Kitchens v. Johnson

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).