Yarborough v. Gentry

• Decision Date: 20 October 2003
• Docket Number: No. 02-1597.,02-1597.
• Citation: 540 U.S. 1
• Parties: YARBOROUGH, WARDEN, ET AL. v. GENTRY.
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

540 U.S. 1

YARBOROUGH, WARDEN, ET AL. v. GENTRY.

No. 02-1597.

Supreme Court of United States.

Decided October 20, 2003.

At respondent Gentry's California state trial on charges that he stabbed his girlfriend, his counsel's closing argument made several key points, but did not highlight some potentially exculpatory evidence. Gentry was convicted. His claim that the closing argument denied him his right to effective assistance of counsel was rejected on direct appeal. His subsequent petition for federal habeas relief was denied by the District Court, but the Ninth Circuit reversed.

Held: The Ninth Circuit erred in finding that Gentry was deprived of his right to effective assistance of counsel. That right is denied when a defense attorney's performance falls below an objective standard of reasonableness and thus prejudices the defense. If a state court has already rejected an ineffective-assistance claim, its application of governing federal law must be shown to be not only erroneous, but objectively unreasonable. The right to effective assistance of counsel extends to closing arguments, but deference to counsel's tactical decisions in closing is particularly important because of the broad range of legitimate defense strategy at that stage. The record supports the state court's conclusion that counsel's performance was not ineffective, and the potentially exculpatory evidence highlighted by the Ninth Circuit does not establish that the state court's decision was unreasonable. Focusing on a few key points may be more persuasive than a shotgun approach, and there is a strong presumption that counsel focuses on some issues to the exclusion of others for tactical reasons, see Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668, 690. Here, the issues omitted were not so clearly more persuasive than those counsel discussed that their omission can only be attributed to a professional error of constitutional magnitude. The Ninth Circuit's findings of other flaws in counsel's presentation also do not support that court's conclusion.

Certiorari granted; 320 F.3d 891, reversed.

ON PETITION FOR WRIT OF CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT.

PER CURIAM.

I

Respondent Lionel Gentry was convicted in California state court of assault with a deadly weapon for stabbing his girlfriend, Tanaysha Handy. Gentry claimed he stabbed her accidentally during a dispute with a drug dealer.

Handy testified for the prosecution. She stated that she recalled being stabbed but could not remember the details of the incident. The prosecution then confronted Handy with her testimony from a preliminary hearing that Gentry had placed his hand around her throat before stabbing her twice.

Albert Williams, a security guard in a neighboring building, testified that he saw Gentry, Handy, and another man from his third-floor window. According to Williams, Gentry swung his hand into Handy's left side with some object, causing her to lean forward and scream. Williams was inconsistent about the quality of light at the time, stating variously that it was "pretty dark" or "getting dark," that "it wasn't that dark," and that the area of the stabbing was "lighted up." See Gentry v. Roe, 320 F.3d 891, 896-897 (CA9 2003).

Gentry testified in his own defense that he had stabbed Handy accidentally while pushing her out of the way. When asked about prior convictions, he falsely stated that he had been convicted only once; evidence showed he had been separately convicted of burglary, grand theft, battery on a peace officer, and being a felon in possession of a firearm. He attributed his error to confusion about whether a plea bargain counted as a conviction.

In her closing argument, the prosecutor expressed sympathy for Handy's plight as a pregnant, drug-addicted mother of three and highlighted her damaging preliminary hearing testimony. She accused Gentry of telling the jury a "pack of lies." See id., at 897-898. Defense counsel responded with the following closing argument:

"`I don't have a lot to say today. Just once I'd like to find a prosecutor that doesn't know exactly what happened. Just once I'd like to find a D. A. that wasn't there and that can tell and they can stand up here and be honest and say I don't know who is lying and who is not `cause she wasn't there, ladies and gentlemen. [I] wasn't there. None of the 12 of you were there. None of the other people in this courtroom were there except those two people and that one guy who saw parts of it, or saw it all. Pretty dark. Dark. It was light. Those are the three versions of his testimony with regard to what he saw and what he saw. I don't know what happened. I can't tell you. And if I sit here and try to tell you what happened, I'm lying to you. I don't know. I wasn't there. I don't have to judge. I don't have to decide. You heard the testimony come from the truth chair. You heard people testify. You heard good things that made you feel good. You heard bad things that made you feel bad.

