Tennard v. Dretke

BENAVIDES, Circuit Judge:

Petitioner Robert James Tennard appeals the district court’s denial of his habe-as corpus petition. Because the Texas courts were objectively unreasonable under applicable Supreme Court Eighth and Fourteenth Amendment jurisprudence in concluding that Tennard’s jury had an adequate vehicle during the capital sentencing phase to give mitigating effect to relevant evidence of a low intelligence quotient (“IQ”), we reverse the district court’s decision and remand with instructions to grant habeas relief.

I

A

The facts of Tennard’s heinous crime and the subsequent state…