In a capital case, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals improperly granted the defendant habeas relief on his claim of penalty-phase ineffective assistance of counsel. The defendant and two accomplices broke into a house at night, killing two men who interrupted the burglary. A jury convicted the defendant of first-degree murder, and he was sentenced to death. After the California Supreme Court twice denied the defendant habeas relief, a federal district court held an evidentiary hearing and granted the defendant relief under 28 U.S.C. § 2254 on grounds of “inadequacy of counsel by failure to investigate and present mitigation evidence at the penalty hearing.” Sitting en banc, the Ninth Circuit affirmed, holding that the California Supreme Court unreasonably applied Strickland v. Washington, 466 U. S. 668 (1984), in denying the defendant’s claim of penalty-phase ineffective assistance of counsel. The U.S. Supreme Court reversed, concluding that the defendant failed to show that the state court unreasonably concluded that defense counsel’s penalty phase “family sympathy” strategy (that consisted principally of the testimony of the defendant’s mother) was appropriate. Likewise, the defendant failed to show that the state court unreasonably concluded and that even if counsel’s conduct was deficient, no prejudice occurred, given that the new evidence largely duplicated the mitigation evidence presented at trial and the extensive aggravating evidence.