[Deathpenalty] death penalty news-----USA

[Rick Halperin]

May 14



USA:

Court ruling hinders death row appeals


The US Supreme Court on Monday made it more difficult for death row
prisoners to challenge their sentences, as 2 new conservative justices
appointed by President George W. Bush made clear their hostility to such
challenges.

The recent addition of the 2 new Bush appointees, chief justice John
Roberts and justice Samuel Alito, may have substantially shifted the
balance of power on the court on death penalty issues, experts said.

Before their appointment, the court had done much to chip away at the
edifice of the death penalty, by insisting on improvements in legal
representation for capital defendants and ruling unconstitutional the
application of capital punishment to juveniles and the mentally retarded.

At the same time, the US public has been demonstrating growing unease
about the way prisoners are executed in many states  and the possibility
that some might be innocent.

A nationwide Gallup poll last year showed a significant drop in public
support for the death penalty: it showed Americans evenly divided over the
best punishment for murder, death or a life sentence without parole, after
many years in which capital punishment was strongly preferred. Executions
last year fell to their lowest level in a decade.

The 5-4 ruling split the court into conservative and liberal camps, and
appears to signal that the Supreme Court is no longer going to insist so
aggressively that capital defendants  most of whom do not have the money
to pay a top-class lawyer  get a competent defence.

Monday's case tested the duty of defence attorneys to find mitigating
evidence that could persuade a jury to spare a capital defendant's life.
The court ruled that a man, who refused to let his lawyer present
mitigating evidence from certain witnesses, did not have the right to
challenge his sentence on the grounds that his lawyer did not do a good
enough job defending him.

The prisoner claimed that he did not have effective assistance of counsel,
as required by the US constitution, because his lawyer did not, among
other things, uncover evidence that he had a serious brain disorder.

Justice Clarence Thomas, writing for the majority, said the man did not
deserve a new hearing because he "would have undermined the presentation
of any mitigating evidence that his attorney might have uncovered".

The court's 4 liberal members issued a stinging dissent: "The court's
decision rests on a parsimonious appraisal of a capital defendant's
constitutional right to have the sentencing decision reflect meaningful
consideration of all relevant mitigating evidence," Justice John Paul
Stevens wrote for the dissenters. He said a psychological evaluation of
the man "would have uncovered...a serious organic brain disorder".

(source: The Financial Times)