On November 9, the U.S. Supreme Court grant­ed cer­tio­rari in the case of Bobby v. Van Hook (No. 09 – 144) and issued a per curi­am opin­ion over­turn­ing a pan­el of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, which had grant­ed Robert Van Hook a new sen­tenc­ing hear­ing based on inef­fec­tive­ness of coun­sel. Van Hook had been con­vict­ed and sen­tenced to death for a mur­der com­mit­ted in 1985 fol­low­ing an encounter in a bar. The Supreme Court held that, judg­ing by pro­fes­sion­al stan­dards exist­ing at the time of Van Hook’s tri­al (rather than by more recent American Bar Association stan­dards), the attor­neys con­duct­ed an ade­quate inves­ti­ga­tion and pro­vid­ed suf­fi­cient rep­re­sen­ta­tion. The Court said, ​“This is not a case in which the defendant’s attor­neys failed to act while poten­tial­ly pow­er­ful mit­i­gat­ing evi­dence stared them in the face, cf. Wiggins, or would have been appar­ent from doc­u­ments any rea­son­able attor­ney would have obtained, cf. Rompilla v. Beard. It is instead a case, like Strickland itself, in which defense counsel’s ​‘deci­sion not to seek more’ mit­i­gat­ing evi­dence from the defendant’s back­ground ​‘than was already in hand’ fell ​‘well with­in the range of pro­fes­sion­al­ly rea­son­able judg­ments.’ ” (cita­tions omitted).

(Bobby v. Van Hook, No. 09 – 144 (U.S., cert. grant­ed and decid­ed Nov. 9, 2009)). See Supreme Court and Representation.

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