DISCLAIMER: Any unofficial case summaries below are prepared by the clerk's office
as a courtesy to the reader. They are not part of the opinion of the court.
153160P.pdf 11/28/2018 Keith Nelson v. United States
U.S. Court of Appeals Case No: 15-3160
U.S. District Court for the Western District of Missouri - Kansas City
[PUBLISHED] [Smith, Author, with Wollman and Colloton, Circuit Judges]
Prisoner case - Habeas - Federal death penalty. For the court's opinion on
Nelson's direct appeal, see U.S. v. Nelson, 347 F.3d 701 (8th Cir. 2003).
For the court's prior opinion in Nelson's habeas, see Nelson v. United
States, 297 F. App'x 563 (8th Cir. 2008). On Nelson's claims of
ineffective assistance of counsel, held: (1) the jury heard substantial
mitigating evidence and there was no reasonable probability that the
outcome of its deliberations on the death sentence would have been any
different if the evidence produced at the habeas evidentiary hearing had
been introduced during the penalty phase of the case, and the district
court did not err in denying Nelson's ineffective assistance of counsel
claims concerning failure to conduct an adequate mitigation investigation,
failure to adequately investigate his mental health and failure to advise
or instruct Nelson to decline to submit to a mental health exam by a
government examiner; and (2) Nelson's claim that trial counsel was
ineffective for advising him to plead guilty is not of the same time and
type as the other ineffective assistance of counsel claims in his original
petition and does not relate back to his original Section 2255 motion.