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For all of those interested in death penalty jurisprudence, keep an eye on Bell v. Thompson.
Quick summary of fact scenario: Gregory Thompson, a diagnosed schizophrenic, murdered a 29 year old newlywed named Brenda Lane. A jury sentenced him to death. Thompson's lawyers filed a federal habeas corpus petition. The District Court refused to vacate the sentence, and the Circuit Court upheld that refusal.
At issue in the habeas proceeding was whether or not Thompson's attorneys had been negligent in not presenting evidence of his mental state at the time of the murder. The District and Circuit courts found that they had not been, and the Supreme Court declined to hear the case. Thompson was scheduled for execution on August 19, 2004. In June, his attorneys filed a motion claiming he was incompetent to be executed (you can't execute insane people).
Go back to the Circuit court. They are now reviewing the evidence on this second claim. An intern for one of the judges finds a deposition in the original trial from a clinical psychologist that was extremely probative of Thompson's mental state at the time of the crime. The deposition was not included in the materials sent from the District court, so presumably had not been reviewed by the District Court. The intern -- who was a licensed psychiatrist --- took this to his Circuit court judge, who reversed his opinion in the underlying case, thus sending it back to the District Court.
The State of Tennessee is fighting this on the grounds that the mandate, which officially closes the case, should have been issued shortly after their decision in the first case by the Circuit Court and so they are precluded from now sending it back to the District Court for review. This matters because the Supreme Court has ruled that a Circuit Court can not revoke its mandate for disposition of a case except "to prevent a miscarriage of justice" -- and the hurdles to proving that are high.
So to boil it down, the state is urging relevant evidence not be looked at, and that the execution be allowed to proceed, on a "technicality" -- the sort of thing that "strong on crime" sorts are always screaming about when they result in the release of suspected criminals because the police have violated their constitutional rights. Ah, I love the smell of hypocrisy in the morning...
This sort of thing is one of the most compelling reasons I can think of for outlawing the death penalty: it is too capricious. What happens if the District Court has the information from the deposition in its original review? Or, for that matter, what if some other clerk -- who was not a psychiatrist -- reviews the case and misses the deposition?
Not to mention that, Scott Petersen aside, whether or not you get the death penalty can depend, in some jurisdictions, upon how good the attorneys you can afford are. Not to mention that the same crime will get you executed in Texas but not in Michigan. Not to mention all the men (I believe the number stands at around a hundred) who have been released from death row because of DNA evidence. (God bless Barry Scheck and the Innocence Project.)
Justice that can treat defendants who do the same crime so differently from each other is no justice at all.
Quick summary of fact scenario: Gregory Thompson, a diagnosed schizophrenic, murdered a 29 year old newlywed named Brenda Lane. A jury sentenced him to death. Thompson's lawyers filed a federal habeas corpus petition. The District Court refused to vacate the sentence, and the Circuit Court upheld that refusal.
At issue in the habeas proceeding was whether or not Thompson's attorneys had been negligent in not presenting evidence of his mental state at the time of the murder. The District and Circuit courts found that they had not been, and the Supreme Court declined to hear the case. Thompson was scheduled for execution on August 19, 2004. In June, his attorneys filed a motion claiming he was incompetent to be executed (you can't execute insane people).
Go back to the Circuit court. They are now reviewing the evidence on this second claim. An intern for one of the judges finds a deposition in the original trial from a clinical psychologist that was extremely probative of Thompson's mental state at the time of the crime. The deposition was not included in the materials sent from the District court, so presumably had not been reviewed by the District Court. The intern -- who was a licensed psychiatrist --- took this to his Circuit court judge, who reversed his opinion in the underlying case, thus sending it back to the District Court.
The State of Tennessee is fighting this on the grounds that the mandate, which officially closes the case, should have been issued shortly after their decision in the first case by the Circuit Court and so they are precluded from now sending it back to the District Court for review. This matters because the Supreme Court has ruled that a Circuit Court can not revoke its mandate for disposition of a case except "to prevent a miscarriage of justice" -- and the hurdles to proving that are high.
So to boil it down, the state is urging relevant evidence not be looked at, and that the execution be allowed to proceed, on a "technicality" -- the sort of thing that "strong on crime" sorts are always screaming about when they result in the release of suspected criminals because the police have violated their constitutional rights. Ah, I love the smell of hypocrisy in the morning...
This sort of thing is one of the most compelling reasons I can think of for outlawing the death penalty: it is too capricious. What happens if the District Court has the information from the deposition in its original review? Or, for that matter, what if some other clerk -- who was not a psychiatrist -- reviews the case and misses the deposition?
Not to mention that, Scott Petersen aside, whether or not you get the death penalty can depend, in some jurisdictions, upon how good the attorneys you can afford are. Not to mention that the same crime will get you executed in Texas but not in Michigan. Not to mention all the men (I believe the number stands at around a hundred) who have been released from death row because of DNA evidence. (God bless Barry Scheck and the Innocence Project.)
Justice that can treat defendants who do the same crime so differently from each other is no justice at all.
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