Evan Wilhelm v. Secretary, Florida Department of Corrections

[DO NOT PUBLISH]
In the
United States Court of Appeals
For the Eleventh Circuit
____________________
No. 22-11991
Non-Argument Calendar
____________________
EVAN C. WILHELM,
Petitioner-Appellant,
versus
SECRETARY, FLORIDA DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS,
Respondent-Appellee.
____________________
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Northern District of Florida
D.C. Docket No. 4:19-cv-00572-WS-HTC
____________________
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2 Opinion of the Court 22-11991
Before J ILL PRYOR , ABUDU, and ANDERSON, Circuit Judges.
PER CURIAM:
Evan Wilhelm, a Florida state prisoner proceeding pro se, ap-
peals the district court’s denial of his 28 U.S.C. § 2254 petition for a
writ of habeas corpus. After careful consideration of the parties’
briefs and the record, we affirm.
I.
This case arises out of a shooting at the Florida State Univer-
sity fraternity house where Wilhelm lived. Wilhelm attended a
party at the fraternity house along with his girlfriend, Amy Cowie,
and her twin sister, Ashley. During the party, Wilhelm, who had
been drinking alcohol and smoking marijuana, went to his bed-
room where he kept a semi-automatic rifle.
Earlier that day, Wilhelm had mounted a flashlight on the
top of the weapon. At the party, he decided to test the flashlight’s
brightness. He pointed the weapon at, and thus shined the flash-
light in, the faces of others gathered in his room. When he pointed
the weapon at Ashley, the weapon fired. A bullet struck Ashley in
the chest, passed through her body, and hit another student, Keith
Savino, in the arm. Ashley died from her injuries.
In this section, we discuss the proceedings in Wilhelm’s
criminal case that followed. We then describe Wilhelm’s state and
federal post-conviction proceedings.
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22-11991 Opinion of the Court 3
A.
Shortly after the shooting, Wilhelm was arrested. He was
charged in Florida state court with manslaughter, possession of a
firearm on school property, negligently inflicting personal injury,
possession of marijuana, and possession of drug paraphernalia. At
the time of the shooting, Wilhelm was 20 years old. His criminal
case was initially assigned to Judge Josefina Tamayo.
The day after the shooting, Wilhelm retained criminal attor-
neys Stephen Dobson and Richard Smith. He later added an addi-
tional attorney, Alan Ceballos.
Approximately four months after the shooting, Wilhelm
turned 21. Just over a year later, when Wilhelm was 22, he entered
a plea of no contest to the manslaughter, possession of firearms on
school property, and negligently inflicting personal injury charges.1
At the time Wilhelm entered the no-contest plea, the court pre-
pared a sentencing scoresheet reflecting that his lowest permissible
sentence under Florida law was 127.35 months’ imprisonment. See
Fla. Stat. § 921.0024(7) (requiring preparation of a sentencing
scoresheet for every defendant who is sentenced for a felony of-
fense). The court could impose a shorter sentence only if it granted
a downward departure. See Fla. Stat. § 921.0026(1) (prohibiting a
sentencing judge from departing downward from the “lowest per-
missible sentence[]” absent a finding of “[m]itigating factors”); see
1 The State agreed to nolle prosse the charges for marijuana possession and pos-
session of drug paraphernalia.
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4 Opinion of the Court 22-11991
also Jackson v. State, 64 So. 3d 90, 92 (Fla. 2011) (describing Florida’s
sentencing scheme). Before the sentencing hearing, Wilhelm’s case
was reassigned to Judge Charles Dodson.
At sentencing, Wilhelm sought a downward departure. He
argued that a downward departure was warranted given his re-
morse, youth, and immaturity. Wilhelm also pointed out that he
cooperated with law enforcement after the shooting. And he em-
phasized the accidental, isolated, and unsophisticated nature of the
shooting. At the sentencing hearing, he called several witnesses and
also addressed the court.2 Wilhelm told the court that he accepted
responsibility for Ashley’s death, stating that “what happened is my
fault entirely,” and that he never intended to harm anyone. Doc.
14-1 at 183.3
Wilhelm also asked the court to consider Florida’s Youthful
Offender Act. At the time, the Act gave a sentencing judge discre-
tion to impose a six-year maximum sentence for a defendant who
pled guilty or entered a no-contest plea to a felony if the defendant
was under the age of 21 at the time of sentencing. See Fla. Stat.
