In the 2009 case of Lawrence Joseph Jefferson v. Stephen Upton, Warden, Jefferson appealed his death sentence on the grounds that he received ineffective counsel during his trial and sentencing. He claimed that his attorneys failed to present mitigating evidence about his troubled background which could have potentially swayed the jury towards a life sentence instead of capital punishment. The Supreme Court ruled in favor of Upton, stating that even if such evidence had been presented, it would not have changed the outcome due to overwhelming aggravating factors including prior convictions for violent crimes and committing murder while serving a life sentence for another crime. Therefore, they concluded there was no reasonable probability that presenting this additional information would have resulted in a different verdict or sentencing decision by the jury.

In the dissenting opinion for Lawrence Joseph Jefferson v. Stephen Upton, Warden, Justice Scalia argued that the majority's decision to grant habeas corpus relief was incorrect because it failed to defer sufficiently to state court decisions. He contended that under the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (AEDPA), federal courts should only intervene when a state court’s application of clearly established federal law is objectively unreasonable. In this case, he believed that Georgia Supreme Court did not unreasonably apply Strickland v. Washington standard in rejecting Jefferson’s ineffective assistance claim regarding his trial counsel's failure to investigate or present mitigating evidence during sentencing phase of his capital murder trial. Furthermore, he criticized the majority for its reliance on de novo review instead of "doubly deferential" judicial review required by AEDPA and precedent cases like Knowles v Mirzayance and Yarborough v Gentry.