ROMPILLA v. BEARD, SECRETARY, PENNSYLVANIA DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS

545US1 Unit: $U65 [03-26-08 17:19:10] PAGES PGT: OPIN
374 OCTOBER TERM, 2004
Syllabus
ROMPILLA v. BEARD, SECRETARY, PENNSYLVANIA
DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS
certiorari to the united states court of appeals for
the third circuit
No. 04–5462. Argued January 18, 2005—Decided June 20, 2005
Petitioner Rompilla was convicted of murder and other crimes. During
the penalty phase, the jury found the aggravating factors that the mur
der was committed during a felony, that it was committed by torture,
and that Rompilla had a significant history of felony convictions indicat
ing the use or threat of violence. In mitigation, five members of Rom
pilla’s family beseeched the jury for mercy. He was sentenced to death,
and the Pennsylvania Supreme Court affirmed. His new lawyers filed
for state postconviction relief, claiming ineffective assistance by his trial
counsel in failing to present significant mitigating evidence about Rom
pilla’s childhood, mental capacity and health, and alcoholism. The state
courts found that trial counsel had sufficiently investigated the mitiga
tion possibilities. Rompilla then raised inadequate representation in a
federal habeas petition. The District Court found that the State Su
preme Court had unreasonably applied Strickland v. Washington, 466
U. S. 668, concluding that trial counsel had not investigated obvious
signs that Rompilla had a troubled childhood and suffered from mental
illness and alcoholism, unjustifiably relying instead on Rompilla’s own
description of an unexceptional background. In reversing, the Third
Circuit found nothing unreasonable in the state court’s application of
Strickland, given defense counsel’s efforts to uncover mitigation evi
dence from Rompilla, certain family members, and three mental health
experts. The court distinguished Wiggins v. Smith, 539 U. S. 510—in
which counsel had failed to investigate adequately to the point of ignor
ing the leads their limited enquiry yielded—noting that, although trial
counsel did not unearth useful information in Rompilla’s school, medical,
police, and prison records, their investigation had gone far enough to
give them reason to think that further efforts would not be a wise use
of their limited resources.
Held: Even when a capital defendant and his family members have sug
gested that no mitigating evidence is available, his lawyer is bound to
make reasonable efforts to obtain and review material that counsel
knows the prosecution will probably rely on as evidence of aggravation
at the trial’s sentencing phase. Pp. 380–393.

545US1 Unit: $U65 [03-26-08 17:19:10] PAGES PGT: OPIN
375 Cite as: 545 U. S. 374 (2005)
Syllabus
(a) Rompilla’s entitlement to federal habeas relief turns on showing
that the state court’s resolution of his ineffective-assistance claim under
Strickland “resulted in a decision that was contrary to, or involved an
unreasonable application of, clearly established Federal law, as deter
mined by” this Court, 28 U. S. C. § 2254(d)(1). The state court’s result
must be not only incorrect but also objectively unreasonable. Wiggins,
supra, at 520–521. In judging the defense’s investigation in preparing
for a capital trial’s sentencing phase, hindsight is discounted by pegging
adequacy to “counsel’s perspective at the time” investigative decisions
were made and by giving deference to counsel’s judgments. Strick
land, supra, at 689, 691. Pp. 380–381.
(b) Here, the lawyers were deficient in failing to examine the court
file on Rompilla’s prior rape and assault conviction. They knew that
the Commonwealth intended to seek the death penalty by proving that
Rompilla had a significant history of felony convictions indicating the
use or threat of violence, that it would attempt to establish this history
by proving the prior conviction, and that it would emphasize his violent
character by introducing a transcript of the rape victim’s trial testimony.
Although the prior conviction file was a public record, readily available
at the courthouse where Rompilla was to be tried, counsel looked at no
part of it until warned by the prosecution a second time, and even then
did not examine the entire file. With every effort to view the facts as
a defense lawyer would have at the time, it is difficult to see how counsel
could have failed to realize that not examining the file would seriously
compromise their opportunity to respond to an aggravation case. Their
duty to make all reasonable efforts to learn what they could about the
offense the prosecution was going to use certainly included obtaining
the Commonwealth’s own readily available file to learn what it knew
about the crime, to discover any mitigating evidence it would downplay,
and to anticipate the details it would emphasize. The obligation to ex
amine the file was particularly pressing here because the violent prior
offense was similar to the crime charged and because Rompilla’s sen
tencing strategy stressed residual doubt. This obligation is not just
common sense, but is also described in the American Bar Association
Standards for Criminal Justice, which are “ ‘guides to determining what
is reasonable,’ ” Wiggins, supra, at 524. The state court’s conclusion
that defense counsel’s efforts to find mitigating evidence by other means
were enough to free them from further enquiry fails to answer the con
siderations set out here, to the point of being objectively unreasonable.
No reasonable lawyer would forgo examination of the file thinking he
could do as well by asking the defendant or family relations what they
recalled. Nor would a reasonable lawyer compare possible searches for
school reports, juvenile records, and evidence of drinking habits to the

545US1 Unit: $U65 [03-26-08 17:19:10] PAGES PGT: OPIN
376 ROMPILLA v. BEARD
Syllabus
opportunity to take a look at a file disclosing what the prosecutor knows
and plans to read from in his case. Pp. 381–390.
(c) Because the state courts found counsel’s representation adequate,
they never reached the prejudice element of a Strickland claim,
whether “there is a reasonable probability that, but for counsel’s unpro
fessional errors, the result . . . would have been different,” 466 U. S., at
694. A de novo examination of this element shows that counsel’s lapse
was prejudicial. Had they looked at the prior conviction file, they
would have found a range of mitigation leads that no other source had
opened up. The imprisonment records contained in that file pictured
Rompilla’s childhood and mental health very differently from anything
they had seen or heard. The accumulated entries—e. g., that Rompilla
had a series of incarcerations, often related to alcohol; and test results
that would have pointed the defense’s mental health experts to schizo
phrenia and other disorders—would have destroyed the benign concep
tion of Rompilla’s upbringing and mental capacity counsel had formed
from talking to five family members and from the mental health experts’
reports. Further effort would presumably have unearthed much of the
material postconviction counsel found. Alerted to the school, medical,
and prison records that trial counsel never saw, postconviction counsel
found red flags pointing up a need for further testing, which revealed
organic brain damage and childhood problems probably related to fetal
alcohol syndrome. These findings in turn would probably have
prompted a look at easily available school and juvenile records, which
showed additional problems, including evidence of a highly abusive
home life. The evidence adds up to a mitigation case bearing no rela
tion to the few naked pleas for mercy actually put before the jury. The
undiscovered “mitigating evidence, taken as a whole, ‘might well have
influenced the jury’s appraisal’ of [Rompilla’s] culpability,” Wiggins,
supra, at 538, and the likelihood of a different result had the evidence
gone in is “sufficient to undermine confidence in the outcome” actually
reached at sentencing, Strickland, supra, at 694. Pp. 390–393.
355 F. 3d 233, reversed.
Souter, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which Stevens,
O’Connor, Ginsburg, and Breyer, JJ., joined. O’Connor, J., filed a
concurring opinion, post, p. 393. Kennedy, J., filed a dissenting opinion,
in which Rehnquist, C. J., and Scalia and Thomas, JJ., joined, post,
p. 396.
Billy H. Nolas argued the cause for petitioner. With him
on the briefs was Maureen Kearney Rowley.

545US1 Unit: $U65 [03-26-08 17:19:10] PAGES PGT: OPIN
377 Cite as: 545 U. S. 374 (2005)
Opinion of the Court
Amy Zapp, Chief Deputy Attorney General of Pennsyl
vania, argued the cause for respondent. With her on the
brief were Gerald J. Pappert, Attorney General, Richard
A. Sheetz, Jr., Executive Deputy Attorney General, and
James B. Martin.
Traci L. Lovitt argued the cause for the United States as
amicus curiae urging affirmance. With her on the brief
were Acting Solicitor General Clement, Assistant Attorney
General Wray, and Deputy Solicitor General Dreeben.*
Justice Souter delivered the opinion of the Court.
This case calls for specific application of the standard of
reasonable competence required on the part of defense coun
sel by the Sixth Amendment. We hold that even when a
capital defendant’s family members and the defendant him
self have suggested that no mitigating evidence is available,
his lawyer is bound to make reasonable efforts to obtain and
review material that counsel knows the prosecution will
probably rely on as evidence of aggravation at the sentencing
phase of trial.
I
On the morning of January 14, 1988, James Scanlon was
discovered dead in a bar he ran in Allentown, Pennsylvania,
his body having been stabbed repeatedly and set on fire.
Ronald Rompilla was indicted for the murder and related
offenses, and the Commonwealth gave notice of intent to ask
*Briefs of amici curiae urging reversal were filed for the American
Bar Association by Robert J. Grey, Jr., Terri L. Mascherin, and Jared O.
Freedman; and for the Friends of Ronald A. Rompilla by James Joseph
Lynch, Jr.
Kent S. Scheidegger filed a brief for the Criminal Justice Legal Founda
tion as amicus curiae urging affirmance.
Audrey J. Anderson, Christopher M. Miller, and Pamela Harris filed a
brief for the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers as ami
cus curiae.