"`I don't care that Tanaysha is pregnant. I don't care that she has three children. I don't know why that had to be brought out in closing. What does that have to do with this case? She was stabbed.

"`The question is, did he intend to stab her? He said he did it by accident. If he's lying and you think he's lying then you have to convict him. If you don't think he's lying, bad person, lousy drug addict, stinking thief, jail bird, all that to the contrary, he's not guilty. It's as simple as that. I don't care if he's been in prison. And for the sake of this thing you ought not care because that doesn't have anything to do with what happened on April 30th, 1994.

"`He doesn't know whether or not he's been convicted. Didn't understand the term conviction. That is not inconsistent with this whole thing of being spoken and doing all this other crime stuff as opposed to going to school. I don't know. I can't judge the man. The reason that they bring 12 jurors from all different walks of life, let them sit here and listen to people testify, and the reason that the court will give you instructions with regard to not having your life experience, leaving it at the door, is because you can't just assume that because a guy has done a bunch of bad things that he's now done this thing.

"`I don't know if thievery and stabbing your girlfriend are all in the same pot. I don't know if just because of the fact that you stole some things in the past that means you must have stabbed your girlfriend. That sounds like a jump to me, but that's just [me]. I'm not one of the 12 over there.

"`All I ask you to do is to look at the evidence and listen to everything you've heard and then make a decision. Good decision or bad decision, it's still a decision. I would like all 12 of you to agree; but if you don't, I can't do anything about that either.

"`You heard everything just like all of us have heard it. I don't know who's lying. I don't know if anybody is lying. And for someone to stand here and tell you that they think someone is lying and that they know that lying goes on, ladies and gentlemen, if that person was on the witness stand I'd be objecting that they don't have foundation because they weren't there. And that's true. The defense attorney and the prosecutor, no different than 12 of you.

"`So I'd ask you to listen to what you've heard when you go back, ask you to take some time to think about it, and be sure that's what you want to do, then come out and do it.

"`Thank you.'" Id., at 898-899 (one paragraph break omitted).

After deliberating for about six hours, the jury convicted.

On direct appeal, Gentry argued that his trial counsel's closing argument deprived him of his right to effective assistance of counsel. The California Court of Appeal rejected that contention, and the California Supreme Court denied review. Gentry's petition for federal habeas relief was denied by the District Court, but the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit reversed. We grant the State's petition for a writ of certiorari and the motion for leave to proceed in forma pauperis and reverse.

II

The Sixth Amendment guarantees criminal defendants the effective assistance of counsel. That right is denied when a defense attorney's performance falls below an objective standard of reasonableness and thereby prejudices the defense. Wiggins v. Smith, 539 U. S. 510, 521 (2003); Strickland v. Washington, 466 U. S. 668, 687 (1984). If a state court has already rejected an ineffective-assistance claim, a federal court may grant habeas relief if the decision was "contrary to, or involved an unreasonable application of, clearly established Federal law, as determined by the Supreme Court of the United States." 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d)(1). Where, as here, the state court's application of governing federal law is challenged, it must be shown to be not only erroneous, but objectively unreasonable. Wiggins, supra, at 520-521; Woodford v. Visciotti, 537 U. S. 19, 24-25 (2002) (per curiam); Williams v. Taylor, 529 U. S. 362, 409 (2000).

The right to effective assistance extends to closing arguments. See Bell v. Cone, 535 U. S. 685, 701-702 (2002); Herring v. New York, 422 U. S. 853, 865 (1975). Nonetheless, counsel has wide latitude in deciding how best to represent a client, and deference to counsel's tactical decisions in his closing presentation is particularly important because of the broad range of legitimate defense strategy at that stage. Closing arguments should "sharpen and clarify the issues for resolution by the trier of fact," id., at 862, but which issues to sharpen and how best to clarify them are questions with many reasonable answers. Indeed, it might sometimes make sense to forgo closing argument altogether. See Bell, supra, at 701-702. Judicial review of a defense attorney's summation is therefore highly deferential—and doubly deferential when it is conducted through the lens of federal habeas.

In light of these principles,...