Whether the Texas court rejected this Court's conclusions in Andrus v. Texas and disregarded the Court's express guidance for conducting a prejudice analysis under Strickland v. Washington

QUESTIONS PRESENTED Capital Case This case returns to this Court after the remand ordered in Andrus v. Texas, 140 S.Ct. 1875 (2020) (per curiam). In Andrus, this Court determined that the “untapped body of mitigating evidence” amassed during the state habeas proceeding was “simply vast” and that counsel’s failure to investigate and present this evidence at the sentencing stage of his death penalty trial, as well as other failures, established trial counsel’s deficient performance. The Court remanded to the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals (CCA) to consider whether Andrus had been prejudiced by this deficient performance. Explicitly disagreeing with this Court about critical evidence, the CCA, in a closely divided 5-4 decision, concluded that Andrus was not prejudiced. The Questions Presented are: L. On remand, did the Texas court reject this Court’s conclusions in Andrus v. Texas, 140 S.Ct. 1875 (2020), which were amply supported by the habeas and trial records, and did the Texas court disregard this Court’s express guidance for conducting a prejudice analysis pursuant to Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 688 (1984)? I. Does the Texas court’s failure to adhere to this Court’s decision conflict with our constitutional system of vertical stare decisis and create widespread confusion regarding the proper legal standard that courts must use in assessing whether the Sixth Amendment right to effective assistance of counsel is violated in death-penalty cases? i