SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
TONY MAYS, WARDEN
v. ANTHONY DARRELL
DUGARD HINES
on petition for writ of certiorari to the
united states court of appeals for the sixth circuit
No. 20–507. Decided March 29, 2021
Per Curiam.
A Tennessee jury found Anthony Hines guilty of
murdering Katherine Jenkins at a motel. Witnesses saw Hines fleeing
in the victim’s car and wearing a bloody shirt, and his family
members heard him admit to stabbing
someone at the motel.
But almost 35 years later, the Sixth Circuit held that Hines was
entitled to a new trial and sentence because his attorney should
have tried harder to blame another man. In reaching its conclusion,
the Sixth Circuit disregarded the overwhelming evidence of guilt
that supported the contrary conclusion of a Tennessee court. This
approach plainly violated Congress’ prohibition on disturbing
state-court judgments on federal habeas review absent an error that
lies “ ‘beyond any possibility for fairminded
disagreement.’ ”
Shinn v.
Kayer, 592 U. S.
___, ___ (2020) (
per curiam) (slip op., at 1); 28
U. S. C. §2254(d). We now reverse.
I
On March 1, 1985, Hines boarded a bus
traveling from Raleigh, North Carolina, to Bowling Green, Kentucky.
His girlfriend and her mother had given him the bus ticket and $20.
Hines also carried with him a hunting knife concealed beneath his
shirt. When the mother asked about the knife, Hines explained:
“ ‘I never go anywhere naked.’ ” “ ‘I always have my
blade.’ ” Record in
Hines v.
Carpenter, No.
3:05–cv–00002 (MD Tenn.), Doc. 173–4, p. 112.
Hines’ travels brought him to the outskirts of
Nashville, where he checked into the CeBon Motel. Jenkins worked
there as a maid. A few hours after Hines’ arrival, the manager put
Jenkins in charge of the motel and provided her with a bag of money
to make change for departing guests.
In the early afternoon, another visitor found
Jenkins’ body in one of the rooms. She was wrapped in a bloody
bedsheet, and an autopsy later revealed several knife wounds that
included deep punctures to her chest and genitalia. Her money,
wallet, and car keys were missing, as was her vehicle. Around the
same time, another employee saw a man leaving the motel in Jenkins’
car. The employee tried to follow the vehicle, but it sped
away.
Later that afternoon, a group of travelers found
Hines and the car—now broken down—along the side of the road, and
they offered to drive him toward his sister’s home in Bowling
Green. During the trip, the travelers observed that Hines had dried
blood on his shirt and was carrying a folded-up jacket. They also
noticed that Hines “seemed real nervous,” “ke[pt] contradicting
himself,” and “talked a lot,” at one point claiming that he had
purchased the car from an “old lady for $300 or $400.”
Id.,
Doc. 173–2, at 33, 56;
id., Doc. 173–3, at 34–35.
Hines told a different story to his family. His
sister noticed the blood, and Hines admitted that he had stabbed
somebody at the motel—although he described the victim as a male
employee who had assaulted him. For good measure, Hines physically
demonstrated how he had knifed the supposed assailant. Despite his
inability to pay for a bus ticket just a few days earlier, Hines
purchased a barbecue grill and informed his sister that he had
acquired a substantial sum of money. Family members also noticed
that he had the keys to Jenkins’ car, which were on a distinctive
keychain. According to Hines, he had taken the keys in a struggle
with yet another man who had tried to rob him.
Hines altered his tale again when he surrendered
to law enforcement. Before the sheriff started questioning him,
Hines volunteered that “he took the automobile but he didn’t murder
the woman.”
Id., at 54–55, 57. But Hines later changed his
mind and offered to confess to the murder if the sheriff “could
guarantee him the death penalty.”
Id., Doc. 173–4, at
72.
The investigation turned up other physical
evidence connecting Hines to the crime. Police found Jenkins’
wallet where Hines had abandoned her car. And a search of his motel
room revealed stab marks on the walls that were similar in size to
the wounds on Jenkins’ body. When an investigator asked Hines about
the damage, he identified the holes as “ ‘knife marks.’ ”
Id., at 83–84.
The jury heard all of this evidence at trial. It
also heard testimony from the man—Kenneth Jones—who had discovered
Jenkins’ body. According to Jones, he knew the owners of the motel
and had stopped by on the afternoon of the murder. Finding no one
in the office, Jones had lingered outside before realizing that he
needed to use the bathroom. He returned to the office, took a key,
and entered the room. Hines’ counsel stressed to the jury this
oddly fortuitous sequence of events, noting that “Jones was fooling
around at that motel that Sunday afternoon”; that Jones seemed
“nervous”; and that Jones just happened to be present when “[t]here
was a lot of something going on.”