545US1 Unit: $U65 [03-26-08 17:19:10] PAGES PGT: OPIN
378 ROMPILLA v. BEARD
Opinion of the Court
for the death penalty. Two public defenders were assigned
to the case.
The jury at the guilt phase of trial found Rompilla guilty
on all counts, and during the ensuing penalty phase, the
prosecutor sought to prove three aggravating factors to jus
tify a death sentence: that the murder was committed in the
course of another felony; that the murder was committed by
torture; and that Rompilla had a significant history of felony
convictions indicating the use or threat of violence. See 42
Pa. Cons. Stat. §§ 9711(d)(6), (8), (9) (2002). The Common
wealth presented evidence on all three aggravators, and
the jury found all proven. Rompilla’s evidence in mitigation
consisted of relatively brief testimony: five of his family
members argued in effect for residual doubt, and beseeched
the jury for mercy, saying that they believed Rompilla was
innocent and a good man. Rompilla’s 14-year-old son testi
fied that he loved his father and would visit him in prison.
The jury acknowledged this evidence to the point of finding,
as two factors in mitigation, that Rompilla’s son had testified
on his behalf and that rehabilitation was possible. But the
jurors assigned the greater weight to the aggravating fac
tors, and sentenced Rompilla to death. The Supreme Court
of Pennsylvania affirmed both conviction and sentence.
Commonwealth v. Rompilla, 539 Pa. 499, 653 A. 2d 626
(1995).
In December 1995, with new lawyers, Rompilla filed claims
under the Pennsylvania Post Conviction Relief Act, 42 Pa.
Cons. Stat. § 9541 et seq. (2004), including ineffective assist
ance by trial counsel in failing to present significant mitigat
ing evidence about Rompilla’s childhood, mental capacity and
health, and alcoholism. The postconviction court found that
trial counsel had done enough to investigate the possibilities
of a mitigation case, and the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania
affirmed the denial of relief. Commonwealth v. Rompilla,
554 Pa. 378, 721 A. 2d 786 (1998).

545US1 Unit: $U65 [03-26-08 17:19:10] PAGES PGT: OPIN
379 Cite as: 545 U. S. 374 (2005)
Opinion of the Court
Rompilla then petitioned for a writ of habeas corpus under
28 U. S. C. § 2254 in Federal District Court, raising claims
that included inadequate representation. The District
Court found that the State Supreme Court had unreasonably
applied Strickland v. Washington, 466 U. S. 668 (1984), as to
the penalty phase of the trial, and granted relief for ineffec
tive assistance of counsel. The court found that in pre
paring the mitigation case the defense lawyers had failed
to investigate “pretty obvious signs” that Rompilla had a
troubled childhood and suffered from mental illness and alco
holism, and instead had relied unjustifiably on Rompilla’s
own description of an unexceptional background. Rompilla
v. Horn, No. CIV.A.99–737 (ED Pa., July 11, 2000), App.
1307–1308.
A divided Third Circuit panel reversed. Rompilla v.
Horn, 355 F. 3d 233 (2004). The majority found nothing un
reasonable in the state court’s application of Strickland,
given defense counsel’s efforts to uncover mitigation mate
rial, which included interviewing Rompilla and certain fam
ily members, as well as consultation with three mental
health experts. Although the majority noted that the law
yers did not unearth the “useful information” to be found
in Rompilla’s “school, medical, police, and prison records,” it
thought the lawyers were justified in failing to hunt through
these records when their other efforts gave no reason to be
lieve the search would yield anything helpful. 355 F. 3d,
at 252. The panel thus distinguished Rompilla’s case from
Wiggins v. Smith, 539 U. S. 510 (2003). Whereas Wiggins’s
counsel failed to investigate adequately, to the point even of
ignoring the leads their limited enquiry yielded, the Court
of Appeals saw the Rompilla investigation as going far
enough to leave counsel with reason for thinking further ef
forts would not be a wise use of the limited resources they
had. But Judge Sloviter’s dissent stressed that trial coun
sel’s failure to obtain relevant records on Rompilla’s back
ground was owing to the lawyers’ unreasonable reliance on

545US1 Unit: $U65 [03-26-08 17:19:10] PAGES PGT: OPIN
380 ROMPILLA v. BEARD
Opinion of the Court
family members and medical experts to tell them what rec
ords might be useful. The Third Circuit denied rehearing
en banc by a vote of 6 to 5. Rompilla v. Horn, 359 F. 3d
310 (2004).
We granted certiorari, 542 U. S. 966 (2004), and now
reverse.1
II
Under 28 U. S. C. § 2254, Rompilla’s entitlement to federal
habeas relief turns on showing that the state court’s reso
lution of his claim of ineffective assistance of counsel under
Strickland v. Washington, supra, “resulted in a decision that
was contrary to, or involved an unreasonable application of,
clearly established Federal law, as determined by the Su
preme Court of the United States,” § 2254(d)(1). An “unrea
sonable application” occurs when a state court “ ‘identifies
the correct governing legal principle from this Court’s
decisions but unreasonably applies that principle to the facts’
of petitioner’s case.” Wiggins v. Smith, supra, at 520 (quot
ing Williams v. Taylor, 529 U. S. 362, 413 (2000) (opinion of
O’Connor, J.)). That is, “the state court’s decision must
have been [not only] incorrect or erroneous [but] objectively
unreasonable.” Wiggins v. Smith, supra, at 520–521 (quot
ing Williams v. Taylor, supra, at 409 (internal quotation
marks omitted)).
Ineffective assistance under Strickland is deficient per
formance by counsel resulting in prejudice, 466 U. S., at 687,
with performance being measured against an “objective
standard of reasonableness,” id., at 688, “under prevailing
professional norms,” ibid.; Wiggins v. Smith, supra, at 521.
This case, like some others recently, looks to norms of ade
quate investigation in preparing for the sentencing phase of
a capital trial, when defense counsel’s job is to counter the
1 Because we reverse on ineffective-assistance grounds, we have no occa
sion to consider Rompilla’s other claim, under Simmons v. South Carolina,
512 U. S. 154 (1994). It is enough to say that any retrial of Rompilla’s
sentence will be governed by the Simmons line of cases.

545US1 Unit: $U65 [03-26-08 17:19:10] PAGES PGT: OPIN
381 Cite as: 545 U. S. 374 (2005)
Opinion of the Court
State’s evidence of aggravated culpability with evidence in
mitigation. In judging the defense’s investigation, as in
applying Strickland generally, hindsight is discounted by
pegging adequacy to “counsel’s perspective at the time” in
vestigative decisions are made, 466 U. S., at 689, and by giv
ing a “heavy measure of deference to counsel’s judgments,”
id., at 691.
A
A standard of reasonableness applied as if one stood in
counsel’s shoes spawns few hard-edged rules, and the merits
of a number of counsel’s choices in this case are subject to
fair debate. This is not a case in which defense counsel sim
ply ignored their obligation to find mitigating evidence, and
their workload as busy public defenders did not keep them
from making a number of efforts, including interviews with
Rompilla and some members of his family, and examinations
of reports by three mental health experts who gave opinions
at the guilt phase. None of the sources proved particu
larly helpful.
Rompilla’s own contributions to any mitigation case were
minimal. Counsel found him uninterested in helping, as on
their visit to his prison to go over a proposed mitigation
strategy, when Rompilla told them he was “bored being here
listening” and returned to his cell. App. 668. To questions
about childhood and schooling, his answers indicated they
had been normal, ibid., save for quitting school in the ninth
grade, id., at 677. There were times when Rompilla was
even actively obstructive by sending counsel off on false
leads. Id., at 663–664.
The lawyers also spoke with five members of Rompilla’s
family (his former wife, two brothers, a sister-in-law, and his
son), id., at 494, and counsel testified that they developed
a good relationship with the family in the course of their
representation, id., at 669, 729. The state postconviction
court found that counsel spoke to the relatives in a “detailed
manner,” attempting to unearth mitigating information, id.,
at 264, although the weight of this finding is qualified by the

