A recent editorial in the Houston Chronicle highlights the case of Texas death-row inmate Milton Mathis, whose IQ of 62 places him well below the threshold for intellectual disability (formerly called "mental retardation"). Mr. Mathis faces execution on June 21, despite the 2002 U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Atkins v. Virginia, which banned the execution of inmates with intellectual disabilities. The Chronicle noted, "If put to death, Milton Mathis would have one of the lowest — if not the lowest - undisputed IQ scores of any Texas inmate sentenced to capital punishment since that ruling took effect." Mathis' lawyers raised this issue in both his state and federal appeals, but the state court rejected the claim, and the federal court denied a stay, not realizing that doing so prevented further litigation in state court. The federal judge later realized her error, but at that point, she lacked jurisdiction to change the ruling. Andrea Keilen, executive director of the Texas Defender Service, said, "What is really troubling is that in this case process has trumped substance. The evidence of mental retardation is compelling, overwhelming, and, because the state courts heard it, the federal courts have not allowed the evidence to be introduced." The Chronicle concluded: "In essence, barring federal intervention or the governor's clemency, Texas will unlawfully and unjustly execute a mentally retarded individual because of legal technicalities and the state's failure to weigh Mathis' clinical condition." Read full editorial below.
The Death Penalty Information Center has released a new report, "
On June 7, a clemency petition was filed with the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles requesting a halt to the July-7 execution of Humberto Leal, a Mexican citizen who was not advised of his consular rights upon arrest for a murder in San Antonio in 1994. The petition was accompanied by letters from 
A recent op-ed in the New York Times by John Thompson (pictured, right) describes his anguish after being wrongly convicted, sentenced to death, and most recently denied financial compensation in Louisiana. He spent 18 years in prison, including 14 on death row, because prosecutors deliberately withheld evidence that could have led to his acquittal. Thompson wrote, “The prosecutors involved in my two cases, from the office of the Orleans Parish district attorney, Harry Connick Sr., helped to cover up 10 separate pieces of evidence. And most of them are still able to practice law today.” He continued, “I don’t care about the money. I just want to know why the prosecutors who hid evidence, sent me to prison for something I didn’t do and nearly had me killed are not in jail themselves. There were no ethics charges against them, no criminal charges, no one was fired and now, according to the Supreme Court, no one can be sued.” 
On April 4, the U.S. Supreme Court reversed the opinions of two lower federal courts that had granted a new sentencing hearing to Scott Pinholster, who is on death row in California. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit had held that Pinholster's attorneys provided inadequate representation in not investigating evidence of severe brain damage. The attorneys should have pursued medical evidence that Pinholster was an epileptic who suffered blows to the head in two car accidents. He was sent to a mental institution at the age of 11. His trial lawyer, however, failed to call a mental health expert to testify about his diminished mental capacity. The Supreme Court, in a 5-4 decision authored by Justice Clarence Thomas, reversed, holding that the lower court did not exhibit sufficient deference to the state court, which upheld the representation Pinholster received. That deference is required by both the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act and by the Court's prior decisions on counsel. The Court concluded that even if Pinholster's attorneys were inadequate, the new evidence would not have made a difference: "There is no reasonable probability that the additional evidence Pinholster presented in his state habeas proceedings would have changed the jury’s verdict."
On March 29, the U.S. Supreme Court reversed (5-4) a judgment of $14 million against the District Attorney's Office of New Orleans for withholding evidence in the case of John Thompson. Thompson had been convicted and sentenced to death but was later exonerated after the withheld evidence, casting serious doubt about his guilt, was revealed through the work of a private investigator. Thompson spent 18 years in prison including 14 years on death row, and faced imminent execution several times. He sued the D.A.'s office for violation of his constitutional rights. However, Justice Clarence Thomas, writing for the majority, held that Thompson did not prove that the entire district attorney’s office was responsible for the individual prosecutors' negligence. "[T]he only issue before us is whether [D.A.] Connick, as the policymaker for the district attorney’s office, was deliberately indifferent to the need to train the attorneys under his authority," Thomas wrote. The Court held that a district attorney’s office cannot be held responsible for failure to train its prosecutors based on a single violation of the standards requiring them to turn over to the defense any evidence that would cast doubts on the defendant’s guilt or sentence. (Brady v. Maryland).
On March 21, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear an appeal from death-row inmate Cory Maples (pictured), who is facing execution because of a missed filing deadline in his state appeal. Copies of an Alabama court ruling in his case were sent to the New York law firm handling his appeals pro bono but were returned unopened to the court because the attorneys representing Maples had left the firm. Maples himself was not informed of the Alabama ruling or the fact that his attorneys had left. By the time the mailroom mix-up was discovered, Maples’s time to appeal had expired. Gregory Garre, Maples' new attorney, is arguing that Maples should not be penalized for missing the deadline because Maples was blameless, the government’s actions were a contributing factor, and his lawyers had effectively stopped representing him. The state maintains that Maples should be denied a hearing because his case is no different from “countless attorneys [who] have missed filing deadlines over the years.” A third attorney, who was acting as local counsel in Alabama but who played no part in Maples' actual representation, did receive the Alabama ruling but ignored it. The case is Maples v. Thomas, No. 10-63.