the determination was correct with clear and convincing evidence?

Ultimately, however, in a majority opinion written by Justice Sotomayor, the Court held that Wood’s claim failed under any interpretation of the statute. Even if only subsection (d)(2) applied, the Court explained, it was not “unreasonable” to determine that Wood’s lawyers made a strategic decision not to present evidence of his mental impairments.

In dissent, Justice Stevens, joined by Justice Kennedy, argued that the majority had overlooked the true meaning of a “strategic” decision. Yes, Wood’s lawyers had decided not to further investigate or present evidence of his mental impairments, but there was no evidence in the record to support a finding that the decision was “strategic” in the sense of being “a conscious choice between two legitimate and rational alternatives.” Rather, the decision “was the product of inattention and neglect.”

Oral Argument Recap

During oral argument in Wood v. Allen, the Court struggled to find an interpretation of 28 U.S.C. § 2254 that would both give meaning to every part of the statute and provide effective guidance to lower courts.

Kerry Scanlon argued on behalf of petitioner Holly Wood. A large part of his initial argument was consumed by the Court’s confusion over what was actually at issue in the case, and several members of the Court expressed irritation that Wood’s merits brief seemed to make claims that were outside the scope of the question presented.

Finally, Justice Ginsburg steered the argument toward an issue that the Court had agreed to review: the interaction between subsections (d)(2) and (e)(1) of Section 2254, relating to state court factual findings. Subsection (d)(2) precludes federal habeas relief unless the state court proceeding “resulted in a decision that was based on an unreasonable determination of the facts in light of the evidence presented in the state court proceeding,” while subsection (e)(1) creates a presumption that “a determination of a factual issue made by a state court” is correct unless rebutted by clear and convincing evidence.

Wood argued that subsection (d)(2) applies to challenges that involve only the state record, whereas (e)(1) governs challenges based on extrinsic evidence. Justice Breyer seemed to agree, noting that such an interpretation gives meaning to both subsections and prevents them from being repetitive. Justice Ginsburg, however, noted that because very few habeas proceedings involve extrinsic evidence, under Wood’s reading subsection (e)(1) would rarely apply.

Corey Maze, the Solicitor General of Alabama, argued on behalf of the State. Justice Alito suggested to Maze that all of the subsidiary, individual facts in a state record are presumed correct under (e)(1), but (d)(2) governs whether the state court’s ultimate decision was based on an unreasonable determination of the facts. Maze agreed that this was essentially his interpretation of the statute. Justice Breyer seemed to regard this interpretation as a plausible one, but he expressed concern that this scheme would be too complicated for lower courts to apply. Indeed, he noted, because this interpretation could lead to a whole new jurisprudence on what was a “subsidiary” factual finding, it would be much simpler to just use (d)(2) for the entire inquiry. Justice Kennedy pointed out that AEDPA is already confusing to lower courts, and that no matter how the Court rules it will be difficult to provide clear guidance using these standards.

Ultimately, the entire Court seemed very concerned about articulating a standard that would not further complicate habeas proceedings. What standard they will ultimately choose, however, was in no way clear.

Argument Preview

Wood v. Allen, a capital habeas case, questions how a federal court should review the facts determined in a state criminal proceeding under the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act (AEDPA).

Petitioner Holly Wood was convicted in Alabama of murdering his former girlfriend. Two of Wood’s appointed attorneys were experienced criminal trial lawyers; the third was a novice with no criminal experience. The less experienced lawyer handled the penalty phase, during which he failed to present mitigation evidence, obtained from a competency evaluation, of Wood’s significant mental impairments. By a vote of ten to two, the jury recommended a death sentence, which the trial judge imposed.

Wood’s conviction and sentence were affirmed on direct appeal. The state courts rejected his petition for post-conviction relief, in which he alleged that his trial counsel’s failure to investigate and present evidence of his mental impairments at the penalty phase constituted ineffective assistance. Instead, the state court held, the failure to present evidence of Wood’s mental impairments was a strategic decision made by Wood’s more experienced counsel.

Wood then filed a federal habeas petition under 28 U.S.C. § 2254, the section of AEDPA that governs petitions by state prisoners. Section 2254 contains two subsections that relate to state court factual findings: subsection (d)(2), which precludes relief unless the state court proceeding “resulted in a decision that was based on an unreasonable determination of the facts in light of the evidence presented in the state court proceeding”; and subsection (e)(1), which creates a presumption that “a determination of a factual issue made by a state court” is correct unless rebutted by clear and convincing evidence.