545US1 Unit: $U65 [03-26-08 17:19:10] PAGES PGT: OPIN
382 ROMPILLA v. BEARD
Opinion of the Court
lawyers’ concession that “the overwhelming response from
the family was that they didn’t really feel as though they
knew him all that well since he had spent the majority of his
adult years and some of his childhood years in custody,” id.,
at 495; see also id., at 669. Defense counsel also said that
because the family was “coming from the position that [Rom
pilla] was innocent . . . they weren’t looking for reasons for
why he might have done this.” Id., at 494.
The third and final source tapped for mitigating material
was the cadre of three mental health witnesses who were
asked to look into Rompilla’s mental state as of the time of
the offense and his competency to stand trial. Id., at 473–
474, 476. But their reports revealed “nothing useful” to
Rompilla’s case, id., at 1358, and the lawyers consequently
did not go to any other historical source that might have cast
light on Rompilla’s mental condition.
When new counsel entered the case to raise Rompilla’s
postconviction claims, however, they identified a number of
likely avenues the trial lawyers could fruitfully have fol
lowed in building a mitigation case. School records are one
example, which trial counsel never examined in spite of the
professed unfamiliarity of the several family members with
Rompilla’s childhood, and despite counsel’s knowledge that
Rompilla left school after the ninth grade. Id., at 677.
Other examples are records of Rompilla’s juvenile and adult
incarcerations, which counsel did not consult, although they
were aware of their client’s criminal record. And while
counsel knew from police reports provided in pretrial discov
ery that Rompilla had been drinking heavily at the time of
his offense, Lodging to App. 111–120 (hereinafter Lodging),
and although one of the mental health experts reported that
Rompilla’s troubles with alcohol merited further investiga
tion, App. 723–724, counsel did not look for evidence of a
history of dependence on alcohol that might have extenuat
ing significance.
Before us, trial counsel and the Commonwealth respond to
these unexplored possibilities by emphasizing this Court’s

545US1 Unit: $U65 [03-26-08 17:19:10] PAGES PGT: OPIN
383 Cite as: 545 U. S. 374 (2005)
Opinion of the Court
recognition that the duty to investigate does not force de
fense lawyers to scour the globe on the off chance something
will turn up; reasonably diligent counsel may draw a line
when they have good reason to think further investigation
would be a waste. See Wiggins v. Smith, 539 U. S., at 525
(further investigation excusable where counsel has evidence
suggesting it would be fruitless); Strickland v. Washington,
supra, at 699 (counsel could “reasonably surmise . . . that
character and psychological evidence would be of little
help”); Burger v. Kemp, 483 U. S. 776, 794 (1987) (limited
investigation reasonable because all witnesses brought to
counsel’s attention provided predominantly harmful informa
tion). The Commonwealth argues that the information trial
counsel gathered from Rompilla and the other sources gave
them sound reason to think it would have been pointless to
spend time and money on the additional investigation es
poused by postconviction counsel, and we can say that there
is room for debate about trial counsel’s obligation to follow
at least some of those potential lines of enquiry. There is
no need to say more, however, for a further point is clear
and dispositive: the lawyers were deficient in failing to exam
ine the court file on Rompilla’s prior conviction.
B
There is an obvious reason that the failure to examine
Rompilla’s prior conviction file fell below the level of reason
able performance. Counsel knew that the Commonwealth
intended to seek the death penalty by proving Rompilla had
a significant history of felony convictions indicating the use
or threat of violence, an aggravator under state law. Coun
sel further knew that the Commonwealth would attempt to
establish this history by proving Rompilla’s prior conviction
for rape and assault, and would emphasize his violent charac
ter by introducing a transcript of the rape victim’s testimony
given in that earlier trial. App. 665–666. There is no ques
tion that defense counsel were on notice, since they acknowl
edge that a “plea letter,” written by one of them four days

545US1 Unit: $U65 [03-26-08 17:19:10] PAGES PGT: OPIN
384 ROMPILLA v. BEARD
Opinion of the Court
prior to trial, mentioned the prosecutor’s plans. Ibid. It is
also undisputed that the prior conviction file was a public
document, readily available for the asking at the very court
house where Rompilla was to be tried.
It is clear, however, that defense counsel did not look at
any part of that file, including the transcript, until warned
by the prosecution a second time. In a colloquy the day be
fore the evidentiary sentencing phase began, the prosecutor
again said he would present the transcript of the victim’s
testimony to establish the prior conviction.
“[DEFENSE]: I would also like to review whatever
he’s going to read from.
“[PROSECUTOR]: Well, I told you that I was going
to do this a long time ago. You certainly had the oppor
tunity to review the Transcript.
. . . . .
“[DEFENSE]: Well, I would like a copy of this.
“[PROSECUTOR]: I don’t think that’s my duty to
provide you with a copy. That’s a public record, and
you could have gotten that Transcript at any time prior
to this Trial. I made one copy for myself, and I’d like
to have it now.
“[DEFENSE]: Well, Judge, then I’m going to need to
get a copy of it. I’m going to need to get a copy of it.”
Id., at 32, 36.2
2 A similar exchange took place at the same hearing about the indict
ment in the record of Rompilla’s prior conviction.
“[DEFENSE]: Well, I think we need to look at the Indictment then.
If he’s charged with committing the Burglary
. . . . .
“[PROSECUTOR]: I had a copy, and I forgot to bring it up with me.
“[COURT]: All right.
“[DEFENSE]: Can we see it, Judge?
“[COURT]: Sure, he’s going to get it.
“[PROSECUTOR]: It’s a public record . . . you could have gone over
[sic] lunch and looked at it just like I did.” App. 28.

545US1 Unit: $U65 [03-26-08 17:19:10] PAGES PGT: OPIN
385 Cite as: 545 U. S. 374 (2005)
Opinion of the Court
At the postconviction evidentiary hearing, Rompilla’s lawyer
confirmed that she had not seen the transcript before the
hearing in which this exchange took place, id., at 506–507,
and crucially, even after obtaining the transcript of the
victim’s testimony on the eve of the sentencing hearing,
counsel apparently examined none of the other material in
the file.3
With every effort to view the facts as a defense lawyer
would have done at the time, it is difficult to see how counsel
could have failed to realize that without examining the
readily available file they were seriously compromising their
opportunity to respond to a case for aggravation. The
prosecution was going to use the dramatic facts of a similar
prior offense, and Rompilla’s counsel had a duty to make all
reasonable efforts to learn what they could about the offense.
Reasonable efforts certainly included obtaining the Com
monwealth’s own readily available file on the prior conviction
to learn what the Commonwealth knew about the crime, to
discover any mitigating evidence the Commonwealth would
downplay, and to anticipate the details of the aggravating
3 Defense counsel also stated at the postconviction hearing that she be
lieved at some point she had looked at some files regarding that prior
conviction and that she was familiar with the particulars of the case. But
she could not recall what the files were or how she obtained them. Id.,
at 507–508. In addition, counsel apparently obtained Rompilla’s rap
sheet, which showed that he had prior convictions, including the one for
rape. Id., at 664. At oral argument, the United States, arguing as an
amicus in support of Pennsylvania, maintained that counsel had fulfilled
their obligations to investigate the prior conviction by obtaining the rap
sheet. Tr. of Oral Arg. 44–45. But this cannot be so. The rap sheet
would reveal only the charges and dispositions, being no reasonable substi
tute for the prior conviction file. The dissent nonetheless concludes on
this evidence that counsel knew all they needed to know about the prior
conviction. Post, at 401 (opinion of Kennedy, J.). Given counsel’s lim
ited investigation into the prior conviction, the dissent’s parsing of the
record seems generous to a fault.

545US1 Unit: $U65 [03-26-08 17:19:10] PAGES PGT: OPIN
386 ROMPILLA v. BEARD
Opinion of the Court
evidence the Commonwealth would emphasize.4 Without
making reasonable efforts to review the file, defense counsel
could have had no hope of knowing whether the prosecution
was quoting selectively from the transcript, or whether there
were circumstances extenuating the behavior described by
the victim. The obligation to get the file was particularly
pressing here owing to the similarity of the violent prior
offense to the crime charged and Rompilla’s sentencing strat
egy stressing residual doubt. Without making efforts to
learn the details and rebut the relevance of the earlier crime,
a convincing argument for residual doubt was certainly be
yond any hope.5
4 The ease with which counsel could examine the entire file makes appli
cation of this standard correspondingly easy. Suffice it to say that when
the State has warehouses of records available in a particular case, review
of counsel’s performance will call for greater subtlety.
5 This requirement answers the dissent’s and the United States’s conten
tion that defense counsel provided effective assistance with regard to the
prior conviction file because it argued that it would be prejudicial to allow
the introduction of the transcript. Post, at 402; Brief for United States
as Amicus Curiae 29. Counsel’s obligation to rebut aggravating evidence
extended beyond arguing it ought to be kept out. As noted above, supra
this page, counsel had no way of knowing the context of the transcript and
the details of the prior conviction without looking at the file as a whole.
Counsel could not effectively rebut the aggravation case or build their own
case in mitigation.
Nor is there any merit to the United States’s contention that further
enquiry into the prior conviction file would have been fruitless because
the sole reason the transcript was being introduced was to establish the
aggravator that Rompilla had committed prior violent felonies. Brief for
United States as Amicus Curiae 30. The Government maintains that
because the transcript would incontrovertibly establish the fact that Rom
pilla had committed a violent felony, the defense could not have expected
to rebut that aggravator through further investigation of the file. That
analysis ignores the fact that the sentencing jury was required to weigh
aggravating factors against mitigating factors. We may reasonably as
sume that the jury could give more relative weight to a prior violent fel
ony aggravator where defense counsel missed an opportunity to argue
that circumstances of the prior conviction were less damning than the
prosecution’s characterization of the conviction would suggest.

