PRESS CONFERENCE TO MARK 20 YEARS OF LETHAL INJECTION EXECUTIONS

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Tuesday, December 10, 2002 CONTACT: RANDY TATEL
(615) 329-0048

U.S. SUPREME COURT DISMISSES ABDUR'RAHMAN'S APPEAL

Merit's of Case Ironically Not an Issue on International Human Rights Day

December 10, 2002 - The U.S. Supreme Court announced today that it is dismissing the case of AbduríRahman v. Bell. Justice John Paul Stevens disagreed with the dismissal saying that "despite any procedural problems with the case, it raised important issues the court should address." During arguments on November 6th some justices questioned whether the case was properly appealed to the high court.

"Anyone who heard the caseís arguments understood that there were highly technical issues involved," said Randy Tatel, executive director of the Tennessee Coalition to Abolish State Killing. "With the justices using phrases such as ëprocedural problemsí and ëproperly appealedí it is most likely that the case was dismissed based on technical issues."

"The merits of the appeal are not at issue here," commented Tatel. "Abdur'Rahman still failed to receive either a fair trial or sentencing hearing. The district attorney still withheld evidence from the defense, the court and the jury and Abdur'Rahman still did not receive adequate and effective defense counsel during either the trial or the sentencing hearing."

"The U.S. Constitution does not only guarantee a lawyer to a person on trial for a felony offense. It also guarantees an effective lawyer," Tatel continued. "The fact remains that in Tennessee the death sentence was overturned in 19 cases because of ineffective assistance of counsel -- and, Abu-Ali's is the only case where the courts found that the lawyers' performance was deficient but reinstated the death sentence despite that fact. That's the issue."

In overturning Abdur'Rahman's sentence, federal judge Todd Campbell wrote: "A sentence of death must be imposed in accordance with the Constitution, and this one was not. This is not a case where counsel presented the jury with most of the mitigation evidence and merely missed some evidence. This is not an instance of harmless error. Despite an abundance of mitigating evidence, there was virtually a complete failure by counsel to present a defense to the jury at sentencing."

According to the Columbia University study A Broken System: Error Rates in Capital Cases, 1973-1995, 75% of those sentencing errors resulted from ineffective (often "egregious") assistance of counsel.

"Obviously no one has read the court's ruling yet. We will have to wait and see what steps Abu-Ali's lawyers take to address the technical issues referenced by the judges so that the merits of the appeal can actually be considered. I'd hate to think weíd execute someone in Tennessee because of a technicality. That would be particularly ironic given this ruling came down on International Human Rights Day," concluded Tatel. # # # Return to Press Releases