On May 12, the U.S. Supreme Court granted certiorari in Bell v. Kelly, No. 07-1223, where the petitioner challenged a lower court’s dismissal of his claim of ineffectiveness of counsel. Edward Nathaniel Bell stated that his trial lawyers presented no mitigating evidence on his behalf at his sentencing hearing, despite the existence of many sympathetic facts that might have led a jury to vote for a life sentence. The state court presented with this claim did not hold a hearing on whether Bell was put at a disadvantage because of his lawyers’ failures. When the case reached the federal courts through a habeas corpus petition, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit believed it was bound by the state court’s finding of no prejudice to Bell, even though this issue had not been developed in the state court. The U.S. Supreme Court will decide whether the 4th Circuit was correct in using this highly deferrential standard.Bell

had been scheduled for execution on April 8, 2008 in Virginia. Gov. Tim Kaine granted a reprieve while the U.S. Supreme Court resolved a challenge to lethal injections that could affect Virginia executions. The Court decided the lethal injection case, Baze v. Rees, on April 16, 2008. The governor’s reprieve lasted until July 24, which became the new execution date for Bell. Now that he has an issue before the Supreme Court that is independent of the lethal injection issue, he has received a stay until the case is decided in the Court’s next term.

The formal issue upon which the Supreme Court granted certiorari was:

Did the Fourth Circuit err when, in conflict with decisions of the Ninth and Tenth Circuits, it applied the deferential standard of 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d), which is reserved for claims “adjudicated on the merits” in state court, to evaluate a claim predicated on evidence of prejudice the state court refused to consider and that was properly received for the first time in a federal evidentiary hearing?

Posted May 12, 2008. 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d) is part of a law known as the Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996. See Supreme Court and Representation.