Counsel's Obligation to Investigate a Developmental Disorder as Mitigating Evidence

Facts of the Case

On September 3, 2003, Charles Williams forced his former girlfriend into a store office and held her at gunpoint for approximately 90 minutes. She managed to call the police, who attempted, unsuccessfully, to negotiate her release. As she tried to escape, Mr. Williams shot her four times and killed her. He was subsequently arrested and confessed to the crimes. A South Carolina jury convicted him of kidnapping, murder, and possession of a firearm during a violent crime.

During trial, Mr. Williams was represented by two attorneys with experience in capital cases. In preparation of mitigation, his legal team assembled mental health experts including a social worker, a neuropsychologist, a psychiatrist, a neurologist, and a forensic psychiatrist. The mental health experts obtained reports of observed alcohol use of unknown quantities by Mr. Williams' mother during pregnancy. They concluded that Mr. Williams had frontal lobe damage, bipolar disorder, and obsessive-compulsive disorder. They recommended magnetic resonance imaging and additional medical records, which were obtained one week prior to trial.

The defense counsel presented mitigating evidence of Mr. Williams' frontal lobe damage, learning difficulties, “untreated attention deficit disorder,” troubled childhood, mental illnesses, difficulties in school, and his mother's alcoholism. The state alleged one aggravating factor, that the murder was committed during a kidnapping. On the second day of deliberations, the jury was initially deadlocked on whether to impose the death penalty, nine to three in favor of death, but after further instruction from the court returned a unanimous decision of death.

In November 2010, Mr. Williams filed a petition for postconviction relief (PCR) in the Greenville County, South Carolina Circuit Court (the PCR court). The PCR court held an evidentiary hearing where three experts in FAS testified that Mr. Williams had deficits consistent with FAS and that FAS was a diagnosable condition during the time of the trial in 2005. This information included testimony that Mr. Williams' executive functioning, including “self-regulation” and “behavior control,” were impaired as a result of FAS. The original trial defense attorneys testified that “neither could recall a mitigation investigation into FAS, or why such an investigation was not conducted” (Williams, p 308).

The PCR court rejected Mr. Williams' petition, concluding that counsel made a “strategic decision not to present to the jury evidence of brain damage or a diagnosis” of FAS (Williams, p 310). The PCR court further observed that evidence of FAS would have been unlikely to persuade the jury to return a different sentence. Following this rejection, Mr. Williams filed petitions for writs of certiorari with the South Carolina Supreme Court and U.S. Supreme Court, both of which were dismissed.

Having exhausted state remedies, Mr. Williams petitioned the U.S. District Court for the District of South Carolina, asserting 15 grounds for relief. The district court granted Mr. Williams' petition only on the “claim of ineffective assistance of counsel resulting from the trial counsel's failure to investigate potentially mitigating evidence” related to FAS (Williams, p 306). The district court concluded “that the PCR court's finding that trial counsel ‘made a strategic decision’ was unreasonable given that this finding was directly contradicted by trial counsel's PCR testimony” and that “the jury was deprived of powerful [mitigating evidence]” (Williams, p 310). The district court vacated the death sentence and recommended a trial for resentencing. The state appealed and the matter was brought to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit.

Ruling and Reasoning

The Fourth Circuit agreed with the district court that Mr. Williams established deficient performance of counsel by demonstrating that counsel's representation “fell below an objective standard of reasonableness” (Williams, p 313). Relying on Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668 (1984), the Fourth Circuit noted, “Strickland does not require investigation of every conceivable line of mitigating evidence but does impose ‘a duty to make reasonable investigations or to make a reasonable decision that makes particular investigations unnecessary’” (Williams, p 313). It was further noted that the American Bar Association Guidelines at the time of trial explained that “‘the permanent neurological damage caused by fetal alcohol syndrome’ could lessen the defendant's moral culpability for the offense or otherwise support a sentence less than death” (Williams, p 313). The Fourth Circuit further quoted the American Bar Association guidelines suggesting that “the defense team should include at least one person qualified to screen for mental or psychological defects so as to ‘detect the array of conditions (e.g., posttraumatic stress disorder, fetal alcohol syndrome, pesticide poisoning, lead poisoning, schizophrenia, mental retardation) that could be of critical importance’” (Williams, p 313).

The Fourth Circuit concluded that evidence of FAS was reasonably available because there was sufficient evidence of prenatal alcohol abuse and brain damage correlated with a diagnosis of FAS, including frontal lobe impairment and decreased head circumference at birth. The court further concluded that counsel “failed to connect the indicators suggesting further investigation” and that “FAS evidence was widely acknowledged to be a significant mitigating factor that reasonable counsel should have at least explored” (Williams, p 315). They placed emphasis on the notion that a diagnosis of FAS could have established both cause and effect for Mr. Williams' criminal acts as opposed to the evidence presented of other mental health concerns, which related more to effects on behavior.