Raheem Wilcox v. Steven Johnson, Administrator, New Jersey State Prison, et al.

Defendants have a Sixth-Amendment right to the effective assistance of counsel at the sentencing phase of a criminal proceeding. In capital cases, effective assistance means that counsel should investigate and submit evidence of the defendant’s background and mental health history to mitigate against a death sentence. The Court has not decided whether the Sixth Amendment requires that counsel present such evidence during the sentencing phase in noncapital cases in which judges or juries also reduce penalties if mitigating factors (including a defendant’s mental health and related background information) outweigh aggravating factors. In this case, the Third Circuit concluded that counsel engaged in a reasonable strategy at sentencing to withhold known and available psychiatric reports and related expert testimony regarding the petitioner’s mental health history and troubled background that would have satisfied a mitigating factor under state sentencing guidelines to support a lesser sentence than the 40-year sentence the petitioner received for his murder conviction. The court reasoned that the mitigating evidence also contained some potentially unfavorable information and would possibly open the door to the state’s rebuttal evidence regarding the defendant’s mental health history. The question presented is therefore as follows: At sentencing in a non-capital case, does the Sixth Amendment require that counsel present evidence of a defendant’s troubled background and mental health issues to satisfy a mitigating factor that would support a lesser sentence than the one the defendant received?