SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
Jefferson S. Dunn, Commissioner, Alabama
Department of Corrections
v. Matthew Reeves
on petition for writ of certiorari to the
united states court of appeals for the eleventh circuit
No. 20–1084. Decided July 2, 2021
Justice Sotomayor, with whom Justice Kagan
joins, dissenting.
Under
Strickland v.
Washington,
466 U.S.
668 (1984), courts must assess a defendant’s claim that his
attorney failed to provide constitutionally effective assistance
“in light of all the circumstances.”
Id., at 690. No single
type of evidence is a prerequisite to relief. Therefore, as the
majority implicitly acknowledges, a
per se rule that a
habeas petitioner’s claim fails if his attorney did not testify at
an evidentiary hearing is flatly incompatible with
Strickland.
The Court of Criminal Appeals of Alabama applied
precisely such a rule in this case. When respondent Matthew Reeves
raised several ineffective-assistance-of-counsel (IAC) claims in
state postconviction proceedings, the court stated, in no uncertain
terms (and underlined for emphasis), that “to overcome the strong
presumption of effectiveness,
a Rule 32 petitioner must, at his
evidentiary hearing, question trial counsel regarding his or her
actions and reasoning.”
Reeves v.
State, 226 So.
3d 711, 748 (2016) (internal quotation marks omitted). Applying
that rule “[i]n this case,” the court held that “Reeves’s failure
to call his attorneys to testify is fatal to his claims of
ineffective assistance of counsel.”
Id., at 749. Reeves then
sought habeas relief in federal court. Based on the state court’s
clear holding, the Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit
properly determined that the state court’s use of the
per se rule was an unreasonable application of
Strickland.
Reeves v.
Commissioner,
Ala.
Dept.
of Corrections, 836 Fed. Appx. 733,
744 (2020) (
per curiam).
Through linguistic contortion, the Court today
rescues the state court’s decision by construing it not to apply a
per se rule at all. Based on that implausible reading,
the Court summarily reverses the Eleventh Circuit’s grant of
relief. The lengths to which this Court goes to ensure that Reeves
remains on death row are extraordinary. I respectfully dissent.
I
A
In 1998, Reeves was convicted of capital
murder for a brutal crime he committed when he was 18 years old. By
a vote of 10 to 2, a divided jury recommended that Reeves be
sentenced to death, and the trial court accepted that
recommendation.
During his trial, Reeves was initially
represented by two attorneys, Blanchard McLeod and Marvin Wiggins.
Reeves’ counsel moved for the appointment of a neuropsychologist,
Dr. John Goff, to conduct an intellectual disability evaluation.
When the motion was denied, Reeves’ counsel sought rehearing. They
explained that they had collected “hundreds of pages of
psychological, psychometric and behavioral analysis material
relating to [Reeves].” Electronic Case Filing in No. 1:17–cv–00061
(SD Ala.) (ECF), Doc. 23–1, p. 74. That material, McLeod had
represented in court, was “exceptionally pertinent” to Reeves’
penalty phase defense. ECF Doc. 23–3, at 96. Counsel stated that
retaining “a clinical neuropsychologist” like Dr. Goff was “the
only avenue open to the defense to compile this information
. . . and present [it] in an orderly and informative
fashion to the jury.” ECF Doc. 23–1, at 74–75. The state court
granted the request and provided funding to hire Dr. Goff.
Id., at 81. Around the same time, McLeod was replaced by
another attorney, Thomas Goggans. 836 Fed. Appx., at 736.
Reeves’ new team, Goggans and Wiggins, failed to
follow through on hiring a neuropsychologist. As Dr. Goff later
testified, in the more than three months between his appointment
and the penalty phase trial, Reeves’ attorneys “just never called.”
ECF Doc. 23–24, at 68. They also never hired any other
neuropsychologist to review the evidence and evaluate Reeves for
intellectual disability. 836 Fed. Appx., at 748. Instead, on the
day of the penalty phase trial, counsel contacted Dr. Kathleen
Ronan, a clinical psychologist who had previously evaluated Reeves
for competence to stand trial and his mental state at the time of
the offense. ECF Doc. 23–26, at 82–84. She had never evaluated
Reeves for intellectual disability, and she had not spoken with
Goggans or Wiggins until “the day that [she] testified.”
Id., at 84.
Dr. Ronan informed Reeves’ counsel that her
prior evaluation would not serve their purposes.
Ibid. As
she later explained, assessing Reeves for intellectual disability
“was not within the scope of [her] evaluation.”