545US1 Unit: $U65 [03-26-08 17:19:10] PAGES PGT: OPIN
387 Cite as: 545 U. S. 374 (2005)
Opinion of the Court
The notion that defense counsel must obtain information
that the State has and will use against the defendant is not
simply a matter of common sense. As the District Court
points out, the American Bar Association Standards for
Criminal Justice in circulation at the time of Rompilla’s trial
describes the obligation in terms no one could misunderstand
in the circumstances of a case like this one:
“It is the duty of the lawyer to conduct a prompt investi
gation of the circumstances of the case and to explore
all avenues leading to facts relevant to the merits of the
case and the penalty in the event of conviction. The
investigation should always include efforts to secure in
formation in the possession of the prosecution and law
enforcement authorities. The duty to investigate exists
regardless of the accused’s admissions or statements to
the lawyer of facts constituting guilt or the accused’s
stated desire to plead guilty.” 1 ABA Standards for
Criminal Justice 4–4.1 (2d ed. 1982 Supp.).6
“[W]e long have referred [to these ABA Standards] as
‘guides to determining what is reasonable.’ ” Wiggins v.
Smith, 539 U. S., at 524 (quoting Strickland v. Washington,
466 U. S., at 688), and the Commonwealth has come up with
no reason to think the quoted standard impertinent here.7
6 The new version of the Standards now reads that any “investigation
should include efforts to secure information in the possession of the prose
cution and law enforcement authorities” whereas the version in effect at
the time of Rompilla’s trial provided that the “investigation” should al
ways include such efforts. ABA Standards for Criminal Justice, Prosecu
tion Function and Defense Function 4–4.1 (3d ed. 1993). We see no mate
rial difference between these two phrasings, and in any case cannot think
of any situation in which defense counsel should not make some effort to
learn the information in the possession of the prosecution and law enforce
ment authorities.
7 In 1989, shortly after Rompilla’s trial, the ABA promulgated a set of
guidelines specifically devoted to setting forth the obligations of defense
counsel in death penalty cases. ABA Guidelines for the Appointment and
Performance of Counsel in Death Penalty Cases (1989) (hereinafter 1989

545US1 Unit: $U65 [03-26-08 17:19:10] PAGES PGT: OPIN
388 ROMPILLA v. BEARD
Opinion of the Court
At argument the most that Pennsylvania (and the United
States as amicus) could say was that defense counsel’s ef
forts to find mitigating evidence by other means excused
them from looking at the prior conviction file. Tr. of Oral
Arg. 37–39, 45–46. And that, of course, is the position taken
by the state postconviction courts. Without specifically dis
cussing the prior case file, they too found that defense coun-
ABA Guidelines or Guideline). Those Guidelines applied the clear re
quirements for investigation set forth in the earlier Standards to death
penalty cases and imposed a similarly forceful directive: “Counsel should
make efforts to secure information in the possession of the prosecution
or law enforcement authorities, including police reports.” Guideline
11.4.1.D.4. When the United States argues that Rompilla’s defense coun
sel complied with these Guidelines, it focuses its attentions on a different
Guideline, 11.4.1.D.2. Brief for United States as Amicus Curiae 20–21.
Guideline 11.4.1.D.2 concerns practices for working with the defendant and
potential witnesses, and the United States contends that it imposes no
requirement to obtain any one particular type of record or information.
Ibid. But this argument ignores the subsequent Guideline quoted above,
which is in fact reprinted in the appendix to the United States’s brief, that
requires counsel to “ ‘make efforts to secure information in the possession
of the prosecution or law enforcement authorities.’ ” App. to id., at 4a.
Later, and current, ABA Guidelines relating to death penalty defense
are even more explicit:
“Counsel must . . . investigate prior convictions . . . that could be used
as aggravating circumstances or otherwise come into evidence. If a prior
conviction is legally flawed, counsel should seek to have it set aside.
Counsel may also find extenuating circumstances that can be offered to
lessen the weight of a conviction.” ABA Guidelines for the Appointment
and Performance of Defense Counsel in Death Penalty Cases 10.7, com
ment. (rev. ed. 2003), reprinted in 31 Hofstra L. Rev. 913, 1027 (2003) (foot
notes omitted).
Our decision in Wiggins made precisely the same point in citing the
earlier 1989 ABA Guidelines. 539 U. S., at 524 (“The ABA Guidelines
provide that investigations into mitigating evidence ‘should comprise ef
forts to discover all reasonably available mitigating evidence and evi
dence to rebut any aggravating evidence that may be introduced by the
prosecutor’ ” (quoting 1989 ABA Guideline 11.4.1.C; emphasis in origi
nal)). For reasons given in the text, no such further investigation was
needed to point to the reasonable duty to look in the file in question here.

545US1 Unit: $U65 [03-26-08 17:19:10] PAGES PGT: OPIN
389 Cite as: 545 U. S. 374 (2005)
Opinion of the Court
sel’s efforts were enough to free them from any obligation
to enquire further. Commonwealth v. Rompilla, No. 682/
1988 (Pa. Ct. Common Pleas, Aug. 23, 1996), App. 263–264,
272–273.
We think this conclusion of the state court fails to answer
the considerations we have set out, to the point of being an
objectively unreasonable conclusion. It flouts prudence to
deny that a defense lawyer should try to look at a file he
knows the prosecution will cull for aggravating evidence, let
alone when the file is sitting in the trial courthouse, open for
the asking. No reasonable lawyer would forgo examination
of the file thinking he could do as well by asking the defend
ant or family relations whether they recalled anything help
ful or damaging in the prior victim’s testimony. Nor would
a reasonable lawyer compare possible searches for school re
ports, juvenile records, and evidence of drinking habits to
the opportunity to take a look at a file disclosing what the
prosecutor knows and even plans to read from in his case.
Questioning a few more family members and searching for
old records can promise less than looking for a needle in a
haystack, when a lawyer truly has reason to doubt there is
any needle there. E. g., Strickland, supra, at 699. But
looking at a file the prosecution says it will use is a sure bet:
whatever may be in that file is going to tell defense counsel
something about what the prosecution can produce.
The dissent thinks this analysis creates a “rigid, per se”
rule that requires defense counsel to do a complete review
of the file on any prior conviction introduced, post, at 404
(opinion of Kennedy, J.), but that is a mistake. Counsel fell
short here because they failed to make reasonable efforts
to review the prior conviction file, despite knowing that the
prosecution intended to introduce Rompilla’s prior conviction
not merely by entering a notice of conviction into evidence
but by quoting damaging testimony of the rape victim in that
case. The unreasonableness of attempting no more than
they did was heightened by the easy availability of the file

545US1 Unit: $U65 [03-26-08 17:19:10] PAGES PGT: OPIN
390 ROMPILLA v. BEARD
Opinion of the Court
at the trial courthouse, and the great risk that testimony
about a similar violent crime would hamstring counsel’s cho
sen defense of residual doubt. It is owing to these circum
stances that the state courts were objectively unreasonable
in concluding that counsel could reasonably decline to make
any effort to review the file. Other situations, where a de
fense lawyer is not charged with knowledge that the prosecu
tor intends to use a prior conviction in this way, might well
warrant a different assessment.
C
Since counsel’s failure to look at the file fell below the line
of reasonable practice, there is a further question about prej
udice, that is, whether “there is a reasonable probability
that, but for counsel’s unprofessional errors, the result of the
proceeding would have been different.” 466 U. S., at 694.
Because the state courts found the representation adequate,
they never reached the issue of prejudice, App. 265, 272–273,
and so we examine this element of the Strickland claim de
novo, Wiggins v. Smith, 539 U. S., at 534, and agree with
the dissent in the Court of Appeals. We think Rompilla has
shown beyond any doubt that counsel’s lapse was prejudicial;
Pennsylvania, indeed, does not even contest the claim of
prejudice.
If the defense lawyers had looked in the file on Rompilla’s
prior conviction, it is uncontested they would have found a
range of mitigation leads that no other source had opened
up. In the same file with the transcript of the prior trial
were the records of Rompilla’s imprisonment on the earlier
conviction, App. 508, 571, 631, which defense counsel testified
she had never seen, id., at 508. The prison files pictured
Rompilla’s childhood and mental health very differently from
anything defense counsel had seen or heard. An evaluation
by a corrections counselor states that Rompilla was “reared
in the slum environment of Allentown, Pa. vicinity. He
early came to [the] attention of juvenile authorities, quit

