Well if anyone thought that Justice Sonia Sotomayor was a bleeding heart liberal they were wrong. Nor is she a Justice Thurgood Marshall or a Justice William J. Brennan who thought that the death penalty was cruel and unusual. Yesterday she wrote on behalf of a 7-2 majority (Justices Stevens and Kennedy in the minority) upholding the death penalty for Holly Wood against claims of incompetence of counsel.

The primary question on appeal was whether counsel’s decision not to investigate was a stategic decision or negligence. The Supreme Court will not reverse a trial court decision in a competence of counsel case if the attorney’s decision is made for strategic reasons and if the decision is reasonable even if the Supreme Court disagrees with the decision. Prior to trial counsel obtained a psychiatric report which showed borderline intelligence. But counsel did not call the psychiatrist to testify nor did the defendant’s lawyers further investigate the report or introduce it into evidence.

The court found that there was enough damaging information in the report that it was a reasonable decision not to place it into evidence or to call the psychiatrist to testify. A second report or investigation of the allegations done in the first report was not done. Justice Stevens’ dissent points out that even if it was not used in the case in chief there was no stategic reason not to use it in the penalty phase of the trial. But Sotomayor claims that since at least two of Wood’s three lawyers thoroughly read and considered the report the rejection of the report had to be for strategic reasons. Therefore according to the majority decision counsel’s actions were not below that which would be expected by competent counsel and therefore they upheld the conviction.