§ 958.04 (2012).4 Although Wilhelm was under 21 at the time of the
shooting, he acknowledged that he was no longer eligible for
2 Wilhelm also submitted dozens of letters vouching for his character.
3 “Doc.” numbers refer to the district court’s docket entries.
4 In 2019, Florida amended the statute to make a defendant eligible for youth-
ful offender status if he committed the relevant crime before turning 21, re-
gardless of his age at sentencing. See 2019 Fla. Leg. Sess. Laws Serv. ch. 2019-
167 § 67.
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22-11991 Opinion of the Court 5
youthful offender status because he had turned 21 before sentenc-
ing. He nevertheless asked the court to consider the reduced sen-
tence that would have been available under the Youthful Offender
Act, arguing that “profound injustices can occur” when a defendant
turns 21 soon after committing a crime. Doc. 14-1 at 47. The Youth-
ful Offender Act left these defendants “in the impossible position of
having to elect between a thorough and competent defense or al-
ternatively to rush to a sentencing hearing.” Id.
The State urged the court not to award a downward depar-
ture and instead sought a sentence of 20 years. The State empha-
sized the dangerousness of Wilhelm’s conduct. It introduced evi-
dence that Wilhelm kept multiple firearms in his bedroom at the
fraternity house and pointed his semiautomatic rifle at several peo-
ple on the day of the shooting. To refute any suggestion that the
weapon discharged on its own, the State elicited testimony from a
firearms expert who had tested Wilhelm’s weapon and concluded
that it functioned properly and that the trigger had to be pressed
for the weapon to fire. Ashley’s family also addressed the court at
sentencing and asked that it not grant a downward departure. And
Savino testified about being shot and seeing Ashley die.
The State also argued that the Youthful Offender Act was
inapplicable because Wilhelm had already turned 21. According to
the State, if Wilhelm wanted the benefit of youthful offender sta-
tus, he should have “made the decision to come in and enter a plea”
earlier so that he would have been sentenced before turning 21.
Doc. 14-2 at 76.
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6 Opinion of the Court 22-11991
The court imposed a sentence of 20 years’ imprisonment fol-
lowed by 10 years’ probation. Despite finding that Wilhelm had
“true remorse” for the shooting, the court denied his request for a
downward departure. Id. at 89. The court concluded that a longer
sentence was warranted given that Wilhelm had kept a “small ar-
senal” of weapons in his bedroom at the fraternity house. Id. It
stated that keeping these weapons on a college campus was a “trag-
edy waiting to happen,” especially when “you start mixing guns
and alcohol and drugs.” Id.
B.
Wilhelm later filed a Rule 3.850 motion in the state court
seeking post-conviction relief. In his motion, he argued that he was
denied effective assistance of counsel because his attorneys’ mis-
take about his age caused him to “miss[] the Youthful Offender sen-
tencing deadline.” Doc. 14-2 at 120. Wilhelm also alleged that his
attorneys provided ineffective assistance by failing at sentencing to
raise any argument for leniency based on their mistake about Wil-
helm’s age and its impact on his eligibility for youthful offender
status. Wilhelm argued that his attorneys had decided to protect
their “own interests rather than provide diligent and competent
representation.” Doc. 14-6 at 93.
The state habeas court held an evidentiary hearing on Wil-
helm’s claims. The witnesses at the evidentiary hearing included
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22-11991 Opinion of the Court 7
Wilhelm; his father, Robert Wilhelm;5 and the attorneys who rep-
resented Wilhelm at trial.
Dobson and Smith, two of the attorneys who represented
Wilhelm in the criminal case, admitted that they had been mis-
taken about his age and thus failed to advise him that to be eligible
for youthful offender status he needed to plead guilty and be sen-
tenced before turning 21. But even if they had been aware of Wil-
helm’s actual age, they said, they still would not have advised him
to change his plea so that he could be sentenced before he turned
21.
The shooting occurred about four months before Wilhelm’s
twenty-first birthday. By the time the State turned over its discov-
ery, his birthday was six weeks away. Given this short time frame,
Dobson and Smith explained, they would not have advised Wil-
helm to plead guilty so that he could be sentenced before his birth-
day because they needed more time to investigate the facts of the
case. Although Wilhelm confessed shortly after the shooting, he
also told his attorneys that he could not remember whether he
pulled the trigger of the weapon. Based on this report, Dobson and
Smith retained an expert to investigate whether the weapon fired
without Wilhelm pulling the trigger.
