In the 1994 case In re Fred Whitaker, the United States Supreme Court dealt with a habeas corpus petition. Whitaker was convicted of murder and sentenced to death in Texas state court. He appealed his conviction on several grounds, including ineffective assistance of counsel during both the guilt/innocence and punishment phases of his trial. The federal district court denied relief but granted a certificate of probable cause for appeal. The Fifth Circuit affirmed this decision, rejecting all claims raised by Whitaker except one: whether he received ineffective assistance at sentencing due to his attorney's failure to investigate and present mitigating evidence about his background and character. However, it ultimately concluded that even if there had been deficient performance by counsel, there was no reasonable probability that the outcome would have been different given the overwhelming aggravating evidence presented at trial.

The dissenting opinion in the case of In re Fred Whitaker, 1994, argued that the majority's decision to deny Whitaker habeas corpus relief was incorrect. The dissent believed that there were significant issues with how his trial had been conducted and these errors warranted a new trial. Specifically, they pointed out problems with jury instructions regarding reasonable doubt which could have led jurors to convict on less than constitutionally required certainty. They also highlighted concerns about ineffective assistance of counsel due to failure in challenging potentially biased jurors during voir dire process and not objecting improper prosecutorial comments during closing arguments. Furthermore, they disagreed with the majority’s view on harmless error analysis applied by state court for these constitutional violations as it did not meet federal standard under Brecht v.Abrahamson test for determining whether an error is harmful or harmless. Thus, according to them denying relief without properly considering these factors undermined fairness and integrity of judicial proceedings.