On January 18, the U.S. Supreme Court (7-2) ordered a new hearing in federal court for Cory Maples, an Alabama death row inmate whose state and federal appeals had been rejected by lower courts because his lawyers quit and missed a critical filing deadline. Writing for six of the Court’s Justices, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg highlighted the poor quality of representation offered by the state in death penalty cases. The opinion stated, “Alabama sets low eligibility requirements for lawyers appointed to represent indigent capital defendants at trial…. Appointed counsel need only be a member of the Alabama bar and have ‘five years’ prior experience in the active practice of criminal law.’ Experience with capital cases is not required.” Justice Ginsburg also noted that Alabama is nearly alone in not guaranteeing representation in post-conviction proceedings, electing instead “to rely on the efforts of well-funded [out-of-state] volunteers.” Finally, the opinion emphasized that appointed counsel in death penalty cases are severely under compensated by the state: “Although death penalty litigation is plainly time intensive, the State capped at $1,000 fees recoverable by capital defense attorneys for out-of- court work. Even today, court-appointed attorneys receive only $70 per hour.” The Court finally noted that "On occasion, some prisoners sentenced to death receive no postconviction representation at all." Maples's underlying claim, which he was prevented from appealing because his absent lawyers missed the deadline, was that he received ineffective representation at trial. Neither of his trial counsel had ever tried the penalty phase of a capital case.
On January 18, the U.S. Supreme Court (7-2) ordered a new hearing in federal court for Cory Maples, an Alabama death row inmate whose state and federal appeals had been rejected by lower courts because his lawyers quit and missed a critical filing deadline. Copies of an Alabama court ruling in Maples’s case were sent to a volunteer New York law firm handling his appeals but were unopened by the mailroom and returned to the state court because the attorneys representing Maples had left the firm. Justice Samuel Alito, concurring in the Court's opinion, wrote that the circumstances surrounding this case created a “veritable perfect storm of misfortune.” On behalf of the majority, Justice Ruth Ginsburg wrote, “Maples was disarmed by extraordinary circumstances quite beyond his control. He has shown ample cause, we hold, to excuse the procedural default into which he was trapped when counsel of record abandoned him without a word of warning.”
Some Georgia death row inmates may soon be without representation for their appeals, potentially delaying the entire death penalty process. The Georgia Bar Foundation has traditionally provided funds to the Georgia Appellate Practice and Educational Resource Center, a twelve-person non-profit organization that represents or assists most of the 90 inmates on Georgia’s death row. Because of the economic downturn, the Foundation’s collections have declined in recent years and their grant to the Resource Center dropped to zero this year. The state legislature has also been providing funds to the Center annually, but the recent budget crisis has forced it to cut funding by more than $200,000. Rob Remar, chairman of the Resource Center’s board, said, “If the Resource Center loses more employees, it will have to take fewer cases, and there will be some inmates who are unrepresented. The likely outcome is that the system will grind to a halt for those people who don’t have lawyers.” State Rep. Jay Powell, a Republican from Camilla, who heads a key House budget subcommittee, agreed: “My feeling is we can be penny wise or pound foolish, because if we don’t pay enough on the front end, we’ll pay more in the back end. If appeals aren’t properly handled, the cases drag on.”
On January 3, attorneys for Robert Gattis (pictured) filed a clemency petition with the Delaware Board of Pardons, requesting they recommend commuting his death sentence to life without parole. Gattis is scheduled for execution on January 20. According to the petition, details of frequent sexual, physical and psychological abuse occuring during Gattis's childhood were never presented to the jury or the judge at the time of his sentencing. As a pre-school child and through adolescence, Gattis was the victim of repeated rapes and molestations by multiple perpetrators, including both male and female family members. John Deckers, an attorney for Gattis said, “The kind of sexual, physical and psychological abuse that Mr. Gattis suffered is precisely the kind of information that a sentencing judge and jury should know when deciding whether to sentence someone to life or death, but Mr. Gattis's sentencing judge and jury never knew this information. They did not have an accurate picture of Mr. Gattis or the crime, and clemency is the mechanism that allows the Governor to correct such mistakes in the legal system.” A pardons-board recommendation for clemency is necessary for Governor Jack Markell to commute the sentence. Gattis was sentenced to death in 1992 for killing his former girlfriend.
