Terry Bemore v. Kevin Chappell

Terry Bemore was sentenced to death for the murder of Kenneth Muck, a employee at Aztec Liquor in San Diego. His co-defendant, Keith Cosby, was tried by a separate jury and sentenced to twenty-five years to life for the same crime. Bemore seeks habeas relief on the grounds that his trial lawyers were constitutionally ineffective for: presenting a flawed alibi defense; failing to challenge the torture special circumstance; presenting no evidence of mental impairments at the guilt phase or penalty phase; and creating a conflict of interest by diverting state-paid defense funds for personal use. See Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668 , 104 S.Ct. 2052 , 80 L.Ed.2d 674 (1984). We hold that counsel provided constitutionally deficient representation at the guilt phase, but Bemore did not suffer the requisite prejudice to the guilt verdict as a result. With regard to the penalty phase, however, Bemore was both deprived of the representation guaranteed by the Sixth Amendment and so substantially prejudiced by the constitutionally deficient deprivation of adequate representation at both stages that it was unreasonable for the st^te court to have left the death penalty in…