545US1 Unit: $U65 [03-26-08 17:19:10] PAGES PGT: OPIN
391 Cite as: 545 U. S. 374 (2005)
Opinion of the Court
school at 16, [and] started a series of incarcerations in and
out Penna. often of assaultive nature and commonly related
to over-indulgence in alcoholic beverages.” Lodging 40.
The same file discloses test results that the defense’s mental
health experts would have viewed as pointing to schizophre
nia and other disorders, and test scores showing a third
grade level of cognition after nine years of schooling. Id.,
at 32–35.8
The accumulated entries would have destroyed the benign
conception of Rompilla’s upbringing and mental capacity de
fense counsel had formed from talking with Rompilla himself
and some of his family members, and from the reports of
the mental health experts. With this information, counsel
would have become skeptical of the impression given by the
five family members and would unquestionably have gone
further to build a mitigation case. Further effort would
presumably have unearthed much of the material postconvic
tion counsel found, including testimony from several mem
bers of Rompilla’s family, whom trial counsel did not inter
view. Judge Sloviter summarized this evidence:
“Rompilla’s parents were both severe alcoholics who
drank constantly. His mother drank during her preg
8 The dissent would ignore the opportunity to find this evidence on the
ground that its discovery (and the consequent analysis of prejudice) “rests
on serendipity,” post, at 405. But once counsel had an obligation to exam
ine the file, counsel had to make reasonable efforts to learn its contents;
and once having done so, they could not reasonably have ignored mitiga
tion evidence or red flags simply because they were unexpected. The
dissent, however, assumes that counsel could reasonably decline even to
read what was in the file, see post, at 406 (if counsel had reviewed the
case file for mitigating evidence, “[t]here would have been no reason for
counsel to read, or even to skim, this obscure document”). While that
could well have been true if counsel had been faced with a large amount
of possible evidence, see n. 4, supra, there is no indication that examining
the case file in question here would have required significant labor. In
deed, Pennsylvania has conspicuously failed to contest Rompilla’s claim
that because the information was located in the prior conviction file, rea
sonable efforts would have led counsel to this information.

545US1 Unit: $U65 [03-26-08 17:19:10] PAGES PGT: OPIN
392 ROMPILLA v. BEARD
Opinion of the Court
nancy with Rompilla, and he and his brothers eventually
developed serious drinking problems. His father, who
had a vicious temper, frequently beat Rompilla’s mother,
leaving her bruised and black-eyed, and bragged about
his cheating on her. His parents fought violently, and
on at least one occasion his mother stabbed his father.
He was abused by his father who beat him when he was
young with his hands, fists, leather straps, belts and
sticks. All of the children lived in terror. There were
no expressions of parental love, affection or approval.
Instead, he was subjected to yelling and verbal abuse.
His father locked Rompilla and his brother Richard in a
small wire mesh dog pen that was filthy and excrement
filled. He had an isolated background, and was not al
lowed to visit other children or to speak to anyone on
the phone. They had no indoor plumbing in the house,
he slept in the attic with no heat, and the children were
not given clothes and attended school in rags.” 355
F. 3d, at 279 (dissenting opinion) (citations omitted).
The jury never heard any of this and neither did the men
tal health experts who examined Rompilla before trial.
While they found “nothing helpful to [Rompilla’s] case,”
Rompilla, 554 Pa., at 385, 721 A. 2d, at 790, their postconvic
tion counterparts, alerted by information from school, medi
cal, and prison records that trial counsel never saw, found
plenty of “ ‘red flags’ ” pointing up a need to test further.
355 F. 3d, at 279 (Sloviter, J., dissenting). When they tested,
they found that Rompilla “suffers from organic brain dam
age, an extreme mental disturbance significantly impairing
several of his cognitive functions.” Ibid. They also said
that “Rompilla’s problems relate back to his childhood, and
were likely caused by fetal alcohol syndrome [and that] Rom
pilla’s capacity to appreciate the criminality of his conduct
or to conform his conduct to the law was substantially im
paired at the time of the offense.” Id., at 280 (Sloviter, J.,
dissenting).

545US1 Unit: $U65 [03-26-08 17:19:10] PAGES PGT: OPIN
393 Cite as: 545 U. S. 374 (2005)
O’Connor, J., concurring
These findings in turn would probably have prompted a
look at school and juvenile records, all of them easy to get,
showing, for example, that when Rompilla was 16 his mother
“was missing from home frequently for a period of one or
several weeks at a time.” Lodging 44. The same report
noted that his mother “has been reported . . . frequently
under the influence of alcoholic beverages, with the result
that the children have always been poorly kept and on the
filthy side which was also the condition of the home at all
times.” Ibid. School records showed Rompilla’s IQ was in
the mentally retarded range. Id., at 11, 13, 15.
This evidence adds up to a mitigation case that bears no
relation to the few naked pleas for mercy actually put before
the jury, and although we suppose it is possible that a jury
could have heard it all and still have decided on the death
penalty, that is not the test. It goes without saying that the
undiscovered “mitigating evidence, taken as a whole, ‘might
well have influenced the jury’s appraisal’ of [Rompilla’s] cul
pability,” Wiggins v. Smith, 539 U. S., at 538 (quoting Wil
liams v. Taylor, 529 U. S., at 398), and the likelihood of a
different result if the evidence had gone in is “sufficient to
undermine confidence in the outcome” actually reached at
sentencing, Strickland, 466 U. S., at 694.
The judgment of the Third Circuit is reversed, and Penn
sylvania must either retry the case on penalty or stipulate
to a life sentence.
It is so ordered.
Justice O’Connor, concurring.
I write separately to put to rest one concern. The dissent
worries that the Court’s opinion “imposes on defense counsel
a rigid requirement to review all documents in what it calls
the ‘case file’ of any prior conviction that the prosecution
might rely on at trial.” Post, at 396 (opinion of Ken
nedy, J.). But the Court’s opinion imposes no such rule.
See ante, at 389–390. Rather, today’s decision simply ap

545US1 Unit: $U65 [03-26-08 17:19:10] PAGES PGT: OPIN
394 ROMPILLA v. BEARD
O’Connor, J., concurring
plies our longstanding case-by-case approach to determining
whether an attorney’s performance was unconstitutionally
deficient under Strickland v. Washington, 466 U. S. 668
(1984). Trial counsel’s performance in Rompilla’s case falls
short under that standard, because the attorneys’ behavior
was not “reasonable considering all the circumstances.” Id.,
at 688. In particular, there were three circumstances which
made the attorneys’ failure to examine Rompilla’s prior con
viction file unreasonable.
First, Rompilla’s attorneys knew that their client’s prior
conviction would be at the very heart of the prosecution’s
case. The prior conviction went not to a collateral matter,
but rather to one of the aggravating circumstances making
Rompilla eligible for the death penalty. The prosecutors in
tended not merely to mention the fact of prior conviction,
but to read testimony about the details of the crime. That
crime, besides being quite violent in its own right, was very
similar to the murder for which Rompilla was on trial, and
Rompilla had committed the murder at issue a mere three
months after his release from prison on the earlier convic
tion. In other words, the prosecutor clearly planned to use
details of the prior crime as powerful evidence that Rompilla
was a dangerous man for whom the death penalty would be
both appropriate punishment and a necessary means of inca
pacitation. Cf. App. 165–166 (prosecutor’s penalty-phase ar
gument). This was evidence the defense should have been
prepared to meet: A reasonable defense lawyer would have
attached a high importance to obtaining the record of the
prior trial, in order to anticipate and find ways of deflecting
the prosecutor’s aggravation argument.
Second, the prosecutor’s planned use of the prior convic
tion threatened to eviscerate one of the defense’s primary
mitigation arguments. Rompilla was convicted on the basis
of strong circumstantial evidence. His lawyers structured
the entire mitigation argument around the hope of convinc
ing the jury that residual doubt about Rompilla’s guilt made

