Category Archives: death penalty

Van Poyck: FL’s bizarre death penalty farce continues

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Van Poyck, the poster child for the batshit insane death penalty doings in Florida is one step closer to a June 12 execution, armed with attorneys that don’t know or have time for his case. Last time we checked in, lawyers had filed an emergency appeal with the Florida Supreme Court on Friday, May 17, arguing that they had neither the time, nor the knowledge, nor the expertise to represent Van Poyck in this expedited timeframe. The Florida Supreme Court was expected to rule late Friday.

It didn’t. It waited all weekend to rule late Monday. In what the Palm Beach Post calls “a deeply divided” ruling, the Court said – 4-3 naturally – that the execution would remain on track, although the deadlines for various filings were extended by a day here or there. The majority wrote a two page opinion stating:

“We deny the request for a stay of Mr. Van Poyck’s execution,” Justices Ricky Polston, R. Fred Lewis, Charles Canady and Jorge Labarga wrote in a terse two-page ruling. “Noticeably absent from these recent (court) filings is any substantive reason for granting a stay.”

I’ll give you a substantive reason: the Fifth and Sixth Amendments. But in their bloodlust and desire for finality, due process and the right to counsel are mere obstacles on what must be an ever shortening path.

This obsession with finality and speedy finality has always troubled me. Especially in cases where the sentence is irreversible, like death. It is often said by those with the taste of blood in their mouth that delay is a tactic used by the defense and every day the client spends alive is a victory. I found that argument most curious: for one, I’d rather be on the side that regards the extension of another individual’s life for even a day as a good thing and second, I’d rather be on the side that ensures that we proceed cautiously, carefully and certainly.

In an apparent effort to accommodate the three attorneys, the high court extended the deadlines of when they must file various appeals.

Instead of this Wednesday, Burton has until May 29 to rule on whatever motions are filed. Possible oral arguments before the Florida Supreme Court are scheduled for June 6 instead of June 5. That would leave a week to launch appeals in federal court in hopes of stopping what would be the first execution for a Palm Beach County murder in 21 years.

The justices, however, said they didn’t want to hear from any outsiders. They rejected requests from the 1,700-member Florida Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers and Sandy D’Alemberte to weigh in. On Friday, both the association and D’Alemberte, a former state lawmaker and past president and law school dean of Florida State University, said they wanted to explain problems with the death penalty process that has led to confusion in Van Poyck’s case.

What does it say when an institution (or perhaps institutions if you add Congress) that is designed to serve the people - all people – acts with such hubris and disdain for the voices of those very people? Have our laws become the playground of the present whims of 5 or 7 or 9?

What’s even more puzzling is that the defense attorneys, two of whom have never handled a death penalty appeal before and one who doesn’t know this client from a hole in the wall, asked for merely a 30 day extension. 30 days to ensure that Constitutional representation was provided. And apparently that’s too much. I guess once you have a taste for killing, it’s hard to let go. Isn’t that what they say about defendants? The only difference is that one murder is state sponsored and the other isn’t.

 

Sped up death warrants producing bizarre farce in FL

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There’s something really strange going on in Florida right now. Apart from Gov. Rick Scott’s puzzling failure to sign the ‘Timely Justice Act’ which I’ve excoriated here and here, there’s an absolutely insane set of circumstances playing out in the imminent execution of William Van Poyck.

It seems that, rather than sign the bill, Gov. Scott signed some sped up death warrants for 3 inmates, one of whom is Poyck.(who has a blog). At the time, Van Poyck was represented by an attorney named Gerald Bettman who runs a two-lawyer office in FL, never having represented a death row client. If you’ve been paying attention, you know that the closer the execution gets, the more intense and hurried the work gets. Bettman was totally out of his league, recognized that and then asked the Court to let him out and appoint someone who was experienced in this area. Nope, said the lower court and nope said the Florida Supreme Court. So Van Poyck, facing the last month of his life was saddled with an inexperienced defense attorney who had no clue how to navigate the maze of Florida death penalty appeals work, who didn’t want to do it.

But that was last week. That’s when things started to get really fucking strange. After that ruling, the Florida Supreme Court reversed itself last Friday, stating that Bettman didn’t have to represent Van Poyck, but instead that every lawyer who ever had his name associated with Van Poyck was eligible to be appointed.

