Supreme Court of the United States · Official docket →
Donnie Cleveland Lance v. Eric Sellers, Warden
Paid petition · United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit, No. 16-15008 · judgment August 31, 2017
Before the decision, well below the 4.1% base rate, with no standout signals pointing toward a grant.
Questions presented
In a series of decisions, this Court has provided guidance to lower courts evaluating an ineffective assistance of counsel claim in a capital case where trial counsel failed to provide effective representation during the sentencing phase. Lower courts have struggled to implement that guidance, especially when evaluating whether, as a result of the inadequate representation, the defendant was denied his constitutional right to an individualized determination of culpability. This petition presents an important question of whether the failure to conduct any investigation or offer any evidence of a capital defendant’s significant mental health impairments at the penalty phase can be nonprejudicial. The questions presented are:
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Whether it was objectively unreasonable for the Georgia Supreme Court to find no prejudice resulted from the failure of defense counsel to conduct any investigation and to present any mitigating evidence, including readily available and undisputed expert testimony that the defendant suffered from significantly diminished mental capacity constituting dementia at the time of the crime, when these failures deprived the jury of mitigating evidence that was essential to an individualized determination of the defendant’s culpability.
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Whether prejudice must be presumed in a death penalty case when defense counsel fails to conduct any investigation of potential mitigating evidence, fails to offer any evidence during the
Counsel of record
For petitioner
L. Joseph Loveland
For respondent
Patricia Beth Burton
State Law Department
Argument & decision
Decided January 7, 2019.
Proceedings
- Jan 07 2019Petition DENIED. Justice Sotomayor, with whom Justice Ginsburg and Justice Kagan join, dissenting from the denial of certiorari. (Detached Opinion)
- Dec 20 2018DISTRIBUTED for Conference of 1/4/2019.
- Dec 03 2018DISTRIBUTED for Conference of 12/7/2018.
- Nov 26 2018DISTRIBUTED for Conference of 11/30/2018.
- Nov 13 2018DISTRIBUTED for Conference of 11/16/2018.
- Nov 05 2018DISTRIBUTED for Conference of 11/9/2018.
- Oct 29 2018DISTRIBUTED for Conference of 11/2/2018.
- Oct 22 2018DISTRIBUTED for Conference of 10/26/2018.
- Oct 10 2018Rescheduled.
- Oct 09 2018DISTRIBUTED for Conference of 10/12/2018.
- Oct 02 2018Rescheduled.
- Oct 01 2018DISTRIBUTED for Conference of 10/5/2018.
- Sep 18 2018Rescheduled.
- Jun 13 2018DISTRIBUTED for Conference of 9/24/2018.
- Jun 07 2018Record received from U.S.C.A. 11th Circuit and U.S.D.C. for the Northern District of Georgia. The record is electronic and available on PACER.
- Jun 01 2018Record Requested.
- May 22 2018DISTRIBUTED for Conference of 6/7/2018.
- May 18 2018Reply of petitioner Donnie Cleveland Lance filed.
- May 02 2018Brief of respondent Eric Sellers, Warden in opposition filed.
- Mar 29 2018Petition for a writ of certiorari filed. (Response due May 2, 2018)
- Jan 18 2018Application (17A759) to extend the time to file a petition for a writ of certiorari from January 29, 2018 to March 30, 2018, submitted to Justice Thomas.
- Jan 18 2018Application (17A759) granted by Justice Thomas extending the time to file until March 30, 2018.