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other source had opened up” – evidence of an abusive childhood, mental health issues and alcohol abuse. Four justices dissent. Wiggins v Smith, 539 U.S. 510, 123 S.Ct. 2527, 156 L.Ed.2d 471 (June 26, 2003). Fourth Circuit erred in denyting defendant habeas relief from his Maryland capital sentence; defendant received ineffective assistance where trial counsel failed to adequately investigate and obtain potential mitigating life history evidence. Defendant was found guilty at bench trial, then demanded jury for penalty phase. At penalty phase, counsel “decided to focus their efforts on ‘retry[ing] the factual case’ and disputing Wiggins' direct responsibility for the murder,” rather than emphasizing life history. Supreme Court finds that counsel’s investigation was inadequate and that counsel failed to uncover “powerful” evidence of physical and sexual abuse by defendant’s parents, foster parents, and others. “In assessing counsel's investigation, we must conduct an objective review of their performance, measured for ‘reasonableness under prevailing professional norms,’ Strickland, 466 U.S., at 688, 104 S.Ct. 2052, which includes a context-dependent consideration of the challenged conduct as seen ‘from counsel's perspective at the time,’ id., at 689, 104 S.Ct. 2052 (‘[E]very effort [must] be made to eliminate the distorting effects of hindsight’).” Counsel here obtained a basic psychological profile and Department of Social Services (DSS) records, but no social history report or further investigation. “Counsel's decision not to expand their investigation beyond the PSI and the DSS records fell short of the professional standards that prevailed in Maryland in 1989. As [counsel] acknowledged, standard practice in Maryland in capital cases at the time of Wiggins' trial included the preparation of a social history report. [cit.] Despite the fact that the Public Defender's office made funds available for the retention of a forensic social worker, counsel chose not to commission such a report. [cit.] Counsel's conduct similarly fell short of the standards for capital defense work articulated by the American Bar Association (ABA) – standards to which we long have referred as ‘guides to determining what is reasonable.’ Strickland, supra, at 688, 104 S.Ct. 2052; Williams v. Taylor, [April 18, 2000, below ] at 396, 120 S.Ct. 1495. The ABA Guidelines provide that investigations into mitigating evidence ‘should comprise efforts to discover all reasonably available mitigating evidence and evidence to rebut any aggravating evidence that may be introduced by the prosecutor.’ ABA Guidelines for the Appointment and Performance of Counsel in Death Penalty Cases 11.4.1(C), p. 93 (1989) (emphasis added). Despite these well-defined norms, however, counsel abandoned their investigation of petitioner's background after having acquired only rudimentary knowledge of his history from a narrow set of sources. Cf. id., 11.8.6, p. 133 (noting that among the topics counsel should consider presenting are medical history, educational history, employment and training history, family and social history, prior adult and juvenile correctional experience, and religious and cultural influences (emphasis added)); 1 ABA Standards for Criminal Justice 4-4.1, commentary, p. 4-55 (2d ed.1982) (‘The lawyer also has a substantial and important role to perform in raising mitigating factors both to the prosecutor initially and to the court at sentencing .... Investigation is essential to fulfillment of these functions’). The scope of their investigation was also unreasonable in light of what counsel actually discovered in the DSS records. The records revealed several facts: Petitioner's mother was a chronic alcoholic; Wiggins was shuttled from foster home to foster home and displayed some emotional difficulties while there; he had frequent, lengthy absences from school; and, on at least one occasion, his mother left him and his siblings alone for days without food. [cit.] As the Federal District Court emphasized, any reasonably competent attorney would have realized that pursuing these leads was necessary to making an informed choice among possible defenses, particularly given the apparent absence of any aggravating factors in petitioner's background .” Distinguishing Strickland and other cases where, in the circumstances, “counsel could ‘reasonably surmise ... that character and psychological evidence would be of little help.” “In assessing the reasonableness of an attorney's investigation, however, a court must consider not only the quantum of evidence already known to counsel, but also whether the known evidence would lead a reasonable attorney to investigate further.” Strategic decision to focus on culpability rather than mitigation is not necessarily per se ineffective: “While it may well have been strategically defensible upon a reasonably thorough investigation to focus on Wiggins' direct responsibility for the murder, the two sentencing strategies are not necessarily mutually exclusive.” Williams v. Taylor, 529 U.S. 362, 120 S.Ct. 1495, 146 L.Ed.2d 389 (April 18, 2000). Reversing Federal Court of Appeals’ denial of defendant’s habeas petition. Defendant received ineffective assistance of counsel in his Virginia death penalty sentencing phase: “the failure to introduce the comparatively voluminous amount of evidence that did speak in Williams’ favor was not justified by a tactical decision to focus on Williams’ voluntary confession. Whether or not those omissions were sufficiently prejudicial to have affected the outcome of sentencing, they clearly demonstrate that trial counsel did not fulfill their obligation to conduct a thorough investigation of the defendant’s background. See 1 ABA Standards for Criminal Justice 4-4.1, commentary, p. 4-55 (2 nd ed., 1980).” Virginia Supreme Court misapplied U.S. Supreme Court precedent on showing of prejudice. “Cases such as Nix v. Whiteside, 475 U.S. 157, 106 S.Ct. 988, 89 L.Ed.2d 123 (1986), and Lockhart v. Fretwell, 506 U.S. 364, 113 S.Ct. 838, 122 L.Ed.2d 180 (1993), do not justify a departure from a straightforward application of Strickland when the ineffectiveness of counsel does deprive the defendant