Wilhelm also denied reports that he had been pointing the
gun at other people. As a result, his attorneys interviewed other
witnesses—members of Wilhelm’s fraternity—to investigate
5 To avoid confusion, we refer to Robert Wilhelm as “Robert.”
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8 Opinion of the Court 22-11991
whether he had been pointing the weapon at others. In these inter-
views, the witnesses stated that Wilhelm had been pointing the
weapon at others on the day of the shooting.6
The attorneys identified other reasons why they would not
have advised Wilhelm to plead guilty so that he could be sentenced
before he reached 21. A key part of their strategy was to allow as
much time as possible to elapse before Wilhelm’s sentencing to al-
low the Cowie family an opportunity to heal—in the hope that
they would support a shorter sentence. In addition, the attorneys
wanted to delay the sentencing to wait for the case to be assigned
to a new judge. Judge Tamayo, who was assigned to the case when
Wilhelm turned 21, had a reputation for being “very pro-state” and
“giving longer sentences than the defense would like in most
cases.” Doc. 14-4 at 198. Dobson and Smith believed that if they
delayed the sentencing, Judge Tamayo would rotate off the case,
and a new judge, who might be more lenient at sentencing, would
sentence Wilhelm.
Wilhelm testified at the evidentiary hearing about the
Youthful Offender Act. Shortly after his arrest, Dobson and Smith
advised him that he was eligible for a reduced sentence under the
Youthful Offender Act. Several months later, after he turned 21, his
father Robert, who was an attorney, read the Act for the first time
6 After these interviews, Dobson and Smith decided not to proceed with the
expert’s examination of the weapon to determine whether the trigger had
been pulled.
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22-11991 Opinion of the Court 9
and realized that Wilhelm was ineligible for youthful offender sta-
tus because he had already turned 21.
Robert confronted Dobson. Dobson admitted that he had
mistakenly believed that Wilhelm was only 19 at the time of the
crime and acknowledged that Wilhelm was no longer eligible for a
reduced sentence under the Act. Dobson agreed to tell the court at
Wilhelm’s sentencing that he was responsible for missing the
youthful offender deadline and to ask the court to “craft a lawful
sentence that resembles youthful offender.” Id. at 122. At the sen-
tencing hearing, Dobson asked the court to award a downward de-
parture and impose a sentence that resembled what Dobson’s sen-
tence would have been if he had been eligible for youthful offender
status. Despite Dobson’s promise, at the sentencing hearing he
never mentioned his mistake about Wilhelm’s age. At the state
post-conviction evidentiary hearing, Dobson testified that even if
Wilhelm had pled guilty and been sentenced before turning 21, he
did not believe that Judge Tamayo would have exercised her dis-
cretion to grant Wilhelm youthful offender status.
The state habeas court denied Wilhelm’s Rule 3.850 motion.
It found that Dobson and Smith had mistakenly believed that Wil-
helm was 19 at the time of the offense and failed to meaningfully
pursue youthful offender status before he turned 21. But the court
concluded that Wilhelm was not prejudiced by this mistake.
The court gave several justifications why, even if Wilhelm
had been properly advised about his eligibility for youthful of-
fender status, he would not have pled guilty and been sentenced
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10 Opinion of the Court 22-11991
before turning 21. It explained that the defense’s strategy was “to
delay the proceedings as long as practical to allow the Cowie family
to heal as much as they could” in the hope that the family would
“support[] a lenient disposition at sentencing.” Doc. 14-3 at 59 (in-
ternal quotation marks omitted). Further, there “simply was not
enough time for defense counsel to fully investigate and evaluate
the matter” before Wilhelm turned 21. Id. at 60–61. Moreover, the
court found that defense counsel never would have recommended,
and Wilhelm never would have agreed to, entering a plea while the
case was pending before Judge Tamayo because of her reputation
as a tough sentencer.
The court also addressed the likelihood of Wilhelm’s receiv-
ing a reduced sentence under the Youthful Offender Act if he had
been sentenced before turning 21. The court noted that the deci-
sion to award a reduced sentence under the Act was “optional.” Id.
at 61. And the court found that Judge Tamayo would not “have
availed herself of that option” for the same reasons that Judge Dod-
son declined to exercise his discretion and award a downward de-
parture. Id. The court also noted that at the sentencing hearing the
Cowie family “strongly objected to any leniency,” and it reasoned
that “those objections would not have been less” if Wilhelm’s sen-
tencing had occurred more than a year earlier, while he was still
eligible for youthful offender status. Id.
