It is altogether clear, however, that the jury that sentenced Mr. Wiggins to die never heard any of the material. What did jurors miss? As Justice Sandra Day O'Connor summarized it for the court, Mr. Wiggins's mother, "a chronic alcoholic, frequently left Wiggins and his siblings home alone for days, forcing them to beg for food and to eat paint chips and garbage." She beat him frequently until he was removed from the family at age 6 and once "forced [his] hand against a hot stove burner." After he was placed in foster care, his "first and second foster mothers abused him physically" and "the father in his second foster home repeatedly molested and raped him." He is borderline mentally retarded. There's more, but you get the idea. "The mitigating evidence counsel failed to discover and present in this case is powerful," Justice O'Connor wrote. The lawyers' failure to pursue it "did not reflect reasonable professional judgment." Had they done their job, it is reasonably likely that the jury would not have imposed death.

The case marks a welcome change from the court's unfortunate tendency in recent years to lapse into apologetics for inadequate defense lawyering. Clear incompetence has been excused as reasonable trial tactics, and gross negligence as harmless error -- all to the detriment of defendants who are entitled by the Sixth Amendment "to have the assistance of counsel." This right means nothing if the courts do not insist that counsel go to the trouble of actually presenting a defense.