Florencio Rolan v. Donald T. Vaughn, State Correctional Institution-Graterford the District Attorney of Philadelphia

How courts have described this case

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

• holding that trial counsel was ineffective for failing to investigate defense witnesses who would have supported the defendant’s self- defense claim
• holding that trial strategy that was \uninformed\ by pretrial investigation was not entitled to a presumption of deference
• observing that, in this context, a showing of Strickland prejudice “must be made based on the potential witness’s testimony to the habeas court.”(citation omitted)
• explaining that under the applicable standard of review, federal courts may only grant habeas relief whenever “[o]ur reading of the PCRA court records convinces us that the Superior Court made an unreasonable finding of fact”
• showing of Strickland prejudice may not be based on mere speculation about what witnesses counsel failed to locate may have said
• affirming habeas relief for petitioner who satisfied § 2254(d)(2) and under the correct facts established a Strickland violation

Source: CourtListener parenthetical corpus (CC0).