Lenz v. Warden of the Sussex I State Prison

In this case we granted a rehearing to the Warden to consider whether trial counsel were ineffective because they did not object to the verdict form given to the jury in the sentencing phase of petitioner’s capital murder trial. The Warden argues that the verdict form the jury considered was proper under this Court’s holding in Atkins v. Commonwealth, 257 Va. 160, 178, 510 S.E.2d 445, 456 (1999), and that trial counsel could not have been ineffective for failing to anticipate this Court’s subsequent decision in Powell v. Commonwealth, 261 Va. 512, 545, 552 S.E.2d 344, 363 (2001), requiring…