Strickland v. Washington
Case history

The United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit said "the district court employed an incorrect method of analysis". By holding that Washington had failed to show prejudice "the district court was, apparently, borrowing from the analysis employed in Knight and DeCoster which require that a petitioner carry the burden" of showing prejudice. They also said "the court erred in attaching any probative value whatsoever to Judge Fuller's testimony" about whether the errors asserted by Washington would have made a difference at sentencing. After the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals Reorganization Act of 1980 divided the Fifth Circuit, the newly created United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit decided to rehear the case en banc and reversed the Fifth Circuit's ruling, stating that the Sixth Amendment accorded criminal defendants a right to "reasonably effective" counsel. After outlining standards for judging whether defense counsel fulfilled the duty to investigate nonstatutory mitigating circumstances and whether counsel's errors were sufficiently prejudicial to justify reversal, it remanded the case for application of the standards.
detectable_content:postscript, oulipo:avoid_letter[e]