Cornwell v. Bradshaw

Today, in Cornwell v. Bradshaw, a majority of the Sixth Circuit panel (Gibbons, Rogers, Moore dissenting) affirmed the district court's denial of habeas relief. Cornwell alleged that counsel was ineffective for failing to discover and turn over to the mitigation expert hospital records that would have shown that he had a double mastectomy at age thirteen and possibly manifested symptoms of Klinefelter's (XXY chromosome) Syndrome. The anecdotal evidence that the psychologist had at trial made it sound like Cornwell had had "liposuction" or some other form of cosmetic surgery. Klinefelter's Syndrome is a genetic disease, the symptoms of which include enlarged breasts, sparse body hair, an inability to produce sperm, and difficulty with language skills. Boys who have this disease have less muscular development and are not good at sports, tend to be teased by their peers and present low self esteem. Had the evidence pointed the expert in the direction of Klinefelter's Syndrome, Cornwell argued, the mitigation would have been much more compelling, rather than portraying him as a fat, lazy teen who had undergone cosmetic breast reduction surgery.

The majority reasoned that while the ABA standards would seem to require an attorney to locate this type of record, it still seemed like trial counsel had done a pretty good job with the rest of the investigation. However, in order to get to the real meat the court decided to assume deficient performance and look at the Strickland prejudice prong. The majority held that while the jury would have had a little more information about Cornwell's medical condition and perhaps would have learned that he was overweight because of the Klinefelter's, it was still not objectively unreasonable for the state court to have found tha Cornwell was not prejudiced. The state courts could reasonably reject the idea that a jury would blame a teen for his own obesity and tend to consider someone who was fat, lazy and had cosmetic surgery more deserving of the death penalty.

In addition, the majority rejected Cornwell's remaining claims of racial bias; the trial court's denial of his motion to suppress on eyewitness identification; and ineffective assistance of appellate counsel for failure to raise that issue.

Judge Moore dissented regarding the IAC mitigation claim. Her reasoning was, essentially, that since the prosecutor consistently presented Cornwell as a fat lazy youth who, instead of running, dieting, and lifting weights had liposuction, it would have been helpful for the defense to counter that assessment with a diagnosis.