Wilhelm appealed. The Florida District Court of Appeal
considered whether Wilhelm’s “attorneys were ineffective for . . .
miscalculating his age and not taking advantage of the . . . window
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22-11991 Opinion of the Court 11
during which he qualified for sentencing as a youthful offender”
and for “not owning up to this error at the sentencing hearing.”
Wilhelm v. State, 253 So. 3d 736, 737 (Fla. Dist. Ct. App. 2018).
On the claim that counsel was ineffective in failing to ade-
quately advise Wilhelm about youthful offender status, the court
acknowledged that Dobson and Smith failed to “correctly account
for [Wilhelm’s] age and that the window to seek the mitigated sen-
tence expired just a few months after the charges were filed when
[] Wilhelm turned 21.” Id. at 738. But it affirmed the lower court’s
decision that there was no prejudice flowing from the attorneys’
failure to correctly account for Wilhelm’s age. Id. It explained that
the “overarching defense strategy was to delay sentencing to give
the victim’s family time to heal, hoping that they would not oppose
a mitigated sentence” and to wait until Judge Tamayo was no
longer presiding over the case. Id. Given this strategy, the appellate
court concluded that the “failure to explore sentencing under the
Youthful Offender Act would simply not have made any difference
in the outcome.” Id. (internal quotation marks omitted).
The court also considered Wilhelm’s claim that Dobson’s
failure to acknowledge at sentencing his mistake in calculating Wil-
helm’s age constituted ineffective assistance. Id. It rejected this
claim, stating it had “no merit.” Id.
The Florida Supreme Court denied Wilhelm’s petition for
review.
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12 Opinion of the Court 22-11991
C.
Wilhelm, proceeding pro se, then filed a federal habeas peti-
tion raising several claims. Two of these claims are relevant to this
appeal. First, Wilhelm alleged that his trial counsel was ineffective
because of their mistake about his age, which deprived him of the
opportunity to promptly enter a plea and to be sentenced under
the Youthful Offender Act. Second, he claimed that he was denied
effective assistance of counsel when at sentencing Dobson failed to
admit to the mistake regarding Wilhelm’s age, depriving him of an
argument for leniency.
A magistrate judge recommended that the district court
deny the petition. The magistrate judge accepted that the attor-
neys’ performance was deficient because they failed “to know their
client’s age” and did not “talk to [Wilhelm] about the Youthful Of-
fender Act until after he had already turned 21.” Doc. 20 at 11 (em-
phasis in original). But the magistrate judge nevertheless concluded
that the petition should be denied because the Florida District
Court of Appeal’s conclusion that Wilhelm “had not shown a rea-
sonable probability of a different outcome” was entitled to defer-
ence. Id. at 15.
The magistrate judge also rejected Wilhelm’s claim that he
was denied effective assistance of counsel when Dobson failed to
admit at sentencing to the error regarding Wilhelm’s age. Alt-
hough “counsel should have fallen on their sword and admitted
their error,” the magistrate judge concluded, “their failure to do so
was not prejudicial” because “[t]he tenor of the statements made
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22-11991 Opinion of the Court 13
by the trial court at sentencing, after considering the overwhelm-
ing amount of mitigation presented, show that it was unlikely that
one additional factor, counsel’s admission, would have tipped the
scales in [Wilhelm’s] favor.” Id. at 18–19.
Wilhelm objected. The district court adopted the recom-
mendation and denied Wilhelm’s petition but granted him a certif-
icate of appealability. This is Wilhelm’s appeal.
II.
We review de novo a district court’s denial of a petition for a
writ of habeas corpus. Morrow v. Warden, Ga. Diagnostic Prison,
886 F.3d 1138, 1146 (11th Cir. 2018). We liberally construe a pro se
litigant’s pleadings, holding them “to less stringent standards than
formal pleadings drafted by lawyers.” Campbell v. Air Jam. Ltd.,
760 F.3d 1165, 1168 (11th Cir. 2014).
The Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996
(AEDPA) governs our review of federal habeas petitions. See
28 U.S.C. § 2254(d). “AEDPA prescribes a highly deferential frame-
work for evaluating issues previously decided in state court.” Sears
v. Warden GDCP, 73 F.4th 1269, 1279 (11th Cir. 2023). Under
AEDPA, a federal court may not grant habeas relief on claims that
were “adjudicated on the merits in [s]tate court” unless the state
court’s decision was (1) “contrary to, or involved an unreasonable
application of, clearly established [f]ederal law, as determined by
the Supreme Court of the United States” or (2) “based on an unrea-
sonable determination of the facts in light of the evidence pre-
sented in the [s]tate court proceeding.” 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d).
