Background

• Rose, a death-sentenced Florida inmate, challenged district court denial of his 28 U.S.C. § 2254 petition alleging ineffective assistance of trial counsel during penalty phase mitigation investigation/presentation.
• Trial counsel (Rouson) conducted pretrial investigation withDr. Slomin; a 3.850 postconviction proceeding later examined additional mitigation witnesses (cousins Linda Kravec, Cheryl Stark, and brother David Rose).
• Guilt phase resulted in a first-degree murder conviction; penalty-phase resulted in a death sentence based on three statutory aggravators and non-statutory mitigation efforts presented by the defense.
• Postconviction, Rose sought relief claiming trial counsel failed to investigate/present mitigating evidence; state court denied; Florida Supreme Court affirmed; federal district court denied § 2254 petition; Eleventh Circuit review affirmed.
• Court conducted de novo review of ineffective-assistance claim, focusing on prejudice under Strickland and concluding no reasonable probability of different sentencing outcome even if additional mitigation had been presented.

Issues

Key Cases Cited

• Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668 (U.S. 1984) (establishes deficient-performance and prejudice standards for ineffective assistance)
• Porter v. McCollum, 558 U.S. _ (U.S. 2009) (weighs total mitigation against aggravation for prejudice; new mitigation must be material)
• Rompilla v. Beard, 545 U.S. 374 (U.S. 2005) (post-trial mitigation evidence can bear on prejudice)
• Wiggins v. Smith, 539 U.S. 510 (U.S. 2003) (mitigation evidence can be crucial to credibility and non-statutory factors)
• Belmontes v. State, 130 S. Ct. 387 (U.S. 2010) (post-trial mitigation evidence must be weighed against existing record; prejudice required)