March 30
LOUISIANA:
US top court to hear execution case of mentally disabled man
The US Supreme Court will on Monday consider whether a man deemed mentally
handicapped should be sentenced to death.
In a 2002 decision -- "Atkins versus Virginia" -- the Supreme Court forbade the
execution of people with intellectual disabilities.
Then, the court found that such an execution would amount to the "cruel and
unusual punishment" banned by the US Constitution's Eighth Amendment.
But it left it up to individual US states to determine what constitutes a
mental handicap.
The case the top court is to hear Monday involves Kevan Brumfield, who was
sentenced to death by a state court for killing a police officer in Baton
Rouge, Louisiana in 1993.
Though the issue of the suspect's mental capacity did come up at trial, the law
did not prohibit mentally disabled people to be sentenced to death at the time.
After the Supreme Court's ruling in 2002, Brumfield's lawyers argued he should
be spared death due to intellectual disability.
He appealed for a hearing and funding to conduct an intelligence assessment,
but the Louisiana state court denied his request, saying Brumfield's IQ was 75
and therefore he was not considered mentally disabled.
An IQ of lower than 70 is considered an intellectual disability, according to
the Supreme Court's 2002 decision.
But a US federal court later approved the intelligence assessment and concluded
that Brumfield was in fact intellectually handicapped and therefore ineligible
for execution.
The New Orleans Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, then ruled that the state's
original sentence should be upheld and that Brumfield should remain on death
row.
Capital punishment sentences normally fall under the purvey of state law, and
this case could determine whether the federal courts can block a state's death
sentence if the punishment is considered "unreasonable."
"If the state court does not give adequate process by denying hearing and
funding, you've been unreasonable and you're not entitled to deference," said
one of Brumfield's lawyers, Amir Ali.
If the Supreme Court rules that a federal court cannot overturn a state court's
sentence, it would be a historic decision.
Another lawyer for Brumfield said he should be spared death on the grounds that
the top court's 2002 ruling that mentally impaired people should not be
executed.
"We know something very important today, Kevan is not eligible to be executed,"
insisted Nicholas Trenticosta.
Rob Dunham, the director of the Death Penalty Information Center, agrees that
Brumfield's sentence is not in line with modern law.
"As death sentences and executions decline across the country, it is
increasingly important that older cases such as Mr Brumfield's be reviewed with
the increased scrutiny demanded today," Dunham said.
In January, a convicted rapist and killer with an IQ of 67 was executed in the
state of Texas, after an appeal to the US Supreme Court to stay the death
sentence was rejected.
Earlier that month, the US state of Georgia executed convicted killer Warren
Hill, whose lawyer had argued he was intellectually disabled with an IQ of 70.
The European Union, lawyers, doctors and former US president Jimmy Carter had
called for mercy for Hill.
(source: Daily Mail)
USA:
The Volokh Conspiracy----The Sixth Circuit reversed yet again in a habeas case
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit has developed a reputation as
the "new Ninth." Over the past several years, the Sixth Circuit has been
reversed in an extraordinary number of cases. At one point, the Sixth Circuit
had been reversed in over 20 consecutive cases in which cert had been granted.
A substantial percentage of the Sixth Circuit's reversals have come in the
criminal justice context. Habeas cases, in which criminal defendants seek to
challenge state court convictions or sentences in federal court, have been
particularly likely to catch the Supreme Court's attention. The Sixth Circuit -
or, more likely, a substantial portion of the circuit's judges - is out-of-step
with the Supreme Court's current majority.
This morning the trend continued as the Supreme Court released a unanimous per
curiam opinion in Woods v. Donald, reversing a Sixth Circuit grant of a habeas
petition. At issue here, as in many such cases, was whether the state court
conviction was "contrary to, or involved an unreasonable application of,
clearly established Federal law," as determined by the Supreme Court. This is
the standard imposed by the Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act
(AEDPA).
Without reaching the merits of the underlying issue - whether a criminal
defendant is denied effective assistanceo f counsel because his attorney was
"briefly absent" from the courtroom during testimony concerning other
defendants - the Court unanimously concluded that because no prior Supreme
Court opinion had so held, there was no basis for awarding habeas relief in
this case. And so, the Sixth Circuit was reversed yet again.
(source: Commentary--Jonathan H. Adler teaches courses in constitutional,
administrative, and environmental law at the Case Western University School of
Law, where he is the inaugural Johan Verheij Memorial Professor of Law and
Director of the Center for Business Law and Regulation; Washington Post)
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