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14 Opinion of the Court 22-11991
A state court decision is “contrary to” clearly established law
if the court “applie[d] a rule that contradicts the governing law” set
forth by the Supreme Court or the state court confronted facts that
were “materially indistinguishable” from Supreme Court prece-
dent but arrived at a different result. Williams v. Taylor, 529 U.S.
362, 405–06 (2000). To meet the unreasonable application of law
standard, “a prisoner must show far more than that the state court’s
decision was merely wrong or even clear error.” Shinn v. Kayer,
592 U.S. 111, 118 (2020) (internal quotation marks omitted). Ra-
ther, the decision must be “so obviously wrong that its error lies
beyond any possibility for fairminded disagreement.” Id. (internal
quotation marks omitted). This standard is “difficult to meet and
. . . demands that state-court decisions be given the benefit of the
doubt.” Raulerson v. Warden, 928 F.3d 987, 996 (11th Cir. 2019) (in-
ternal quotation marks omitted).
We also must defer to a state court’s determination of facts
unless the state court decision “was based on an unreasonable de-
termination of the facts in light of the evidence presented in the
[s]tate court proceeding.” 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d)(2). “We may not
characterize . . . state-court factual determinations as unreasonable
merely because we would have reached a different conclusion in
the first instance.” Brumfield v. Cain, 576 U.S. 305, 313–14 (2015) (al-
teration adopted) (internal quotation marks omitted). We presume
that a state court’s factual determinations are correct, absent clear
and convincing evidence to the contrary. See Pye v. Warden, Ga. Di-
agnostic Prison, 50 F.4th 1025, 1035 (11th Cir. 2022) (en banc).
III.
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22-11991 Opinion of the Court 15
The United States Constitution provides that “[i]n all crimi-
nal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right . . . to have the
Assistance of Counsel for his defence.” U.S. Const. amend. VI. The
right to counsel includes the right to effective assistance of counsel.
Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668, 686 (1984). For claims of in-
effective assistance of counsel, a petitioner must demonstrate that
(1) counsel’s performance was deficient and (2) he was prejudiced
by the deficient performance. Id. at 687. A court deciding an inef-
fectiveness claim need not “address both components of the in-
quiry if the [petitioner] makes an insufficient showing on one.” Id.
at 697.
We focus today on Strickland’s prejudice requirement. To
establish prejudice, a petitioner “must show that there is a reason-
able probability that, but for counsel’s unprofessional errors, the
result of the proceeding would have been different.” Id. at 694. A
reasonable probability is one “sufficient to undermine confidence
in the outcome.” Id. When applying AEDPA to this prejudice
standard, “we must decide whether the state court’s conclusion
that [counsel’s] performance . . . didn’t prejudice [the petitioner]—
that there was no substantial likelihood of a different result—was
so obviously wrong that its error lies beyond any possibility for fair-
minded disagreement.” Pye, 50 F.4th at 1041–42 (internal quotation
marks omitted).
Wilhelm argues that his attorneys were ineffective in two
ways: by (1) miscalculating his age and thus denying him the op-
portunity to be sentenced as a youthful offender and (2) failing to
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16 Opinion of the Court 22-11991
admit at sentencing to the error in calculating his age and thus de-
priving him of an argument that he should receive a lenient sen-
tence due to counsel’s error. We address each issue in turn.
A.
We begin with the claim that Wilhelm received ineffective
assistance of counsel because his attorneys miscalculated his age,
which deprived him of the opportunity to seek a reduced sentence
under the Youthful Offender Act. To demonstrate prejudice for
this claim, Wilhelm had to show that if he had been advised about
the Youthful Offender Act in a timely manner, there was a reason-
able probability that he would have (1) changed his plea and been
sentenced before turning 21 and (2) received a reduced sentence
under the Act. See Lawrence v. Sec’y, Fla. Dep’t of Corr., 700 F.3d 464,
479 (11th Cir. 2012); Hayes v. Sec’y, Fla. Dep’t of Corr., 10 F.4th 1203,
1210–11 (11th Cir. 2021).
The Florida District Court of Appeal’s determination that
Wilhelm failed to demonstrate prejudice is entitled to deference.
