In Whatley v. Ga. Diagnostic and Classification Center,
No. 13-12034 (June 20, 2019) (Tjoflat, Hull, Jordan), the Court reversed
the partial grant of habeas relief and affirmed the partial denial of habeas
relief in a capital case.
The first claim, on which the district court granted relief,
was that the trial lawyer was ineffective for failing to investigate and
present mitigating evidence at the penalty phase. The Court reversed because, on the prejudice
prong, the district court failed to defer to the state supreme court's decision
under AEDPA, applying de novo instead and re-weighing all of the evidence for
itself. Rather than remanding the case for the district court to conduct the correct analysis, the Court did so for itself and found that the
state court's decision was not unreasonable.
The second claim, on which the district court denied relief,
was that the trial lawyer was ineffective for failing to object to use of
shackles during the sentencing hearing. Although prejudice is typically presumed by
the use of shackles when that claim is raised on direct appeal, the Court declined to presume such
prejudice here, because a substantive shackling claim was procedurally defaulted
on direct appeal, and so it was the defendant's burden to prove prejudice on
collateral review under Strickland.
In that regard, the Court found that the defendant could not show that
the state supreme court's decision declining to find actual prejudice was
unreasonable.
Judge Jordan dissented as to the shackling claim, opining that the state court failed to conduct the prejudice inquiry with proper
regard for the inherent harm that results from visible shackling. He emphasized that the state court did not take into
account the fact that the defendant wore shackles not only while taking the
stand but also while being forced to re-enact the murder in front of the jury, with the prosecutor
playing the director and victim in that re-enactment. And he
argued that the state court failed to analyze how the shackles may have affected the
juror's views regarding his propensity for future violence, one of the major
theme's of the prosecutor's closing argument.