Ibid. Had
she been hired to conduct such an assessment, she would have
administered a full IQ test and conducted other evaluations
designed to diagnose intellectual disability.
Id., at 85–87.
Instead, Dr. Ronan had only administered part of an IQ test and
found that Reeves’ verbal IQ “was not in a level that they would
call him [intellectually disabled].” ECF Doc. 23–8, at 155; see
also ECF Doc. 23–26, at 85. An expert for the State later
administered a full IQ test, however, showing that Reeves’ IQ was
well within the range for intellectual disability.
Reeves,
226 So. 3d, at 737; ECF Doc. 23–25, at 24; ECF Doc. 23–24, at
26.
Nevertheless, Reeves’ counsel called Dr. Ronan
to testify. The only other witnesses counsel called were Reeves’
mother and a police detective. The entire penalty phase trial
lasted just one and a half hours. ECF Doc. 23–14, at 154. Reviewing
the record, the trial judge found that “[t]he only evidence that
[he could] consider in mitigation of this offense . . .
is the evidence of [Reeves’] age and [his] youthfulness.” ECF Doc.
23–8, at 212. Concluding that such limited evidence would not
outweigh the aggravating circumstances, the court sentenced Reeves
to death.
Ibid.
B
In 2002, Reeves filed a motion for state
postconviction relief under Alabama Rule of Criminal Procedure 32
(known as a Rule 32 petition). Reeves alleged that his trial
counsel had been constitutionally ineffective in several ways,
including by failing to hire a neuropsychologist to evaluate him
for intellectual disability.
The state court held a 2-day evidentiary hearing
on Reeves’ claims. Reeves called Dr. Goff to testify. At the
request of Reeves’ postconviction counsel, Dr. Goff had reviewed
Reeves’ mental health and school records and administered “a
battery of tests designed to assess Mr. Reeves’ IQ, cognitive
abilities, and adaptive functioning.” 836 Fed. Appx., at 737. Dr.
Goff found that Reeves’ IQ scores were 71 and 73,[
1] showing that Reeves “has significantly
subaverage intellectual functioning,” and that he “has significant
deficits in multiple areas of adaptive functioning.”
Ibid.
These deficits manifested before Reeves turned 18 years old. ECF
Doc. 23–24, at 25–26, 65–67. Based on his findings, Dr. Goff
concluded that Reeves is intellectually disabled. 836 Fed. Appx.,
at 737. Dr. Goff testified that “had Mr. Reeves’ trial counsel
asked him to evaluate Mr. Reeves years earlier for the purpose of
testifying at trial, he would have performed similar evaluations
and reached the same conclusions.”
Ibid.
Reeves’ trial counsel did not testify at the
Rule 32 hearing. At the beginning of the hearing, the State had
declared that it intended to call Goggans and Wiggins to “explain
why they did certain things and maybe why they didn’t do certain
things.” ECF Doc. 23–24, at 14. But at the conclusion of the
hearing, the State “decided not to call trial counsel.” ECF Doc.
23–25, at 86.
The state court denied Reeves’ motion for
postconviction relief. On appeal, Reeves argued that the lower
court had “erred in ignoring substantial evidence in support of
[his IAC claim] on the basis that he did not call counsel to
testify.” ECF Doc. 23–29, at 45. In response, the State argued that
because “Reeves failed to call either of his trial attorneys to
testify concerning their decision to call Dr. Ronan rather than Dr.
Goff,” the lower court “properly presumed that they acted
reasonably.”
Id., at 199–200.
The Court of Criminal Appeals of Alabama agreed
with the State, rejecting Reeves’ contention that “testimony from
counsel is not necessary to prove any claim of ineffective
assistance of counsel.”
Reeves, 226 So. 3d, at 747. That
argument, the court reasoned, “fail[ed] to take into account the
requirement that courts indulge a strong presumption that counsel
acted reasonably, a presumption that must be overcome by
evidence to the contrary.”
Ibid. (emphasis in
original). The court then specified what that evidence must be:
“ ‘[T]o overcome the strong presumption of effectiveness,
a
Rule 32 petitioner must, at his evidentiary hearing, question trial
counsel regarding his or her actions and reasoning.’ ”
Id., at 748 (emphasis in original; quoting
Stallworth
v.
State, 171 So. 3d 53, 92 (Ala. Crim. App. 2013)). The
court cited over half a dozen cases supporting that
per se rule. See 226 So. 3d, at 748. It then applied
the rule to Reeves, explaining that “[i]n this case, Reeves’s
failure to call his attorneys to testify is fatal to his claims of
ineffective assistance of counsel.”