There was ample evidence in the record to support the state court’s
conclusion that, even if Wilhelm had been properly advised of the
Youthful Offender Act, there was no reasonable probability that he
would have changed his plea and been sentenced before he turned
21. The record from the evidentiary hearing shows that the de-
fense’s strategy was to delay sentencing in the hope that (1) the
Cowie family would heal and support a lighter sentence and
(2) Wilhelm could avoid being sentenced by Judge Tamayo, given
her reputation for imposing stiff sentences. For Wilhelm to have
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22-11991 Opinion of the Court 17
been eligible for youthful offender status, he would have had to
jettison his strategy of delay and go forward with the sentencing
hearing only about four months after Ashley’s death and while the
case was still assigned to Judge Tamayo.
There was ample evidence in the record, too, to support the
conclusion that even if Wilhelm had been sentenced before he
turned 21, there was no reasonable probability that he would have
received youthful offender status and a reduced sentence. Under
Florida law, an eligible defendant does not automatically receive
youthful offender status. Instead, the decision to grant youthful of-
fender status is left to the discretion of the trial judge. See Fla. Stat.
§ 958.04 (2012); Jackson v. State, 191 So. 3d 423, 427 (Fla. 2016) (de-
scribing the “discretionary nature of youthful offender sentenc-
ing”). Dobson testified that he did not believe that Judge Tamayo
would have exercised her discretion to grant Wilhelm youthful of-
fender status. Indeed, the same considerations that led Judge Dod-
son to deny a downward departure at sentencing—that Wilhelm
kept a small arsenal of weapons in his bedroom and handled fire-
arms while under the influence of drugs and alcohol—would have
provided a basis for denying youthful offender status.
Because the state court’s determination that Wilhelm failed
to establish prejudice was not “so obviously wrong that its error
lies beyond any possibility for fairminded disagreement,” Pye,
50 F.4th at 1041–42 (internal quotation marks omitted), we con-
clude that the decision of the Florida District Court of Appeal is
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18 Opinion of the Court 22-11991
entitled to AEDPA deference. Thus, the district court properly de-
nied habeas relief on this claim.
B.
We now turn to Wilhelm’s claim that counsel was ineffec-
tive by failing to admit at sentencing to their error regarding his age
and the availability of youthful offender status. Wilhelm argues
that the attorneys had a conflict of interest and chose to protect
their professional reputations by failing to disclose their mistake ra-
ther than to advocate for him, which deprived him of a potential
argument for leniency.
The Florida District Court of Appeal summarily rejected this
claim, stating that it had “no merit.” Wilhelm, 253 So. 3d at 738.
This decision is entitled to deference because it was reasonable for
the state court to conclude that Wilhelm failed to establish preju-
dice.7 At the sentencing hearing, Wilhelm’s attorneys presented a
thorough and well-developed argument for a downward departure
based on Wilhelm’s remorse, cooperation with law enforcement,
7 Wilhelm argues that we should review this claim de novo because the Florida
District Court of Appeal disposed of this claim in a single sentence, stating that
the claim had no merit without explaining the rationale underlying its deci-
sion. This argument assumes that for AEDPA deference to apply, a state court
must set forth the rationale for its decision. But the United States Supreme
Court has recognized that a state court decision may be considered an adjudi-
cation on the merits and entitled to AEDPA deference even if it contains no
reasoning or explanation. See Harrington v. Richter, 562 U.S. 86, 98 (2011) (ex-
plaining that AEDPA deference may attach to a state court decision “unac-
companied by an explanation”).
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22-11991 Opinion of the Court 19
and youth, as well as the accidental nature of the shooting. And
even though Dobson did not acknowledge his error in calculating
Wilhelm’s age, he did ask the court at sentencing to consider what
Wilhelm’s sentence would have been under the Youthful Offender
Act. He also discussed the difficulties posed by the brief window
during which Wilhelm could seek youthful offender status. Judge
Dodson’s statements at sentencing about why he refused to exer-
cise his discretion to grant a downward departure—that Wilhelm
kept a small arsenal of weapons in his college bedroom and played
with firearms while using alcohol and drugs—suggest that he
would have imposed the same sentence even if counsel had admit-
ted their mistake about Wilhelm’s age. Because the state court de-
cision rejecting this claim was not “so obviously wrong that its er-
ror lies beyond any possibility for fairminded disagreement,” it is
entitled to deference. Pye, 50 F.4th at 1041–42 (internal quotation
marks omitted). The district court did not err in denying habeas
relief.
AFFIRMED.
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