Ward v. Daniels

How courts have described this case

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

• Strickland’s presumption of strategic decision-making by counsel does not extend to situations where there was “no strategic rationale underlying [the] errors.”
• attorney did not perform deficiently in failing to present provocation jury instruction where theory of case was self-defense and defendant's testimony was inconsistent with provocation
• “Our case law establishes that where evidence at trial supports a lesser jury instruction, trial counsel may make a strategic decision not to request such instruction.”
• evidence on the record could not support both a provocation theory and self-defense theory and it likely would have confused the jury to provide a second degree murder instruction based on provocation
• “Mitchell … fails to show that he was prejudiced … . To convict for second degree murder under either self-defense or provocation, the jury would have had to believe Mitchell’s version of events. But the forensic evidence contradicts Mitchell’s story.”

Source: CourtListener parenthetical corpus (CC0).