Humphries v. Ozmint

OPINION

WILKINSON, Circuit Judge:

Shawn Paul Humphries received a sentence of five years for criminal conspiracy, twenty years for attempted armed robbery, and death for the murder of Mendal “Dickie” Smith. After exhausting appropriate state remedies, Humphries filed an unsuccessful habeas petition in federal district court. He claimed that he received ineffective assistance of counsel under the Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments because of his counsel’s failure to object to the State’s closing arguments at sentencing, which compared the respective worth of the life of the victim to that of…