Kevin Winston Osborn v. Duane Shillinger, Warden of the Wyoming State Penitentiary A.G. McClintock the Attorney General of the State of Wyoming

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 was ineffective when he failed to make opening statement, failed to challenge plaintiff's case, and failed to introduce any mitigating evidence
• stating that \an attorney who adopts and acts upon a belief that his client should be convicted `fail[s] to function in any meaningful sense as the Government's adversary'\ (quoting United States v. Cronic, 466 U.S. 648, 666 (1984)) (alteration in original)
• ringleader evidence was “key factor that convinced the sentencing judge to impose the death sentence”
• finding Strickland deficiency and prejudice under “any applicable standard” where counsel “acted with reckless disregard for his client’s best interests and, at times, apparently with the intention to weaken his client’s case”
• finding per se prejudice when defense counsel intentionally stressed the brutality of his client’s crime, admitted that the evidence against his client was overwhelming, and made statements to the press that his client had no evidence to support his claims
• noting that sentencing proceeding was ‘‘almost totally [nonadversarial]’’

Source: CourtListener parenthetical corpus (CC0).