Andrew Lewis v. Texas

Petitioner was convicted of three counts of injury to a child and sentenced to 99 years imprisonment on the most serious charge. Two pediatricians testified for the prosecution that the infant had sustained a traumatic brain injury (TBI) when petitioner was alone with her. Petitioner’s trial counsel did not impeach them with available medical records or call a doctor to testify. Petitioner filed a habeas corpus application alleging that trial counsel was ineffective in this and other respects. A third pediatrician and a radiologist testified at the habeas hearing that, had the infant sustained a TBI, she could not have fed from a bottle for weeks, yet the hospital records reflect that she had normal sucking and fed from a bottle on the morning she was admitted. These doctors also explained why other opinions of the prosecutions’ doctors were incorrect. The habeas trial judge—who had presided at the trial—found that trial counsel performed deficiently and, had he presented expert medical testimony, the jury probably would have acquitted petitioner on the most serious charge. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals (TCCA) held that petitioner did not prove prejudice, citing trial testimony that supported the convictions without discussing how the expert medical testimony presented at the habeas hearing would have affected the verdicts. The question presented is: Whether the TCCA, by considering only the trial testimony that supported the convictions rather than how the testimony of petitioner’s