702
Stevens, J., dissenting
chance to depict his client as a heartless killer just before the jurors began deliberation. Alternatively, counsel could prevent the lead prosecutor from arguing by waiving his own summation and relying on the jurors' familiarity with the case and his opening plea for life made just a few hours before. Neither option, it seems to us, so clearly outweighs the other that it was objectively unreasonable for the Tennessee Court of Appeals to deem counsel's choice to waive argument a tactical decision about which competent lawyers might disagree.
We cautioned in Strickland that a court must indulge a "strong presumption" that counsel's conduct falls within the wide range of reasonable professional assistance because it is all too easy to conclude that a particular act or omission of counsel was unreasonable in the harsh light of hindsight. 466 U. S., at 689. Given the choices available to respondent's counsel and the reasons we have identified, we cannot say that the state court's application of Strickland's attorney-performance standard was objectively unreasonable. The judgment of the Court of Appeals is therefore reversed, and the case is remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
Justice Stevens, dissenting.
In my judgment, the Court of Appeals correctly concluded that during the penalty phase of respondent's capital murder trial, his counsel "entirely fail[ed] to subject the prosecution's case to meaningful adversarial testing." United States v. Cronic, 466 U. S. 648, 659 (1984). Counsel's shortcomings included a failure to interview witnesses who could have provided mitigating evidence; a failure to introduce available mitigating evidence; and the failure to make any closing argument or plea for his client's life at the conclusion of the penalty phase. Furthermore, respondent's counsel was, subsequent to trial, diagnosed with a mental illness that ren-
Page: Index Previous 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 NextLast modified: October 4, 2007