545US1 Unit: $U65 [03-26-08 17:19:10] PAGES PGT: OPIN
395 Cite as: 545 U. S. 374 (2005)
O’Connor, J., concurring
it inappropriate to impose the death penalty. In announcing
an intention to introduce testimony about Rompilla’s similar
prior offense, the prosecutor put Rompilla’s attorneys on no
tice that the prospective defense on mitigation likely would
be ineffective and counterproductive. The similarities be
tween the two crimes, combined with the timing and the
already strong circumstantial evidence, raised a strong likeli
hood that the jury would reject Rompilla’s residual doubt
argument. Rompilla’s attorneys’ reliance on this transpar
ently weak argument risked damaging their credibility.
Such a scenario called for further investigation, to determine
whether circumstances of the prior case gave any hope of
saving the residual doubt argument, or whether the best
strategy instead would be to jettison that argument so as to
focus on other, more promising issues. Cf. Yarborough v.
Gentry, 540 U. S. 1, 7 (2003) (per curiam); Bell v. Cone, 535
U. S. 685, 700 (2002) (noting that sound tactical judgment
may sometimes call for omitting certain defense evidence
or arguments).
Third, the attorneys’ decision not to obtain Rompilla’s
prior conviction file was not the result of an informed tactical
decision about how the lawyers’ time would best be spent.
Although Rompilla’s attorneys had ample warning that the
details of Rompilla’s prior conviction would be critical to
their case, their failure to obtain that file would not necessar
ily have been deficient if it had resulted from the lawyers’
careful exercise of judgment about how best to marshal their
time and serve their client. But Rompilla’s attorneys did
not ignore the prior case file in order to spend their time on
other crucial leads. They did not determine that the file was
so inaccessible or so large that examining it would necessar
ily divert them from other trial-preparation tasks they
thought more promising. They did not learn at the 11th
hour about the prosecution’s intent to use the prior convic
tion, when it was too late for them to change plans. Rather,
their failure to obtain the crucial file “was the result of in

545US1 Unit: $U65 [03-26-08 17:19:10] PAGES PGT: OPIN
396 ROMPILLA v. BEARD
Kennedy, J., dissenting
attention, not reasoned strategic judgment.” Wiggins v.
Smith, 539 U. S. 510, 534 (2003). As a result, their conduct
fell below constitutionally required standards. See id., at
533 (“ ‘[S]trategic choices made after less than complete in
vestigation are reasonable’ only to the extent that ‘reason
able professional judgments support the limitations on inves
tigation’ ” (quoting Strickland, 466 U. S., at 690–691)).
In the particular circumstances of this case, the attorneys’
failure to obtain and review the case file from their cli
ent’s prior conviction did not meet standards of “reasonable
professional judgmen[t].” Id., at 691. Because the Court’s
opinion is consistent with the “ ‘case-by-case examination of
the evidence’ ” called for under our cases, Williams v. Tay
lor, 529 U. S. 362, 391 (2000), I join the opinion.
Justice Kennedy, with whom The Chief Justice, Jus
tice Scalia, and Justice Thomas join, dissenting.
Today the Court brands two committed criminal defense
attorneys as ineffective—“outside the wide range of profes
sionally competent assistance,” Strickland v. Washington,
466 U. S. 668, 690 (1984)—because they did not look in an old
case file and stumble upon something they had not set out to
find. By implication the Court also labels incompetent the
work done by the three mental health professionals who ex
amined Ronald Rompilla. To reach this result, the majority
imposes on defense counsel a rigid requirement to review all
documents in what it calls the “case file” of any prior convic
tion that the prosecution might rely on at trial. The Court’s
holding, a mistake under any standard of review, is all the
more troubling because this case arises under the Antiter
rorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996. In order
to grant Rompilla habeas relief the Court must say, and in
deed does say, that the Pennsylvania Supreme Court was
objectively unreasonable in failing to anticipate today’s new
case file rule.

545US1 Unit: $U65 [03-26-08 17:19:10] PAGES PGT: OPIN
397 Cite as: 545 U. S. 374 (2005)
Kennedy, J., dissenting
In my respectful submission it is this Court, not the state
court, which is unreasonable. The majority’s holding has no
place in our Sixth Amendment jurisprudence and, if followed,
often will result in less effective counsel by diverting limited
defense resources from other important tasks in order to sat
isfy the Court’s new per se rule. Finally, even if the Court
could justify its distortion of Strickland, Rompilla still would
not be entitled to relief. The Court is able to conclude oth
erwise only by ignoring the established principle that it is
the defendant, not the State, who has the burden of dem
onstrating that he was prejudiced by any deficiency in his
attorneys’ performance.
These are the reasons for my dissent.
I
Under any standard of review the investigation performed
by Rompilla’s counsel in preparation for sentencing was not
only adequate but also conscientious.
Rompilla’s attorneys recognized from the outset that
building an effective mitigation case was crucial to helping
their client avoid the death penalty. App. 516, 576. Rom
pilla stood accused of a brutal crime. In January 1988,
James Scanlon was murdered while he was closing the Cozy
Corner Cafe, a bar he owned in Allentown, Pennsylvania.
Scanlon’s body was discovered later the next morning, lying
in a pool of blood. Scanlon had been stabbed multiple times,
including 16 wounds around the neck and head. Scanlon
also had been beaten with a blunt object, and his face had
been gashed, possibly with shards from broken liquor and
beer bottles found at the scene of the crime. After Scanlon
was stabbed to death his body had been set on fire.
Substantial evidence linked Rompilla to the crime. See
generally Commonwealth v. Rompilla, 539 Pa. 499, 505–506,
653 A. 2d 626, 629–630 (1995). He was at the Cozy Corner
Cafe near closing time on the night of the murder and was
observed going to the bathroom approximately 10 times dur

545US1 Unit: $U65 [03-26-08 17:19:10] PAGES PGT: OPIN
398 ROMPILLA v. BEARD
Kennedy, J., dissenting
ing a 1-hour period. A window in that bathroom, the police
later determined, was the probable point of entry used by
Scanlon’s assailant. A pair of Rompilla’s sneakers seized by
the police matched a bloody footprint found near the victim’s
body, and blood on the sneakers matched the victim’s blood
type. Rompilla’s fingerprint was found on one of the two
knives used to commit the murder. Sometime after leaving
the bar on the night of the murder, Rompilla checked into a
nearby motel under a false name. Although he told the po
lice he left the bar with only two dollars, Rompilla had paid
cash for the room and flashed a large amount of money
to the desk clerks. The victim’s wallet was discovered in
the bushes just outside of Rompilla’s motel room. When
the police questioned Rompilla about the murder, his ver
sion of events was inconsistent with the testimony of other
witnesses.
Rompilla was represented at trial by Fredrick Charles, the
chief public defender for Lehigh County at the time, and
Maria Dantos, an assistant public defender. Charles and
Dantos were assisted by John Whispell, an investigator in
the public defender’s office. Rompilla’s defense team sought
to develop mitigating evidence from various sources. First,
they questioned Rompilla extensively about his upbringing
and background. App. 668–669. To make these conversa
tions more productive they provided Rompilla with a list of
the mitigating circumstances recognized by Pennsylvania
law. Id., at 657. Cf. Strickland, supra, at 691 (“[W]hen
a defendant has given counsel reason to believe that pursu
ing certain investigations would be fruitless or even harm
ful, counsel’s failure to pursue those investigations may not
later be challenged as unreasonable”). Second, Charles and
Dantos arranged for Rompilla to be examined by three expe
rienced mental health professionals, experts described by
Charles as “the best forensic psychiatrist around here, [an
other] tremendous psychiatrist and a fabulous forensic psy
chologist.” App. 672. Finally, Rompilla’s attorneys ques

545US1 Unit: $U65 [03-26-08 17:19:10] PAGES PGT: OPIN
399 Cite as: 545 U. S. 374 (2005)
Kennedy, J., dissenting
tioned his family extensively in search of any information
that might help spare Rompilla the death penalty. Id., at
493–494, 557–558, 669–670, 729–730. Dantos, in particular,
developed a “very close” relationship with Rompilla’s family,
which was a “constant source of information.” Id., at 557,
729. Indeed, after trial Rompilla’s wife sent Dantos a letter
expressing her gratitude. Id., at 733. The letter referred
to Charles and Dantos as “superb human beings” who
“fought and felt everything [Rompilla’s] family did.” Ibid.
The Court acknowledges the steps taken by Rompilla’s at
torneys in preparation for sentencing but finds fault nonethe
less. “[T]he lawyers were deficient,” the Court says, “in
failing to examine the court file on Rompilla’s prior convic
tion.” Ante, at 383.
The prior conviction the Court refers to is Rompilla’s 1974
conviction for rape, burglary, and theft. See Common
wealth v. Rompilla, 250 Pa. Super. 139, 378 A. 2d 865 (1977).
Before the sentencing phase of the capital case, the Common
wealth informed Rompilla’s attorneys that it intended to use
these prior crimes to prove one of the statutory aggravating
circumstances—namely, that Rompilla had a “significant his
tory of felony convictions involving the use or threat of vio
lence to the person.” 42 Pa. Cons. Stat. § 9711(d)(9) (2002).
Rompilla’s attorneys were on notice of the Commonwealth’s
plans, and from this the Court concludes that effective assist
ance of counsel required a review of the prior conviction
case file.
A per se rule requiring counsel in every case to review the
records of prior convictions used by the State as aggravation
evidence is a radical departure from Strickland and its prog
eny. We have warned in the past against the creation of
“specific guidelines” or “checklist[s] for judicial evaluation of
attorney performance.” 466 U. S., at 688. See also Wig
gins v. Smith, 539 U. S. 510, 521 (2003); Roe v. Flores-Ortega,
528 U. S. 470, 477 (2000). “No particular set of detailed
rules for counsel’s conduct can satisfactorily take account of

