Wiggins v. Smith

Wiggins v. Smith
Supreme Court of the United States
Argued March 24, 2003 Decided June 26, 2003
Full case name	Kevin Wiggins, Petitioner v. Sewall Smith, Warden, et al.
Citations	539 U.S. 510 (more) 123 S. Ct. 2527; 156 L. Ed. 2d 471; 2003 U.S. LEXIS 5014
Argument	Oral argument
Case history
Prior	Petition for writ of habeas corpus granted, Wiggins v. Corcoran, 164 F. Supp. 2d 538 (D. Md. 2001); reversed, 288 F.3d 629 (4th Cir. 2002); cert. granted, 537 U.S. 1027 (2002).
Holding
The performance of Wiggins' attorneys at sentencing violated his Sixth Amendment right to effective assistance of counsel.
Court membership
Chief Justice William Rehnquist Associate Justices John P. Stevens · Sandra Day O'Connor Antonin Scalia · Anthony Kennedy David Souter · Clarence Thomas Ruth Bader Ginsburg · Stephen Breyer
Case opinions
Majority	O'Connor, joined by Rehnquist, Stevens, Kennedy, Souter, Ginsburg, Breyer
Dissent	Scalia, joined by Thomas

Wiggins v. Smith, 539 U.S. 510 (2003), is a case in which the United States Supreme Court spelled out standards for "effectiveness" in the constitutional right to legal counsel guaranteed by the Sixth Amendment.^[1] Previously the court had determined that the Sixth Amendment included the right to "effective assistance" of legal counsel, but it did not specify what constitutes "effective", thus leaving the standards for effectiveness vague. In Wiggins v. Smith, the court set forth the American Bar Association Guidelines for the Appointment and Performance of Defense Counsel in Death Penalty Cases Guideline 11.8.6.(1989), as a specific guideline by which to measure effectiveness and competence of legal counsel.^[1]

In Strickland v. Washington,^[2] the Supreme Court set forth the factors the defendant must establish to demonstrate that counsel was ineffective. First, it must be shown that counsel's performance fell below an objective standard of reasonable competence, and second, if counsel had not been competent, that the trial outcome would likely have been different had the counsel been competent.^[3]