Corey Schirod Smith v. John Q. Hamm, Commissioner, Alabama Department of Corrections

In February 1995, Corey Smith, then 18, after a bitter break-up argument and fearing loss of his infant daughter, murdered Kimberly Brooks, the mother of their child. Mr. Smith had suffered lifelong abuse, had learned violence was an appropriate response to anger and had abused multiple drugs. Mr. Smith had reacted as taught-violently. After the offense, Mr. Smith confessed and assisted in recovering Ms. Brooks’ body. Guilt was never in dispute. The only real question was whether Mr. Smith would be sentenced to death or life imprisonment without parole. Trial counsel never conducted any investigation into any aspect of his mental health. No investigation was conducted into his physical and emotional abuse, into his drug abuse or into his learned behavior of men in his family physically abusing women. No experts were consulted. These failures deprived Mr. Smith of the opportunity to present compelling mitigating evidence, discussed below. At sentencing, counsel presented a potpourri of anecdotes, none of which provided a true picture of Mr. Smith’s horrific life and all of which, per the court, did little to mitigate. The Eleventh Circuit affirmed the dismissal of Mr. Smith’s habeas corpus petition, finding no Strickland prejudice. The issues presented here are exceptionally important because the life of Mr. Smith, now 48, is at stake. The question presented here is: Did the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals misapply Strickland, and its progeny, by