Two former Supreme Court Justices in Kentucky and the President of the American Bar Association called for a suspension of executions in the state until its death penalty system is reformed. Writing in the Louisville Courier-Journal, the Justices stated, "The list of problematic cases is staggering, and review of the system is deeply troubling. Fairness, impartiality and effectiveness of counsel have been undermined by serious flaws that reveal systemic problems in administration of the death penalty in the commonwealth." Citing findings from a recent study conducted by the ABA, former Justices James Keller (pictured) and Martin Johnstone, along with William Robinson, President of the ABA, noted that since 1976, when the death penalty was reinstated, 50 of the 78 people who have been sentenced to death have had their sentence or conviction overturned due to misconduct or serious errors that occurred during their trial. The writers said, “In Kentucky, we cannot be certain that our death penalty system is fair and accurate. Our Death Penalty Assessment Team of lawyers, judges, bar leaders and legal experts conducted an exhaustive, two-year review of the death penalty system and identified a host of problems at various stages of the capital process, many of which increase the risk of executing the innocent. The problems affect not only those possibly facing execution, but also victims of crime.” Read full op-ed below.
On December 7, the American Bar Association released a report assessing Kentucky's system of captial punishment and calling for a halt to executions in the state. The report was prepared by the Kentucky Assessment Team on the Death Penalty, which included law professors, former state supreme court justices, and practicing attorneys. The two-year study recommended that the state temporarily suspend executions until serious issues of fairness and accuracy are addressed. The review reported that courts have found an error rate of more than 60 percent in the trials of those who had been sentenced to death. The review also found that at least 10 of the 78 defendants sentenced to death were represented by attorneys who were subsequently disbarred. Among the problems identified by the Assessment Team were the absence of statewide standards governing the qualifications and training for attorneys in capital cases, and uniform standards on eyewitness identifications and interrogations. Many of Kentucky's largest law enforcement agencies do not fully adhere to best practices to guard against false eyewitness identifications and false confessions, two of the leading causes of wrongful convictions nationwide. Linda Ewald, a law professor at the University of Louisville who co-chaired the assessment team, said, “We came in to this with no real idea of what we would find. But at the close of our two-year deliberations, we were left with no option but to recommend that the Commonwealth halt executions until the problems we identified are remedied. This report is really about the administration of justice in Kentucky.”
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On January 18, the U.S. Supreme Court (7-2) ordered a new hearing in federal court for Cory Maples, an Alabama death row inmate whose state and federal appeals had been rejected by lower courts because his lawyers quit and missed a critical filing deadline. Writing for six of the Court’s Justices, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg highlighted the poor quality of representation offered by the state in death penalty cases. The opinion stated, “Alabama sets low eligibility requirements for lawyers appointed to represent indigent capital defendants at trial…. Appointed counsel need only be a member of the Alabama bar and have ‘five years’ prior experience in the active practice of criminal law.’ Experience with capital cases is not required.” Justice Ginsburg also noted that Alabama is nearly alone in not guaranteeing representation in post-conviction proceedings, electing instead “to rely on the efforts of well-funded [out-of-state] volunteers.” Finally, the opinion emphasized that appointed counsel in death penalty cases are severely under compensated by the state: “Although death penalty litigation is plainly time intensive, the State capped at $1,000 fees recoverable by capital defense attorneys for out-of- court work. Even today, court-appointed attorneys receive only $70 per hour.” The Court finally noted that "On occasion, some prisoners sentenced to death receive no postconviction representation at all." Maples's underlying claim, which he was prevented from appealing because his absent lawyers missed the deadline, was that he received ineffective representation at trial. Neither of his trial counsel had ever tried the penalty phase of a capital case.