545US1 Unit: $U65 [03-26-08 17:19:10] PAGES PGT: OPIN
400 ROMPILLA v. BEARD
Kennedy, J., dissenting
the variety of circumstances faced by defense counsel or the
range of legitimate decisions regarding how best to repre
sent a criminal defendant. Any such set of rules would in
terfere with the constitutionally protected independence of
counsel and restrict the wide latitude counsel must have in
making tactical decisions. Indeed, the existence of detailed
guidelines for representation could distract counsel from the
overriding mission of vigorous advocacy of the defendant’s
cause.” Strickland, 466 U. S., at 688–689 (citations omit
ted). For this reason, while we have referred to the ABA
Standards for Criminal Justice as a useful point of reference,
we have been careful to say these standards “are only
guides” and do not establish the constitutional baseline
for effective assistance of counsel. Ibid. The majority, by
parsing the guidelines as if they were binding statutory text,
ignores this admonition.
The majority’s analysis contains barely a mention of
Strickland and makes little effort to square today’s holding
with our traditional reluctance to impose rigid requirements
on defense counsel. While the Court disclaims any intention
to create a bright-line rule, ante, at 389–390; see also ante,
at 393–394 (O’Connor, J., concurring), this affords little com
fort. The Court’s opinion makes clear it has imposed on
counsel a broad obligation to review prior conviction case
files where those priors are used in aggravation—and to re
view every document in those files if not every single page
of every document, regardless of the prosecution’s proposed
use for the prior conviction. Infra, at 403, 407–408. One
Member of the majority tries to limit the Court’s new rule
by arguing that counsel’s decision here was “not the result
of an informed tactical decision,” ante, at 395 (O’Connor, J.,
concurring), but the record gives no support for this notion.
The Court also protests that the exceptional weight Rompil
la’s attorneys at sentencing placed on residual doubt re
quired them to review the prior conviction file, ante, at 389–
390; ante, at 394–395 (O’Connor, J., concurring). In fact,

545US1 Unit: $U65 [03-26-08 17:19:10] PAGES PGT: OPIN
401 Cite as: 545 U. S. 374 (2005)
Kennedy, J., dissenting
residual doubt was not central to Rompilla’s mitigation case.
Rompilla’s family members did testify at sentencing that
they thought he was innocent, but Dantos tried to draw at
tention away from this point and instead use the family’s
testimony to humanize Rompilla and ask for mercy. App.
123–149.
The majority also disregards the sound strategic calcula
tion supporting the decisions made by Rompilla’s attorneys.
Charles and Dantos were “aware of [Rompilla’s] priors” and
“aware of the circumstances” surrounding these convictions.
Id., at 507. At the postconviction hearing, Dantos also indi
cated that she had reviewed documents relating to the prior
conviction. Ibid. Based on this information, as well as
their numerous conversations with Rompilla and his family,
Charles and Dantos reasonably could conclude that re
viewing the full prior conviction case file was not the best
allocation of resources.
The majority concludes otherwise only by ignoring Strick
land’s command that “[j]udicial scrutiny of counsel’s per
formance must be highly deferential.” 466 U. S., at 689.
According to the Court, the Constitution required nothing
less than a full review of the prior conviction case file by
Rompilla’s attorneys. Even with the benefit of hindsight
the Court struggles to explain how the file would have
proved helpful, offering only the vague speculation that
Rompilla’s attorneys might have discovered “circumstances
extenuating the behavior described by the [rape] victim.”
Ante, at 386. What the Court means by “circumstances” is
a mystery. If the Court is referring to details on Rompilla’s
mental fitness or upbringing, surely Rompilla’s attorneys
were more likely to discover such information through the
sources they consulted: Rompilla, his family, and the three
mental health experts that examined him.
Perhaps the circumstances to which the majority refers
are the details of Rompilla’s 1974 crimes. Charles and
Dantos, however, had enough information about the prior

545US1 Unit: $U65 [03-26-08 17:19:10] PAGES PGT: OPIN
402 ROMPILLA v. BEARD
Kennedy, J., dissenting
convictions to determine that reviewing the case file was not
the most effective use of their time. Rompilla had been con
victed of breaking into the residence of Josephine Macrenna,
who lived in an apartment above the bar she owned. App.
56–89. After Macrenna gave him the bar’s receipts for the
night, Rompilla demanded that she disrobe. When she ini
tially resisted, Rompilla slashed her left breast with a knife.
Rompilla then held Macrenna at knifepoint while he raped
her for over an hour. Charles and Dantos were aware of
these circumstances of the prior conviction and the brutality
of the crime. Id., at 507. It did not take a review of the
case file to know that quibbling with the Commonwealth’s
version of events was a dubious trial strategy. At sentenc
ing Dantos fought vigorously to prevent the Commonwealth
from introducing the details of the 1974 crimes, id., at 16–40,
but once the transcript was admitted there was nothing that
could be done. Rompilla was unlikely to endear himself to
the jury by arguing that his prior conviction for burglary,
theft, and rape really was not as bad as the Commonwealth
was making it out to be. Recognizing this, Rompilla’s at
torneys instead devoted their limited time and resources to
developing a mitigation case. That those efforts turned up
little useful evidence does not make the ex ante strategic
calculation of Rompilla’s attorneys constitutionally deficient.
One of the primary reasons this Court has rejected a
checklist approach to effective assistance of counsel is that
each new requirement risks distracting attorneys from the
real objective of providing vigorous advocacy as dictated by
the facts and circumstances in the particular case. The
Court’s rigid requirement that counsel always review the
case files of convictions the prosecution seeks to use at trial
will be just such a distraction. Capital defendants often
have a history of crime. For example, as of 2003, 64 percent
of inmates on death row had prior felony convictions. U. S.
Dept. of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics, T. Bonczar &
T. Snell, Capital Punishment, 2003, p. 8 (Nov. 2004), available

545US1 Unit: $U65 [03-26-08 17:19:10] PAGES PGT: OPIN
403 Cite as: 545 U. S. 374 (2005)
Kennedy, J., dissenting
at http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/ bjs/pub/pdf/cp03.pdf (as visited
June 16, 2005, and available in Clerk of Court’s case file). If
the prosecution relies on these convictions as aggravators,
the Court has now obligated defense attorneys to review the
boxes of documents that come with them.
In imposing this new rule, the Court states that counsel
in this case could review the “entire file” with “ease.” Ante,
at 386, n. 4. There is simply no support in the record for
this assumption. Case files often comprise numerous boxes.
The file may contain, among other things, witness state
ments, forensic evidence, arrest reports, grand jury tran
scripts, testimony and exhibits relating to any pretrial sup
pression hearings, trial transcripts, trial exhibits, post-trial
motions, and presentence reports. Full review of even a
single prior conviction case file could be time consuming, and
many of the documents in a file are duplicative or irrelevant.
The Court, recognizing the flaw in its analysis, suggests that
cases involving “warehouses of records” “will call for greater
subtlety.” Ibid. Yet for all we know, this is such a case.
As to the time component, the Court tells us nothing as to
the number of hours counsel had available to prepare for sen
tencing or why the decisions they made in allocating their
time were so flawed as to constitute deficient performance
under Strickland.
Today’s decision will not increase the resources committed
to capital defense. (At the time of Rompilla’s trial, the Le
high County Public Defender’s Office had two investigators
for 2,000 cases. App. 662.) If defense attorneys dutifully
comply with the Court’s new rule, they will have to divert
resources from other tasks. The net effect of today’s hold
ing in many cases—instances where trial counsel reasonably
can conclude that reviewing old case files is not an effective
use of time—will be to diminish the quality of representa
tion. We have “consistently declined to impose mechanical
rules on counsel—even when those rules might lead to better
representation,” Roe v. Flores-Ortega, 528 U. S., at 481; I see