Id., Doc. 173–6, at 72–73.
The jury also heard discrepancies between Jones’ account of finding
the body and the timeline given by first responders. But it found
Hines guilty.
The full truth came out several years later when
Hines sought postconviction review in the Tennessee courts. In a
new statement, Jones admitted that he was at the motel neither by
happenstance nor by himself, but rather in the company of a woman
other than his wife. The duo had rendezvoused at the motel nearly
every Sunday for at least two years, and Jones was well known to
the staff. But when Jones and his companion arrived on the day of
the murder, they found no one to greet them. After waiting for a
while, first at the motel and then at a nearby restaurant, Jones
became impatient and helped himself to a room key from the office.
Upon finding the body, he quickly returned to his vehicle—a fact
confirmed by his companion who watched through the room’s open
curtains as Jones entered and left. Jones then called the
authorities, drove his companion home, and returned to the motel to
meet the sheriff.
The postconviction proceedings also revealed
that Hines’ attorney was generally aware of Jones’ affair from the
outset, yet had decided to spare him the embarrassment of
aggressively pursuing the matter.
Hines v.
State,
2004 WL 1567120, *8 (Tenn. Crim. App., July 14, 2004). But despite
Hines’ current insistence that this choice amounted to ineffective
assistance of counsel, the Tennessee postconviction court found no
prejudice.
Id., at *22, *27–*28; see also
Strickland
v.
Washington,
466 U.S.
668, 687 (1984) (“[T]he defendant must show that
. . . counsel’s errors were so serious as to deprive the
defendant of a fair trial”). The court stressed “the strength of
proof against [Hines],” and it dismissed as
“ ‘farfetched’ ” that trial counsel should have accused
Jones of committing (and self-reporting) a grisly crime in a public
place where he was “known by the staff.”
Hines, 2004 WL
1567120, *27. Such an argument, the court explained, “could have
resulted in a loss of credibility for the defense.”
Ibid.
The court also observed that the emergence of a new corroborating
witness—Jones’ companion—further undermined any suggestion that he
was the culprit.
Id., at *28. And though Jones’ evolving
story deprived the jury of all the facts, the court reasoned that
his “true purpose for being at the [m]otel” had little relevance to
Hines’ conviction or sentence.
Ibid.
Sixteen years later, a divided panel of the
Sixth Circuit disagreed. 814 Fed. Appx. 898 (2020). According to
the majority, a better investigation “could have helped the defense
to credibly cast Jones as an alternative suspect, or at the very
least seriously undermine his testimony.”
Id., at 938. For
example, trial counsel could have claimed that Jones killed Jenkins
to cover up his affair. Counsel might also have highlighted that
Jones was planning to rent a room from Jenkins on the day of the
crime.
Id., at 938–939. Or counsel might have better
stressed potential flaws in Jones’ version of events, such as
discrepancies about the exact time he reported the murder.
Id., at 940. The majority further surmised that Hines had
“no clear motive” for the murder, and it noted the absence of “DNA
or fingerprint evidence.”
Id., at 939.
Missing from this analysis, however, was the
voluminous evidence of Hines’ guilt. Among many other things, the
majority disregarded Hines’ flight in a bloodstained shirt, his
theft of the vehicle and money, and his ever-changing stories about
stabbing and robbing various people on the day of the crime. See
generally
id., at 937–942.
Judge Kethledge dissented. In his view, the
majority “ ‘nowhere g[ave] deference to the state courts,
nowhere explain[ed] why their application of
Strickland was
unreasonable rather than merely (in the majority’s view) incorrect,
and nowhere explain[ed] why fairminded jurists could view [Hines’]
claim only the same way the majority d[id].’ ”
Id., at
942. Judge Kethledge then reviewed all of the evidence ignored by
the majority. He found “zero reason to think that, after
investigation, counsel could have presented Jones as the ‘real
killer.’ ”
Id., at 944. And he explained that
impeaching Jones “would have been a waste of time” because Jones
had “offered no testimony regarding Hine[s’ ] guilt.”
Ibid.
II
Hines’ legal theory is straightforward: A
competent attorney would have presented the full truth about Jones’
affair and blamed him for the crime. According to Hines, this
strategy would have deflected so much suspicion—or at least so
undermined Jones’ credibility—that counsel’s omission created a
“ ‘substantial’ ” risk of “a different result.”
Cullen v.