Some Georgia death row inmates may soon be without representation for their appeals, potentially delaying the entire death penalty process. The Georgia Bar Foundation has traditionally provided funds to the Georgia Appellate Practice and Educational Resource Center, a twelve-person non-profit organization that represents or assists most of the 90 inmates on Georgia’s death row. Because of the economic downturn, the Foundation’s collections have declined in recent years and their grant to the Resource Center dropped to zero this year. The state legislature has also been providing funds to the Center annually, but the recent budget crisis has forced it to cut funding by more than $200,000. Rob Remar, chairman of the Resource Center’s board, said, “If the Resource Center loses more employees, it will have to take fewer cases, and there will be some inmates who are unrepresented. The likely outcome is that the system will grind to a halt for those people who don’t have lawyers.” State Rep. Jay Powell, a Republican from Camilla, who heads a key House budget subcommittee, agreed: “My feeling is we can be penny wise or pound foolish, because if we don’t pay enough on the front end, we’ll pay more in the back end. If appeals aren’t properly handled, the cases drag on.”
On January 3, attorneys for Robert Gattis (pictured) filed a clemency petition with the Delaware Board of Pardons, requesting they recommend commuting his death sentence to life without parole. Gattis is scheduled for execution on January 20. According to the petition, details of frequent sexual, physical and psychological abuse occuring during Gattis's childhood were never presented to the jury or the judge at the time of his sentencing. As a pre-school child and through adolescence, Gattis was the victim of repeated rapes and molestations by multiple perpetrators, including both male and female family members. John Deckers, an attorney for Gattis said, “The kind of sexual, physical and psychological abuse that Mr. Gattis suffered is precisely the kind of information that a sentencing judge and jury should know when deciding whether to sentence someone to life or death, but Mr. Gattis's sentencing judge and jury never knew this information. They did not have an accurate picture of Mr. Gattis or the crime, and clemency is the mechanism that allows the Governor to correct such mistakes in the legal system.” A pardons-board recommendation for clemency is necessary for Governor Jack Markell to commute the sentence. Gattis was sentenced to death in 1992 for killing his former girlfriend.
Two former Supreme Court Justices in Kentucky and the President of the American Bar Association called for a suspension of executions in the state until its death penalty system is reformed. Writing in the Louisville Courier-Journal, the Justices stated, "The list of problematic cases is staggering, and review of the system is deeply troubling. Fairness, impartiality and effectiveness of counsel have been undermined by serious flaws that reveal systemic problems in administration of the death penalty in the commonwealth." Citing findings from a recent study conducted by the ABA, former Justices James Keller (pictured) and Martin Johnstone, along with William Robinson, President of the ABA, noted that since 1976, when the death penalty was reinstated, 50 of the 78 people who have been sentenced to death have had their sentence or conviction overturned due to misconduct or serious errors that occurred during their trial. The writers said, “In Kentucky, we cannot be certain that our death penalty system is fair and accurate. Our Death Penalty Assessment Team of lawyers, judges, bar leaders and legal experts conducted an exhaustive, two-year review of the death penalty system and identified a host of problems at various stages of the capital process, many of which increase the risk of executing the innocent. The problems affect not only those possibly facing execution, but also victims of crime.” Read full op-ed below.
On December 7, the American Bar Association released a report assessing Kentucky's system of captial punishment and calling for a halt to executions in the state. The report was prepared by the Kentucky Assessment Team on the Death Penalty, which included law professors, former state supreme court justices, and practicing attorneys. The two-year study recommended that the state temporarily suspend executions until serious issues of fairness and accuracy are addressed. The review reported that courts have found an error rate of more than 60 percent in the trials of those who had been sentenced to death. The review also found that at least 10 of the 78 defendants sentenced to death were represented by attorneys who were subsequently disbarred. Among the problems identified by the Assessment Team were the absence of statewide standards governing the qualifications and training for attorneys in capital cases, and uniform standards on eyewitness identifications and interrogations. Many of Kentucky's largest law enforcement agencies do not fully adhere to best practices to guard against false eyewitness identifications and false confessions, two of the leading causes of wrongful convictions nationwide. Linda Ewald, a law professor at the University of Louisville who co-chaired the assessment team, said, “We came in to this with no real idea of what we would find. But at the close of our two-year deliberations, we were left with no option but to recommend that the Commonwealth halt executions until the problems we identified are remedied. This report is really about the administration of justice in Kentucky.”