Id., at 749.
Reeves filed a petition for a writ of certiorari
seeking review of the state court’s decision, which this Court
denied. I dissented, joined by Justice Ginsburg and Justice Kagan.
We pointed out that the state court had applied a
per se rule “that counsel must testify in order for a
petitioner to succeed on a federal constitutional
ineffective-assistance-of-counsel claim.”
Reeves v.
Alabama, 583 U. S. ___, ___ (2017) (slip op., at 2).
Even the State did not defend the constitutionality of such a rule.
See
ibid.
C
Reeves then filed a federal habeas petition
pursuant to 28 U. S. C. §2254. The District Court denied
Reeves’ petition and his motion for reconsideration. See 2019 WL
1938805, *11 (SD Ala., May 1, 2019). The Eleventh Circuit reversed
in relevant part. It read the state appellate court’s decision to
“trea[t] Mr. Reeves’ failure to call his counsel to testify as a
per se bar to relief—despite ample evidence in the
record to overcome the presumption of adequate representation.” 836
Fed. Appx., at 744. In so doing, the state court “unreasonably
applied
Strickland.”
Ibid. The Eleventh Circuit
accordingly reviewed Reeves’ claim
de novo and found
that Reeves had proved ineffective assistance of counsel.
Id., at 747–753.
The Eleventh Circuit was not alone in
interpreting the state court’s decision to apply a “categorical
rule.”
Id., at 744. Less than a month earlier, the Court of
Criminal Appeals of Alabama (the same court that had issued the
decision in question) denied another defendant’s IAC claim. Once
again, the court stated its
per se rule: “[T]o overcome
the strong presumption of effectiveness, a Rule 32 petitioner must,
at his evidentiary hearing, question trial counsel regarding his or
her actions and reasoning.”
State v.
M.
D.
D., ___ So. 3d ___, ___, 2020 WL 6110694,
*7 (Oct. 16, 2020) (internal quotation marks omitted; emphasis
deleted). In support, the court cited its prior decision in
Reeves, which it summarized as “holding that [a] Rule 32
petitioner had failed to prove his claims of ineffective assistance
of trial and appellate counsel because he did not call his trial or
appellate counsel to testify at the Rule 32 evidentiary hearing.”
Id., at *8. As in Reeves’ case, the court in
M.
D.
D. held that “the failure to have trial
counsel testify is fatal to M.D.D.’s claims of ineffective
assistance of counsel.”
Ibid.[
2]
The State petitioned this Court to review the
Eleventh Circuit’s decision in
Reeves. Despite the Alabama
court’s plain embrace of a
per se rule, the State
accused the Eleventh Circuit of too “readily attributing error to
the state court” by interpreting its decision to “purportedly
creat[e] and us[e] this per se rule.” Pet. for Cert. i. On
that basis, the State asked this Court to reverse summarily the
Eleventh Circuit.
Id., at 30.
II
The sole question presented in this case is
whether the Court of Criminal Appeals of Alabama applied a
categorical rule that Reeves’ failure to call his attorneys to
testify was fatal to his IAC claim as a matter of law. No one
disputes that such a rule would be an “unreasonable application” of
Strickland and its progeny. 28 U. S. C.
§2254(d)(1); see also
ante, at 1, 10; Pet. for Cert. 1.
Under those decisions, no single type of evidence, such as
counsel’s testimony, is a prerequisite to relief.[
3] See
Roe v.
Flores-Ortega,
528 U.S.
470, 478 (2000) (describing
Strickland’s
“circumstance-specific reasonableness inquiry”);
Williams v.
Taylor,
529 U.S.
362, 391 (2000) (explaining that “the
Strickland test
‘of necessity requires a case-by-case examination of the
evidence’ ”).
The Court of Criminal Appeals improperly applied
such a
per se rule here. It began by invoking Reeves’
burden “to present evidence” sufficient to overcome the “strong
presumption that counsel acted reasonably.”
Reeves, 226 So.
3d, at 751 (emphasis deleted). It then ignored all of the evidence
that Reeves’ counsel had acted unreasonably, including Dr.
Goff ’s description of the evaluation he would have conducted,
Dr. Ronan’s warning that her testimony was no substitute for an
actual intellectual disability assessment, and trial counsel’s
repeated representations about the necessity of hiring Dr. Goff to
conduct such an evaluation.
