U.S. Supreme Court Orders Texas Court to Reconsider Case of Inadequate Representation

By a vote of 6 – 3, the U.S. Supreme Court over­turned a Texas Court of Criminal Appeals (TCCA) rul­ing uphold­ing the death sen­tence imposed on Terence Andrus (pic­tured). The Court held that Andrus’ coun­sel had pro­vid­ed sub­stan­dard rep­re­sen­ta­tion in the penal­ty-phase of his tri­al, and direct­ed the TCCA to deter­mine whether counsel’s defi­cient per­for­mance may have affect­ed the jury’s sentencing decision. 

The unsigned deci­sion, issued June 15, 2020, was joined by Chief Justice John Roberts, Justice Brett Kavanaugh, and the Court’s four lib­er­al and mod­er­ate Justices, who found that Andrus’ court-appoint­ed lawyer had unrea­son­ably failed to inves­ti­gate ​“abun­dant” mit­i­gat­ing evi­dence that could have been pre­sent­ed to the jury to spare Andrus’ life. That evi­dence includ­ed an exten­sive child­hood his­to­ry of abuse and neglect, soli­tary con­fine­ment Andrus was sub­ject­ed to in a juve­nile facil­i­ty, and a his­to­ry of suicide attempts. 

Andrus’ appeal lawyers pre­sent­ed this evi­dence to the Texas state courts in his state post-con­vic­tion appeals. When tri­al coun­sel pro­vid­ed no expla­na­tion for fail­ing to present the evi­dence, the tri­al court declared that coun­sel had been inef­fec­tive and over­turned Andrus’ death sen­tence. On appeal, the TCCA rein­stat­ed the death sen­tence with­out expla­na­tion, sum­mar­i­ly assert­ing that Andrus had not met his bur­den of prov­ing ineffective assistance.

In an opin­ion by Justice Samuel Alito, joined by Justices Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch, the right wing of the Court dis­sent­ed from the majority’s rul­ing, call­ing the deci­sion ​“hard to take seriously.”

Andrus was sen­tenced to death in 2012 for shoot­ing two peo­ple dur­ing a 2008 car­jack­ing attempt. According to the Court’s deci­sion, Andrus’ attor­ney, James ​“Sid” Crowley, con­ced­ed his guilt, then ​“informed the jury that the tri­al would ​‘boil down to the pun­ish­ment phase,’ empha­siz­ing that ​‘that’s where we are going to be fight­ing.’” Yet dur­ing the penal­ty phase, Crowley failed to rebut the state’s case that Andrus ​“had dis­played aggres­sive and hos­tile behav­ior while con­fined in a juve­nile deten­tion cen­ter” and that he had gang affil­i­a­tions. Crowley pre­sent­ed Andrus’ moth­er as a wit­ness, who refused to reveal infor­ma­tion about Andrus’ upbring­ing, includ­ing the fact that she had been addict­ed to drugs through­out his child­hood, leav­ing her chil­dren alone for days or even weeks at a time, and that she had engaged in pros­ti­tu­tion to fund her drug habit, bring­ing home vio­lent­ly abu­sive men. According to the Court, as a result of his mother’s behav­ior, ​“Andrus took on the role of care­tak­er for his four sib­lings” even before he reached adolescence.

The Court recount­ed addi­tion­al mit­i­ga­tion that Crowley failed to present, writ­ing that Andrus had been sent to a juve­nile deten­tion facil­i­ty for hav­ing act­ed as a look­out while friends robbed a woman, ​“where, for 18 months, he was steeped in gang cul­ture, dosed on high quan­ti­ties of psy­chotrop­ic drugs, and fre­quent­ly rel­e­gat­ed to extend­ed stints of soli­tary con­fine­ment. The ordeal left an already trau­ma­tized Andrus all but sui­ci­dal. Those sui­ci­dal urges resur­faced lat­er in Andrus’ adult life.” According to the six-jus­tice major­i­ty, “[d]uring Andrus’ cap­i­tal tri­al, how­ev­er, near­ly none of this mit­i­gat­ing evi­dence reached the jury. That is because Andrus’ defense coun­sel not only neglect­ed to present it; he failed even to look for it.”

Andrus chal­lenged his death sen­tence under Strickland v. Washington, the Supreme Court case that estab­lished the stan­dard for deter­min­ing whether a defen­dant received inef­fec­tive rep­re­sen­ta­tion. Strickland sets forth a two-part test, requir­ing a defen­dant to demon­strate that counsel’s per­for­mance was defi­cient and that counsel’s defi­cien­cies were prej­u­di­cial. ​“To show defi­cien­cy,” the Court explained, ​“a defen­dant must show that ​‘counsel’s rep­re­sen­ta­tion fell below an objec­tive stan­dard of rea­son­able­ness.’ And to estab­lish prej­u­dice, a defen­dant must show ​‘that there is a rea­son­able prob­a­bil­i­ty that, but for counsel’s unpro­fes­sion­al errors, the result of the pro­ceed­ing would have been dif­fer­ent.’” The Court said ​“the record makes clear” that counsel’s penal­ty-phase rep­re­sen­ta­tion was defi­cient. Because the TCCA ​“may have failed prop­er­ly to engage with the fol­low-on ques­tion whether Andrus has shown that counsel’s defi­cient per­for­mance prej­u­diced him,” the Court vacat­ed the TCCA’s judg­ment and returned the case to the state appeals court to con­sid­er that issue.

Justice Samuel Alito authored a stri­dent dis­sent, steeped in sar­casm. The majority’s deci­sion, Alito said, was ​“hard to take seri­ous­ly.” The TCCA had ade­quate­ly con­sid­ered the Strickland stan­dard, Alito wrote. ​“Perhaps the Court thinks the CCA should have used CAPITAL LETTERS or bold type. Or maybe it should have added: ​‘And we real­ly mean it!!!.’”

The U.S. Supreme Court sched­uled Andrus’ case for con­sid­er­a­tion dur­ing its week­ly con­fer­ences 24 times before issu­ing its ruling.