545US1 Unit: $U65 [03-26-08 17:19:10] PAGES PGT: OPIN
404 ROMPILLA v. BEARD
Kennedy, J., dissenting
no occasion to depart from this approach in order to impose
a requirement that might well lead to worse representation.
It is quite possible defense attorneys, recognizing the ab
surdity of a one-size-fits-all approach to effective advocacy,
will simply ignore the Court’s new requirement and continue
to exercise their best judgment about how to allocate time
and resources in preparation for trial. While this decision
would be understandable—and might even be required by
state ethical rules, cf. Pa. Rules of Professional Conduct,
Preamble, and Rule 1.1 (2005)—it leaves open the possibility
that a defendant will seek to overturn his conviction based
on something in a prior conviction case file that went unre
viewed. This elevation of needle-in-a-haystack claims to the
status of constitutional violations will benefit undeserving
defendants and saddle States with the considerable costs of
retrial and/or resentencing.
Today’s decision is wrong under any standard, but the
Court’s error is compounded by the fact that this case arises
on federal habeas. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court adju
dicated Rompilla’s ineffective-assistance-of-counsel claim on
the merits, and this means 28 U. S. C. § 2254(d)’s deferential
standard of review applies. Rompilla must show that the
Pennsylvania Supreme Court decision was not just “incor
rect or erroneous,” but “objectively unreasonable.” Lock
yer v. Andrade, 538 U. S. 63, 75 (2003) (citing Williams v.
Taylor, 529 U. S. 362, 410, 412 (2000)). He cannot do so.
The Court pays lipservice to the Williams standard, but
it proceeds to adopt a rigid, per se obligation that binds coun
sel in every case and finds little support in our precedents.
Indeed, Strickland, the case the Court purports to apply, is
directly to the contrary: “Most important, in adjudicating a
claim of actual ineffectiveness of counsel, a court should keep
in mind that the principles we have stated do not establish
mechanical rules.” 466 U. S., at 696. The Pennsylvania Su
preme Court gave careful consideration to Rompilla’s Sixth
Amendment claim and concluded that “counsel reasonably

545US1 Unit: $U65 [03-26-08 17:19:10] PAGES PGT: OPIN
405 Cite as: 545 U. S. 374 (2005)
Kennedy, J., dissenting
relied upon their discussions with [Rompilla] and upon their
experts to determine the records needed to evaluate his
mental health and other potential mitigating circumstances.”
Commonwealth v. Rompilla, 554 Pa. 378, 385–386, 721 A. 2d
786, 790 (1998). This decision was far from unreasonable.
The Pennsylvania courts can hardly be faulted for failing to
anticipate today’s abrupt departure from Strickland.
We have reminded federal courts often of the need to show
the requisite level of deference to state-court judgments
under 28 U. S. C. § 2254(d). Holland v. Jackson, 542 U. S.
649 (2004) (per curiam); Middleton v. McNeil, 541 U. S. 433
(2004) (per curiam); Yarborough v. Gentry, 540 U. S. 1 (2003)
(per curiam); Mitchell v. Esparza, 540 U. S. 12 (2003) (per
curiam); Early v. Packer, 537 U. S. 3 (2002) (per curiam);
Woodford v. Visciotti, 537 U. S. 19 (2002) (per curiam). By
ignoring our own admonition today, the Court adopts a do
as-we-say, not-as-we-do approach to federal habeas review.
II
Even accepting the Court’s misguided analysis of the ade
quacy of representation by Rompilla’s trial counsel, Rompilla
is still not entitled to habeas relief. Strickland assigns the
defendant the burden of demonstrating prejudice, 466 U. S.,
at 692. Rompilla cannot satisfy this standard, and only
through a remarkable leap can the Court conclude otherwise.
The Court’s theory of prejudice rests on serendipity.
Nothing in the old case file diminishes the aggravating na
ture of the prior conviction. The only way Rompilla’s at
torneys could have minimized the aggravating force of the
earlier rape conviction was through Dantos’ forceful, but
ultimately unsuccessful, fight to exclude the transcript at
sentencing. The Court, recognizing this problem, instead
finds prejudice through chance. If Rompilla’s attorneys had
reviewed the case file of his prior rape and burglary convic
tion, the Court says, they would have stumbled across “a
range of mitigation leads.” Ante, at 390.

545US1 Unit: $U65 [03-26-08 17:19:10] PAGES PGT: OPIN
406 ROMPILLA v. BEARD
Kennedy, J., dissenting
The range of leads to which the Court refers is in fact a
handful of notations within a single 10-page document. The
document, an “Initial Transfer Petition,” appears to have
been prepared by the Pennsylvania Department of Correc
tions after Rompilla’s conviction to facilitate his initial as
signment to one of the Commonwealth’s maximum-security
prisons. Lodging to App. 31–40.
Rompilla cannot demonstrate prejudice because nothing in
the record indicates that Rompilla’s trial attorneys would
have discovered the transfer petition, or the clues contained
in it, if they had reviewed the old file. The majority faults
Rompilla’s attorneys for failing to “learn what the Common
wealth knew about the crime,” “discover any mitigating evi
dence the Commonwealth would downplay,” and “anticipate
the details of the aggravating evidence the Commonwealth
would emphasize.” Ante, at 385–386. Yet if Rompilla’s at
torneys had reviewed the case file with these purposes in
mind, they almost surely would have attributed no signifi
cance to the transfer petition following only a cursory review.
The petition, after all, was prepared by the Department of
Corrections after Rompilla’s conviction for the purpose of
determining Rompilla’s initial prison assignment. It con
tained no details regarding the circumstances of the convic
tion. Reviewing the prior conviction file for information to
counter the Commonwealth, counsel would have looked first
at the transcript of the trial testimony, and perhaps then to
probative exhibits or forensic evidence. There would have
been no reason for counsel to read, or even to skim, this
obscure document.
The Court claims that the transfer petition would have
been discovered because it was in the “same file” with the
transcript, ante, at 391, but this characterization is mislead
ing and the conclusion the Court draws from it is accordingly
fallacious. The record indicates only that the transfer peti
tion was a part of the same case file, but Rompilla provides
no indication of the size of the file, which for all we know

545US1 Unit: $U65 [03-26-08 17:19:10] PAGES PGT: OPIN
407 Cite as: 545 U. S. 374 (2005)
Kennedy, J., dissenting
originally comprised several boxes of documents. App. 508,
571, 631. By the time of Rompilla’s state postconviction
hearing, moreover, the transfer petition was not stored
in any “file” at all—it had been transferred to microfilm.
Id., at 461. The Court implies in a footnote that prejudice
can be presumed because “Pennsylvania has conspicuously
failed to contest Rompilla’s” inevitable-discovery argument.
Ante, at 391, n. 8. The Commonwealth’s strategy is unsur
prising given that discussion of the prior conviction case file
takes up only one paragraph of Rompilla’s argument, Brief
for Petitioner 35–36, but it is also irrelevant. It is well es
tablished that Rompilla, not the Commonwealth, has the bur
den of establishing prejudice. Strickland, supra, at 694.
The majority thus finds itself in a bind. If counsel’s al
leged deficiency lies in the failure to review the file for the
purposes the majority has identified, then there is no preju
dice: for there is no reasonable probability that review of the
file for those purposes would have led counsel to accord the
transfer petition enough attention to discover the leads
the majority cites. Prejudice could only be demonstrated if
the deficiency in counsel’s performance were to be described
not as the failure to perform a purposive review of the file,
but instead as the failure to accord intense scrutiny to every
single page of every single document in that file, regardless
of the purpose motivating the review. At times, the Court
hints that its new obligation on counsel sweeps this broadly.
See ante, at 386, n. 4 (“[t]he ease with which counsel could
examine the entire file . . . ”); ante, at 386, n. 5 (“[C]ounsel
had no way of knowing the context of the transcript and the
details of the prior conviction without looking at the file as
a whole”). Surely, however, the Court would not require
defense counsel to look at every document, no matter how
tangential, included in the prior conviction file on the off
chance that some notation therein might provide a lead,
which in turn might result in the discovery of useful informa
tion. The Constitution does not mandate that defense attor

545US1 Unit: $U65 [03-26-08 17:19:11] PAGES PGT: OPIN
408 ROMPILLA v. BEARD
Kennedy, J., dissenting
neys perform busy work. This rigid requirement would di
vert counsel’s limited time and energy away from more
important tasks. In this way, it would ultimately disserve
the rationale underlying the Court’s new rule, which is to
ensure that defense counsel counter the State’s aggravation
case effectively.
If the Court does intend to impose on counsel a constitu
tional obligation to review every page of every document
included in the case file of a prior conviction, then today’s
holding is even more misguided than I imagined.
* * *
Strickland anticipated the temptation “to second-guess
counsel’s assistance after conviction or adverse sentence”
and cautioned that “[a] fair assessment of attorney perform
ance requires that every effort be made to eliminate the dis
torting effects of hindsight, to reconstruct the circumstances
of counsel’s challenged conduct, and to evaluate the conduct
from counsel’s perspective at the time.” 466 U. S., at 689.
Today, the Court succumbs to the very temptation that
Strickland warned against. In the process, the majority
imposes on defense attorneys a rigid requirement that finds
no support in our cases or common sense.
I would affirm the judgment of the Court of Appeals.