Pinholster,
563 U.S.
170, 189 (2011). In fact, Hines reasons that, “had [he] not
been found with Mrs. Jenkins’ car,
Jones would have been the
primary suspect.” Brief in Opposition 17 (emphasis added).
Our analysis is straightforward too. Because a
Tennessee court considered and rejected Hines’ theory, a federal
court “shall not” grant a writ of habeas corpus unless the earlier
decision took an “unreasonable” view of the facts or law. §2254(d).
This “standard is difficult to meet.”
Harrington v.
Richter,
562 U.S.
86, 102 (2011). The term “unreasonable” refers not to “ordinary
error” or even to circumstances where the petitioner offers “a
strong case for relief,” but rather to “ ‘extreme malfunctions
in the state criminal justice syste[m].’ ”
Ibid. In
other words, a federal court may intrude on a State’s
“ ‘sovereign power to punish offenders’ ” only when a
decision “was so lacking in justification . . . beyond
any possibility for fairminded disagreement.”
Id., at
103.
If this rule means anything, it is that a
federal court must carefully consider all the reasons and evidence
supporting the state court’s decision. After all, there is no way
to hold that a decision was “lacking in justification” without
identifying—let alone rebutting—all of the justifications.
Ibid. Any other approach would allow a federal court to
“ ‘essentially evaluat[e] the merits
de novo’ ” by omitting inconvenient details from
its analysis.
Shinn, 592 U. S., at ___–___ (slip op.,
at 8–9); see also
Richter, 562 U. S., at 102–103.
The Sixth Circuit did precisely that. Nowhere in
its 10-page discussion of Hines’ theory did the majority consider
the substantial evidence linking him to the crime: His flight in a
bloody shirt; his possession of the victim’s keys, wallet, and car;
his recurring association with knives; or his ever-changing stories
about tussling with imaginary assailants. 814 Fed. Appx., at
933–942. The court instead focused on all the reasons why it
thought Jones “could have” been a viable alternative suspect.
E.g.,
id., at 938–942. And rather than engage with
the “dissent[’s] recount[ing of] th[e] evidence” against Hines, the
majority simply promised that it had “carefully considered” this
proof before summarily dismissing it as “not overwhelming.”
Id., at 939.
Had the Sixth Circuit properly considered the
entire record, it would have had little trouble deferring to the
Tennessee court’s conclusion that Hines suffered no prejudice
regarding his conviction or sentence. Again, the critical question
was not whether the Sixth Circuit
itself could see a
“ ‘substantial’ . . . likelihood of a different
result” had Hines’ attorney taken a different approach.
Cullen, 563 U. S., at 189. All that mattered was
whether the
Tennessee court, notwithstanding its substantial
“latitude to reasonably determine that a defendant has not [shown
prejudice],” still managed to blunder so badly that every
fairminded jurist would disagree.
Knowles v.
Mirzayance,
556 U.S.
111, 123 (2009).
It did not. The Tennessee court reasonably
looked to the substantial evidence of Hines’ guilt.
Hines,
2004 WL 1567120, *27–*28. And it reasonably rejected the
“ ‘farfetched’ ” possibility that Jones committed and
self-reported a gruesome murder, in the presence of a witness, at a
place where he was well known to the staff.
Ibid. In light
of this straightforward, commonsense analysis, the Sixth Circuit
had no license to hypothesize an alternative theory of the crime in
which Jones became a suspect 35 years after the fact—much less rely
on that fanciful theory to grant relief.[
1]*
Similarly untenable was the Sixth Circuit’s
backstop theory that a more aggressive attorney could have changed
the result by casting doubt on Jones’ credibility. 814 Fed. Appx.,
at 940. As an initial matter, this conjecture ignores that Jones’
brief testimony about discovering the body did not indicate that
Hines was the culprit. Ample other evidence was what did
that. Perhaps in light of this obvious disjuncture, the Sixth
Circuit’s analysis of why an attack on Jones’ credibility would
have been productive ultimately circled back to the majority’s main
assumption “that Jones was a viable alternative suspect.”
Id., at 941. Regardless, to the extent Jones’ credibility
actually mattered, the jury already had several good reasons to be
skeptical—for example, his peculiar tale of discovering the body;
the insinuations of Hines’ attorney; and the discrepancies between
Jones’ exact description of finding the body and the account of the
first responders. None of these made a difference.
III
The Sixth Circuit had no reason to revisit the
decision of the Tennessee court, much less ignore the ample
evidence supporting that court’s conclusion. We grant the petition
for a writ of certiorari and respondent’s motion to proceed
in
forma pauperis, and we reverse the judgment of the Court of
Appeals.
It is so ordered.
Justice Sotomayor dissents.