Winston v. Kelly

Today’s decision overlooks the prejudice that Leon Jermain Winston suffered from the utter failure of counsel to investigate and present mitigating evidence at the penalty phase where he received a capital sentence. If we are to safeguard the Sixth Amendment right to effective assistance of counsel in criminal cases, then we must conduct a meaningful review of the record when, as here, there is a vast quantity of unquestionably mitigating evidence that was never presented to the jury. Moreover, while it appears that Winston failed to raise the issue in his state habeas petition, I disagree…