In a surprise move, the Florida Supreme Court reversed itself and said Jacksonville attorney Gerald Bettman should not have to represent Van Poyck alone in the high-pressure, high-stakes appeals that lead up to any execution. Possibly, he won’t have to represent him at all.

The high court ordered Palm Beach County Circuit Judge Charles Burton to review the qualifications of more than a dozen lawyers who have filed appeals on Van Poyck’s behalf since he was convicted of killing Glades Correctional Institution guard Fred Griffis in a failed attempt to free a buddy from prison.

The attorneys Burton ordered to attend a hearing on Monday include two of the top death penalty lawyers in the state. It includes out-of-state civil litigators who took on Van Poyck’s cause to win pro bono points and could now find themselves saddled with handling the complex, time-consuming and expensive appeals.

The problem is that half these attorneys don’t know shit about the case; some don’t even practice in Florida. Now these lawyers are on the hook for a mad, choatic, intense and intensely specialized death penalty process? Would you want to be in that position?

But that was last Friday. On Monday, Judge Burton had his hearing and appointed three lawyers to navigate this complex maze. They weren’t happy and had the same thing to say:

In a two-hour long hearing Monday that most involved described as bizarre, Palm Beach County Circuit Judge Charles Burton appointed the three lawyers even though all said they have neither the time, resources nor expertise to represent Van Poyck as the clock ticks toward his scheduled June 12 execution.

…

[Jeffrey Davis, who practices civil appellate law in Milwaukee] and Jacksonville attorney Gerald Bettman were tapped because they have represented Van Poyck, 58, in appeals he has launched since his conviction for the 1987 murder of Glades Correctional Institution prison guard Fred Griffis outside a West Palm Beach doctor’s office.Therefore, Burton said, they have the most knowledge about the case. He appointed Tallahassee attorney Mark Olive to help them navigate the complex appeals that occur after a death warrant is signed.

As one of Florida’s top death-penalty defense attorney, Olive said he has the legal chops but knows nothing about Van Poyck’s case. “It’s just a farce, frankly,” he said.

A Friday deadline, three attorneys who either don’t have the time or the experience or the knowledge required to file appeals. A man who sits on death row. A system that weeps silently.

But. But then came Thursday. On Thursday all three filed separate motions with the Florida Supreme Court stating that they wanted off.

“With a mere four days to prepare Van Poyck’s final pleading, any attempt to mount a viable challenge on behalf of Van Poyck would be a farce,” attorney Jeffrey Davis, a civil litigator from Milwaukee, Wisc., wrote in his motion.  He suggested that the high court delay Van Poyck’s execution for 60 days to give him and other attorneys time to prepare. He asked the court to appoint an attorney who is skilled in death warrant appeals to assist him.

Mark Olive, a Tallahassee attorney who was also appointed Monday, has such expertise. But, in his motion, he said it would be a violation of professional standards to take on Van Poyck’s case on such short notice. Not only would he be unable to mount a thorough investigation of possible appeals but he would have to do so at the expense of other clients. Olive said he would be willing to help Davis represent Van Poyck if he was given more time to prepare.

Another disturbing fact: there was no attorney to represent Van Poyck in his appeals because his first appellate attorney:

was arrested for possession of cocaine, claimed insanity as a defense, disappeared from the case and let his Florida Bar membership lapse.

And all this because we want to “speed up” the appeals process. The Florida Supreme Court apparently hasn’t ruled yet. Stay tuned. This could get worse.

 

The madness of death

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It is never enough to want to kill someone; the desire to murder is always accompanied by the desire to do so quickly and without question. One could liken it to a madness that makes one talk quickly, ranting and foaming at the mouth. While it was ultimately thought that King George suffered from Acute Intermittent Porphyria, it remains to be seen what afflicts the modern day proponents of the death penalty.

How else does one explain the Florida legislature’s passage of a new bill “streamlining” (such a beautiful euphemism: “streamlining”; what do the British call it? “Redundancies”. Such a way with words) the death penalty process. What they really mean is jetlining it. Making it fast. Quicker than quick. No room or time for questions or doubt. Under the bill – “The Timely Justice Act” – deadlines for filing appeals are getting shorter and the time between an affirmance by the Florida Supreme Court and the issuance of an execution warrant has been reduced. Because it isn’t like there have been 24 people exonerated in Florida who were on death row. Because doing it fast is the same as doing it right.

