Does defense counsel unreasonably fail to investigate and present a mental state defense to a charge of willful, deliberate and premeditated murder?

QUESTION PRESENTED Does defense counsel unreasonably fail to investigate and present a mental state defense to a charge of willful, deliberate and premeditated murder when she declares a doubt of defendant’s competence to stand trial, receives reports from court-appointed competence experts of defendant’s history of psychosis, substance abuse, and suicidal ideation, yet fails to present any mental health evidence to try to raise a reasonable doubt that defendant had the specific intent required for a conviction? i PARTIES AND LIST OF PRIOR PROCEEDINGS The parties to this proceeding are Petitioner Jessie James Flores and Respondent Brian Cates, Warden of the California Correctional Institution, where Flores is imprisoned pursuant to the state judgment challenged here.! The California Attorney General represents Respondent. On September 5, 2013, Flores was convicted by a Riverside County, California jury of first-degree murder, child endangerment, and being a felon in possession of a firearm in People v. Flores, case no. BLF1100204, Judge Richard A. Erwood, presiding. 2 RT 473-475.2 The jury found true the allegation that Flores personally used a firearm in committing murder. 2 RT 473. On December 6, 2013, Judge Erwood sentenced Flores to 75 years to life (25 years to life for the murder, doubled as a second strike, plus 25 years to life for the firearm enhancement) on count 1 (murder), plus a term of 19 1 Although W.J. Sullivan is named as Respondent in the Ninth Circuit's memorandum opinion affirming the judgment, the website for the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation indicates that Flores is currently held in State custody at the California Correctional Institution in Tehachapi, California, and that Brian Cates is the Warden of that facility. See (last visited, January 13, 2022). Accordingly, Flores names Cates as Respondent in this Petition rather than Sullivan. See Supreme Court Rule 35.3. 2*RT” refers to the reporter’s transcript of trial lodged by Respondent in district court. See district court docket 45, lodgment 2. Unless otherwise noted, all references to “docket” are to the district court’s docket in Flores’s habeas corpus case. il years, 8 months on the child endangerment, felon in possession, and prior serious felony conviction counts, and entered judgment against him. Pet. App. 85-86%; 2 RT 493, 504-507. The California Court of Appeal, Fourth Appellate District, Division Two, per Acting Presiding Justice Art W. McKinster, Justice Jeffrey King, and Justice Douglas P. Miller, affirmed the judgment on appeal in an unpublished opinion filed on September 9, 2015 in People v. Flores, case no. E060209. Pet. App. 77-115; People v. Flores, 2015 WL 5258389. The California Supreme Court denied Flores’s petition for review on December 9, 2015 in People v. Flores, case no. $230023. Pet. App. 76. On March 8, 2017, Flores filed a pro se federal habeas corpus petition in Flores v. Sullivan, C.D. Cal. case no. CV 17-434-VBF (MRW). Pet. App. 48; docket 1. On November 16, 2018, Riverside County Superior Court Judge Bernard Schwartz denied Flores’s habeas corpus petition in In re Jessie James Flores, case no. RIC1717440. Pet. App. 72-75. On February 27, 2019, the California Court of Appeal, Fourth Appellate District, Division Two, per Acting Presiding Justice Michael J. Raphael, 3 “Pet. App.” refers to Petitioner's