The court held that none of this evidence
mattered because trial counsel did not testify: “[B]ecause Reeves
failed to call his counsel to testify, the record is silent as to
the reasons trial counsel . . . chose not to hire Dr.
Goff or another neuropsychologist.”
Ibid. The court treated
that fact as “fatal” to Reeves’ claim.
Id., at 749. Because
Reeves could not establish the subjective “reasoning behind
counsel’s actions, the presumption of effectiveness [was]
sufficient to deny relief.”
Id., at 751 (internal quotation
marks omitted); see also
M.
D.
D., ___ So. 3d,
at ___, 2020 WL 6110694, *8 (explaining that the court denied
Reeves relief “because he did not call his trial . . .
counsel to testify”).[
4]
III
In reviewing habeas petitions, “federal judges
must begin with the ‘presumption that state courts know and follow
the law.’ ”
Ante, at 8 (quoting
Woodford v.
Visciotti,
537 U.S.
19, 24 (2002) (
per curiam)). But when state courts
contravene this Court’s precedents, federal courts cannot turn a
blind eye. Here, it is hard to see how the state court could have
been any clearer in applying a
per se rule that
undisputedly violates
Strickland.
A
The Court declares that it is “clear from
context that the Alabama court did not apply a blanket rule, but
rather determined that the facts of this case did not merit
relief.”
Ante, at 10. The problem is that the “facts of this
case” make no appearance in the state court’s discussion. See
Reeves, 226 So. 3d, at 749–751. This Court thus searches for
some sign (any sign) that the state court implicitly assessed the
facts of the case.
The Court first points to two statements at the
beginning of the state court’s analysis in which it “said that it
would consider ‘all the circumstances’ of the case.”
Ante,
at 10–11. But after perfunctorily citing the
Strickland
standard, the state court never actually followed through on its
obligation to consider the evidence. Its analysis began and ended
with counsel’s failure to testify. See
Reeves, 226 So. 3d,
at 750–751. State courts cannot insulate their decisions from
scrutiny by quoting the proper standard and then ignoring it.
In a similar vein, this Court seizes upon the
state court’s quotation from an earlier case stating that trial
“ ‘counsel should
ordinarily be afforded an opportunity
to explain his actions before being denounced as
ineffective.’ ”
Ante, at 11. This, the Court claims,
“belie[s] a categorical approach.”
Ante, at 10. The state
court, however, expressly overrode that formulation of the rule,
stating that the court “[s]ubsequently” held that IAC petitioners
“ ‘
must’ ” question trial counsel.
Reeves,
226 So. 3d, at 747–748 (emphasis in original). It relied on that
rule to reject Reeves’ claim.
Id., at 748–749.
The Court also cites the length of the state
court’s opinion as purported proof that the court conducted a
fact-specific inquiry.
Ante, at 11. But what matters is the
state court’s reasoning, not the length of its opinion. The state
court did not spend “almost nine pages” conducting a detailed
“case-specific” analysis.
Ibid. The vast majority of the
state court’s discussion instead consists of a list of Reeves’ IAC
allegations and lengthy block quotes of general legal standards.
See
Reeves, 226 So. 3d, at 744–750. When the court finally
turned to the facts of this case, it explicitly barred relief only
“because Reeves failed to call his counsel to testify.”
Id.,
at 751.
Finally, the Court latches on to three words,
“[i]n this case,” insisting that they prove that the state court
merely concluded that trial counsel’s testimony was critical to
Reeves’ IAC claim “[i]n this case.”
Ante, at 11 (quoting 226
So. 3d, at 749; emphasis deleted). But in using the phrase “[i]n
this case,” the state court was not addressing the evidentiary
record. It was analogizing Reeves’ case to the many cases it had
just cited for the proposition that “ ‘
a Rule 32 petitioner
must, at his evidentiary hearing, question trial counsel regarding
his or her actions and reasoning.’ ”
Id., at
748–749 (emphasis in original). It then concluded that “Reeves’s
failure to call his attorneys to testify” in this case was
similarly “fatal to his claims.”
Id., at 749. If the state
court had meant to weigh the evidence in the record, it would have.
It did not. This Court is putting words in the state court’s mouth
that the state court never uttered, and which are flatly
inconsistent with what the state court did say.
B
Finding no relevant factual analysis in the
state court’s decision, this Court attempts its own, speculating as
to what Reeves’ counsel might have said had they been called to
testify. See
ante, at 8–10. For instance, the Court imagines
that “counsel may have uncovered additional evidence confirming
their concerns about an intellectual-disability strategy.”
