Concerned Citizens v. City of West Des Moines

How courts have described this case

Verbatim parenthetical descriptions written by other courts when citing this decision. Ranked by citation-network relevance.

• holding that counsel's failure to interview potential witnesses not ineffective where potential testimony would not have added significant value to overall defense
• holding that counsel’s performance is not deficient in declining “to spend valuable time pursuing what appeared to be an unfruitful line of investigation” (quoting Bunch v. 949 F.2d 1354, 1364 (4th Cir. 1991))
• concluding that counsel’s failure to interview extended relatives in order to better help “narrate the true story of [the defendant’s] childhood experiences” was not prejudicial because the witnesses would have adduced only “minor additional details”
• explaining that Strickland does not require attorneys to “dig deeper” when substantial mitigation evidence is already in hand following a reasonably thorough investigation
• holding performance not deficient because counsel gathered a substantial amount of information and then made a reasonable decision not to pursue additional sources
• concluding that, even if counsel was deficient for failing to investigate certain mitigation witnesses, the deficiency was not prejudicial because any arguably “new” evidence the witnesses would have offered was minor additional details that contributed nothing of value.

Source: CourtListener parenthetical corpus (CC0).