Andrus v. Texas
The Supreme Court ruled that Andrus's trial lawyer performed unconstitutionally deficient work at the sentencing phase of his capital trial by almost entirely failing to investigate — let alone present — a wealth of readily available evidence about his deeply troubled childhood.
The Court sent the case back to Texas to properly determine whether that legal failure actually changed the outcome, a question the state court may never have genuinely addressed.
How it got here: After trial, a Texas habeas court recommended relief following an eight-day evidentiary hearing; the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals reversed without explanation; Andrus petitioned the Supreme Court, which agreed to hear the case.
The Case in Depth
What happened
Terence Andrus was sentenced to death in Texas for a 2008 double murder during a botched carjacking. His trial lawyer presented almost nothing at the sentencing phase about Andrus's childhood — marked by extreme neglect, a drug-addicted and frequently absent mother, early mental illness diagnosed at age ten, and lasting trauma from eighteen months in a juvenile detention facility. The lawyer never investigated most of this history, met key witnesses only when they arrived to testify, and called Andrus's mother without knowing she would contradict and undermine his own account.
The question before the Court
Did a death-row inmate's trial lawyer provide unconstitutionally poor representation by failing to investigate or present evidence of the man's traumatic childhood before a jury decided to sentence him to death?
The Court's answer
Yes — the Court ruled that Andrus's trial lawyer clearly failed to meet the constitutional minimum for counsel in a death-penalty case. The lawyer performed virtually no investigation into mitigating evidence, the witnesses he did call ended up helping the prosecution rather than the defense, and he never independently looked into the State's aggravating evidence either. None of those failures reflected a reasonable strategy; the lawyer had explicitly promised to fight at sentencing yet did almost nothing to prepare for it.
On the separate question of whether that poor performance actually changed the outcome — the legal test's second requirement — the Court was uncertain whether the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals had genuinely addressed it. The state court's one-sentence ruling did not clearly separate the two required inquiries, and the only opinion that analyzed the outcome question in depth was a concurrence that did not speak for a majority. The Court sent the case back to Texas to conduct that analysis properly.
Curious how the Court got there? See the step-by-step legal reasoning →
Why it matters
Lawyers in capital cases are constitutionally required to thoroughly investigate a defendant's background before a jury decides on life or death. This ruling reinforces that duty and makes clear that courts reviewing ineffective-assistance claims must carefully weigh all the mitigation evidence a competent lawyer could have uncovered — not just the thin record an unprepared lawyer left behind.
What changes now
The case returns to the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, which must now conduct a genuine prejudice analysis — weighing the full body of mitigating evidence that a competent lawyer could have presented against the State's aggravating evidence, and deciding whether there is a reasonable probability that at least one juror would have voted against death. The Supreme Court has already settled that the lawyer's performance was unconstitutionally deficient; the only remaining question is whether that failure changed the outcome.
What this does not decide
The Court did not decide whether Andrus's death sentence must be overturned — that prejudice question returns to the Texas courts. The ruling does not change the legal standard for ineffective-assistance claims in capital cases; it applies existing law and faults the state court for failing to apply it rigorously.
Concurrences and dissents
Dissent — Justice Alito
“The CCA has already held once that Andrus failed to establish prejudice. I see no good reason why it should be required to revisit the issue.”Justice Alito's closing objection to the majority's decision to send the case back to Texas.
Justice Alito argued that the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals plainly and explicitly addressed the prejudice question — its one controlling sentence said Andrus failed to show a reasonable probability of a different result — and the majority's remand distorts that plain language to manufacture an excuse to send the case back. He also contended that the majority acts inconsistently: skeptical that the state court decided prejudice, yet willing to decide the performance prong itself for the first time. He would have left the Texas court's ruling in place, given the extensive aggravating evidence in the record.
How the Court got there
The legal reasoning, step by step
- The governing standard comes from the Court's 1984 decision in Strickland v. Washington, which requires a defendant claiming ineffective assistance to prove two things: (1) that the lawyer's performance fell below an objective standard of reasonableness — what a competent lawyer in that situation would have done — and (2) that the poor performance actually hurt the outcome, meaning there is a reasonable probability the result would have been different with a competent lawyer.
- On the first prong (deficient performance), the Court identified three overlapping failures. First, the lawyer conducted virtually no mitigation investigation — he had never met Andrus's mother or father before they arrived to testify, knew nothing of Andrus's childhood trauma, suicide attempts, or diagnosed mental illness, and ignored red flags that any reasonable attorney would have followed up on. Second, the witnesses he did call backfired: Andrus's mother painted a falsely rosy picture of his upbringing that contradicted Andrus's own testimony, suggesting to the jury that Andrus was lying. Third, the lawyer never independently investigated the prosecution's aggravating evidence, leaving it completely unrebutted — and even told the jury the evidence probably showed Andrus was 'a violent kind of guy.'
- The Court rejected any suggestion that these were strategic choices. Although the lawyer had explicitly told the court his plan was to concede guilt and focus on sentencing, he effectively abandoned the very phase of trial he claimed to be targeting. An uninvestigated decision not to present mitigating evidence cannot be excused as a tactical judgment — especially in a capital case where the professional obligation to investigate is at its highest.
- On the second prong (prejudice), the Court applied the rule from Wiggins v. Smith (a 2003 ineffective-assistance case involving a capital sentence) that prejudice requires showing a reasonable probability that at least one juror would have voted against a death sentence if the full body of mitigating evidence had been properly presented. This requires weighing all the available mitigation — both what was shown at trial and what emerged at the later habeas hearing — against the State's aggravating evidence.
- The Court could not confirm that the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals had actually performed that weighing. The state court's one-sentence denial of the entire claim did not clearly indicate whether it found no deficient performance, no prejudice, or both. The only opinion to analyze prejudice in detail was a concurrence that fewer than half the state court's judges joined. Rather than decide the prejudice question itself for the first time, the Court remanded for the Texas court to address it under the correct legal framework.
Doctrinal impact
Cases affected by this decision
Reaffirms Strickland v. Washington (466 U.S. 668)
Reaffirmed as the governing two-part test for all ineffective-assistance-of-counsel claims.
Reaffirms Wiggins v. Smith (539 U.S. 510)
Reaffirmed as the key precedent on a capital lawyer's duty to investigate mitigating evidence.