The district court granted relief, concluding that a “finding by the state courts that a strategic decision was made not to investigate or introduce . . . evidence of mental retardation is an unreasonable determination of the facts in light of the clear and convincing evidence presented in the record.” The court found that Wood’s less experienced lawyer was left unsupervised to investigate mitigating evidence; moreover, the failure to introduce evidence of Wood’s mental impairments stemmed from his counsel’s inexperience rather than a strategic decision.

On appeal, a divided panel of the Eleventh Circuit reversed. In the majority’s view, there was ample evidence to support the state court’s finding that Wood’s more experienced counsel made a strategic decision not to present mental health evidence. In a footnote, the court reasoned that under AEDPA it was required only to “examin[e] whether there is evidence to support the state courts’ findings”; here, the state court’s determination of the facts was not unreasonable because “Wood has not presented evidence, much less clear and convincing evidence,” that his counsel’s decision was not strategic. The dissent disagreed sharply, arguing that the majority “ignore[d] specific and direct evidence of ineffectiveness of of counsel in favor of nothing but pure speculation that the failure to investigate and present mitigating evidence was a ‘strategic decision.’”

In his petition for certiorari, Wood argued that there is a circuit split regarding the interaction between subsections (d)(2) and (e)(1). The Eighth and Eleventh Circuits, he claimed, apply both subsections to all petitions, holding that the state court’s determination of the facts is unreasonable only if the petitioner has rebutted the factual findings by clear and convincing evidence. In contrast, the Third and the Ninth Circuits have held that the two subsections instead apply in two different scenarios challenging a state court’s factual findings: subsection (d)(2)’s “reasonableness determination” applies to challenges – such as Wood’s – based solely on evidence within the state record, while the “clear and convincing evidence” standard applies when a challenge relies on extrinsic evidence.

Opposing certiorari, the State of Alabama did not dispute that the courts of appeals were divided on the question whether the court of appeals had misapplied Sections 2254(d)(2) and 2254(e)(1), but it contended that certiorari was not warranted because Wood had failed to raise this issue below. In any event, the State argued, Wood’s claim is foreclosed by Miller-El v. Cockrell, which it characterized as holding that both subsections apply to all habeas cases which turn on a state court’s determination of the facts.

In his merits brief, Wood begins not with the interaction of AEDPA’s provisions regarding state determinations of fact, but instead with an argument based on a third subsection of Section 2254: subsection (d)(1), which provides that relief may be granted if the state court decision “involved an unreasonable application of clearly established Federal law.” Even if the state court’s finding that his counsel made a strategic choice were correct, Wood argues, that finding was an unreasonable application of the Court’s decisions in Strickland v. Washington and Wiggins v. Smith, which hold that even a strategic decision is still constitutionally ineffective if it was made after a failure to investigate properly or an unjustified termination of the investigation.

Turning to his argument that the state court’s decision was based on an unreasonable determination of the facts, Wood first argues that the Eleventh Circuit misapplied subsection (d)(2) by examining only isolated pieces of the state court record, rather than the totality of the evidence. Second, and returning to the issue that dominated the cert. petition, Wood urges the Court to adopt the interpretation of Section 2254 used in the Third and Ninth Circuits. He argues that in a case such as his, which is based only on evidence within the state court record, courts should apply only subsection 2254(d)(2), and reserve subsection (e)(1) for cases that involve extrinsic evidence. In other words, he should not have to rebut the state court’s factual findings by clear and convincing evidence; instead, he should only be required to show that the findings were objectively unreasonable in light of the entire state court record.

In response, Alabama argues that the plain text of subsection (e)(1) provides the correct standard in every habeas case, requiring a petitioner to rebut the state’s factual findings with clear and convincing evidence regardless whether that evidence is in the state record. A different reading would be contrary to Congress’s intent to increase deference to state courts, Alabama argues, because the vast majority of habeas proceedings do not involve extrinsic evidence. The State advances what it describes as the proper construction of Section 2254: when a habeas petitioner claims that a state court decision is based on an unreasonable determination of the facts, the federal court first determines whether there is clear and convincing evidence in the state record to rebut the presumption that the state’s findings are correct. If such clear and convincing evidence exists, the court must then determine both whether the state court’s legal conclusion was in fact “based on” the erroneous facts and whether the factual determination was not only erroneous but also “objectively unreasonable.”

Finally, Alabama urges the Court to disregard Wood’s argument that the state court unreasonably applied Strickland and Wiggins. The State contends that the argument is both outside the question presented and, in any event, meritless because Wood’s counsel had a legitimate reason to end further investigation of his mental impairments.

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