Home › Case briefs › Criminal Procedure

Bobby v. Van Hook

Supreme Court of the United States · 2009 · Criminal Procedure

Criminal ProcedureEffective Assistance of CounselCapital SentencingHabeas CorpusSixth Amendmentineffective assistanceStricklandmitigation investigation

Facts

In 1985, Van Hook went to a bar hoping to find someone to rob, accompanied David Self to Self's apartment, and there strangled, stabbed, and mutilated him before fleeing with his valuables. After Van Hook was convicted of aggravated murder with a capital specification and aggravated robbery, the defense presented eight mitigation witnesses and Van Hook made an unsworn statement at sentencing, but the trial court imposed the death penalty. In later federal habeas proceedings, Van Hook argued that his lawyers were ineffective at the sentencing phase because they failed to conduct an adequate mitigation investigation. The record showed, however, that counsel had contacted close family members, consulted experts, reviewed military history, attempted to obtain medical records, and presented evidence of Van Hook's abusive and chaotic childhood, substance abuse, personality disorder, suicidal behavior, and impaired ability to refrain from the crime.

Issue

Whether Van Hook received ineffective assistance of counsel at the penalty phase because his attorneys inadequately investigated and presented mitigating evidence. More specifically, whether the Sixth Circuit erred by judging counsel's 1985 performance under ABA guidelines published in 2003 and by finding deficient performance and prejudice on this record.

Rule

Under Strickland, the Sixth Amendment requires representation that does not fall below an objective standard of reasonableness in light of prevailing professional norms at the time of the representation. Professional standards such as ABA materials are only guides, not controlling commands, and counsel's strategic decision not to seek additional cumulative mitigating evidence may fall within the range of professionally reasonable judgments. Even if counsel performed deficiently, relief requires prejudice—a showing that the omitted evidence would have made a difference.

🔒

See the holding & full analysis

Create a free KwikCourt account to unlock the rest of this brief — and practice the case.

The court's holding and reasoning
Doctrine tests, pitfalls & exam hypotheticals
10 practice questions + 4 AI-graded essays on this case

Free sample · practice this case

Test yourself

One of 10 multiple-choice questions for this case. Pick an answer to see why.

In a capital sentencing challenge arising from a 1991 trial in Cleveland, Marcus Dane argues his lawyers were ineffective because they did not conduct the life-history investigation now recommended in a 2018 capital-defense manual. The federal court relies heavily on the 2018 manual and never asks whether its detailed prescriptions reflected professional norms in 1991.

Under the governing doctrine, what is the strongest objection to the federal court’s analysis?

Explanation. Strickland asks whether counsel acted reasonably in light of prevailing professional norms at the time of the representation. Later-issued standards may be useful only if they describe those earlier norms; a court errs by judging older representation through much newer guidelines without that inquiry. The rule does not forbid all professional standards, but it rejects using later standards as the benchmark by default.