Ante, at 9.[
5] The Court
also insinuates that Reeves may have strategically declined to call
his trial counsel to avoid harmful testimony.
Ante, at 10.
But if counsel’s testimony would have been damaging to Reeves’
claim, one would have expected the State to call counsel to
testify. Yet the State expressly declined to do so, despite having
counsel available to testify. See ECF Doc. 23–25, at 85–86.
The Court’s eagerness to invent scenarios
harmful to Reeves’ claim stems from its apparent belief that “the
Alabama court was entitled to reject Reeves’ claim if trial counsel
had any ‘possible reaso[n] . . . for proceeding as they
did.’ ”
Ante, at 10 (quoting
Cullen v.
Pinholster,
563 U.S.
170, 196 (2011)). That view has no basis in this Court’s
precedent.
Cullen did not hold that an IAC claim fails if a
court can imagine any possible reason for counsel’s actions. No
claim could ever survive such a standard. One can always imagine
some unsubstantiated reason for what trial counsel did.
Cullen instead stated that, to assess whether counsel’s
conduct was reasonable, courts must “entertain the range of
possible reasons” for counsel’s actions in light of the events and
evidence actually established in the record.
Id., at 196
(internal quotation marks omitted). The Court’s speculations about
what may have occurred after Dr. Goff ’s appointment are pure
conjecture.
In any case, the Court’s guesswork is beside the
point because it was not the basis for the state court’s decision.
When a state court gives a reasoned explanation for its decision,
federal habeas courts must review that decision on its own terms.
See
Wilson v.
Sellers, 584 U. S. ___, ___ (2018)
(slip op., at 2) (“In that case, a federal habeas court simply
reviews the specific reasons given by the state court and defers to
those reasons if they are reasonable”). Here, the state court
relied solely on the mere fact that Reeves’ counsel did not
testify. That is the only reason subject to our review, and it
plainly contravenes
Strickland.
Even as the Court attempts to save the state
court’s decision, it erroneously embraces the state court’s flawed
assumption that IAC claims require direct evidence of the
subjective “ ‘reasoning behind counsel’s actions.’ ” See
ante, at 11. “
Strickland, however, calls for an
inquiry into the objective reasonableness of counsel’s performance,
not counsel’s subjective state of mind.”
Harrington v.
Richter,
562 U.S.
86, 110 (2011). “A convicted defendant making a claim of
ineffective assistance must identify the acts or omissions of
counsel that are alleged not to have been the result of reasonable
professional judgment. The court must then determine whether, in
light of all the circumstances, the identified acts or omissions
were outside the wide range of professionally competent
assistance.”
Strickland, 466 U. S., at 690. This
inquiry must be conducted “[e]ven assuming” that counsel acted “for
strategic reasons,”
Wiggins v.
Smith,
539 U.S.
510, 527 (2003), and even if counsel does not testify. Cf.
Buck, 580 U. S., at ___ (slip op., at 17) (“No
competent defense attorney would introduce such evidence about his
own client”). “ ‘In any case presenting an ineffectiveness
claim, the performance inquiry must be whether counsel’s assistance
was reasonable considering all the circumstances.’ ”
Hinton v.
Alabama,
571 U.S.
263, 273 (2014) (
per curiam). This Court simply
cannot escape the fact that the state court failed to conduct the
necessary inquiry.
* * *
Today’s decision continues a troubling trend
in which this Court strains to reverse summarily any grants of
relief to those facing execution. See,
e.
g.,
United States v.
Higgs, 592 U. S. ___ (2021)
(emergency vacatur of stay and reversal);
Shinn v.
Kayer, 592 U. S. ___ (2020) (
per curiam)
(summary vacatur);
Dunn v.
Ray, 586 U. S. ___
(2019) (emergency vacatur of stay). This Court has shown no such
interest in cases in which defendants seek relief based on
compelling showings that their constitutional rights were violated.
See,
e.
g.,
Johnson v.
Precythe, 593
U. S. ___ (2021) (denying certiorari);
Whatley v.
Warden, 593 U. S. ___ (2021) (same);
Bernard v.
United States, 592 U. S. ___ (2020) (same). In Reeves’
case, this Court stops the lower court from granting Reeves’
petition by adopting an utterly implausible reading of the state
court’s decision. In essence, the Court turns “deference,”
ante, at 7, into a rule that federal habeas relief is never
available to those facing execution. I respectfully dissent.