Fifth Circuit· 10/13/1999

Kitchens v. Johnson

Citations

190 F.3d 698
1999 WL 766348

How courts have described this case

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

holding that arguments about whether counsel investigated enough or presented enough mitigating evidence come down to a matter of degrees and are even less susceptible to judicial second-guessing
finding that counsel’s decision not to investigate mitigating evidence of child abuse, alcoholism, and mental illness was sound trial strategy
“Did counsel investigate enough? Did counsel present enough mitigating evidence? Those questions are even less susceptible to judicial second-guessing.”
find that “double-edged” evidence is “even less susceptible to judicial second-guessing” because it “essentially comes down to a matter of degrees”
decision not to raise issue that could harm defendant is not ineffective
in a capital murder case, pleading guilty to murder and arguing in closing that the defendant had committed a “very brutal, a very savage murder, but [ ] not a capital murder ...” was a valid strategic decision to bolster credibility with the jury

Source: CourtListener parenthetical corpus (CC0).

Judges: Higginbotham, Smith, Demoss

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Cited by

41 cases in this archive cite this case; the 20 most cited are listed.

Cites

15 cases in this archive are cited by this case.

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