“This is not about a question of innocence, this is about making sure that timely justice is realized,” [Republican Senator Rob] Bradley said.

Bradenton Herald. [More here, here, here and here.] It is not a question of innocence, for innocence is irrelevant. The only dynamic in this game is finality. Once it is done, it must never be spoken of again. For if we speak of it, we must acknowledge that the system doesn’t work. And if the system doesn’t work, maybe we can’t fix it. And if we can’t fix it, maybe we can only get rid of it. But it’s not about innocence. It’s about speed. It’s about victims. It’s not like DNA could tell you if he’s really guilty or not. And even if it did, would you care?

Willie Manning thought you would, but prosecutors in Mississippi didn’t. Manning, who sits on death row, inches away from execution, doesn’t have much direct evidence linking him to the murders.

There is no physical evidence linking Manning to the 1992 murders of two Mississippi State University students. The “jailhouse informant” who once told trial jurors that Manning “confessed” to the crime, has since recanted, telling defense lawyers he thought he would receive “consideration” from prosecutors for incriminating Manning. And Mississippi officials now are refusing to test DNA and fingerprints found at the crime scene — evidence which did not directly incriminate Manning before, has never been tested using modern procedures, and which might definitely resolve the case one way or the other.

But there’s more. The FBI has sent letters in the past days to Manning’s lawyers, disavowing their own “forensic science” that was used to convict Manning. And so today, after just last week denying Manning’s request for a stay 5-4, the Mississippi Supreme Court reversed course and agreed to stay his execution 8-1. Eight-to-One. There was still one. The Madness of Justice Randolph:

The letter also states that the Department of Justice is “assist[ing] [the Innocence Project and the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers] in their evaluations.” “The Innocence Project supports a moratorium on capital punishment.” The “NACDL has been an outspoken critic of the death penalty system. Of critical concern is the language contained in the first FBI report stating that, “[g]iven the abbreviated time frame for review, the FBI requests the Innocence Project (IP) to advise as to whether or not they agree with the FBI’s conclusions as soon as possible.” Although the connectivity and expediency by which this review was accomplished is mind boggling, I should not be surprised, given that the families of the victims of the clandestine “Fast and Furious” gun running operation can’t get the Department of Justice to identify the decision makers (whose actions resulted in the death of a border agent and many others) after years of inquiry, and that this is the same Department of Justice that grants and enforces Miranda warnings to foreign enemy combatants.” [emphasis in original]

The madness is upon him. Manning must be executed because fast and furious Obama and the FBI have juxtaposed the commission of the offenses of felonies in the circumvention of the current regime and the syncopation of the circumstances of the revolution of the conspiracy of the freedom of guns and religion in this Communist extravaganza.

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There’s another form of madness at play here – and that is blame. If there is a fault with the system, that fault lies with the defense; if there is a problem, the problem is too many rights. It seems that the Constitution has become a roadblock on the fastrack to summary justice and execution.

The Florida “Let’s Speed up the Murder Yeehaw!” Bill has the following provision:

Notwithstanding another provision of law, an attorney employed by the state or appointed pursuant to s. 27.711 may not represent a person charged with a capital offense at trial or on direct appeal or a person sentenced to death in a post conviction proceeding if, in two separate instances, a court, in a capital post conviction proceeding, determined that such attorney provided constitutionally deficient representation and relief was granted as a result. This prohibition on representation shall be for a period of 5 years, which commences at the time relief is granted after the highest court having jurisdiction to review the deficient representation determination has issued its final order affirming the second such determination.

and this one:

(2) In a capital postconviction proceeding in which it has been determined that an attorney of record provided constitutionally deficient representation and relief has been granted as a result of such determination, after the highest court having jurisdiction to review such determination has issued its final order affirming the determination, the court making such determination shall furnish a copy of the findings to The Florida Bar for appropriate disciplinary action.

Blame the defendant; blame the lawyer. It’s taking too long. We never make mistakes. There never is a “report the prosecutor; fire the prosecutor” provision. The system cannot make mistakes; the system cannot admit fault. If the lawyer caused a problem, punish the lawyer. Nevermind that the specter of habeas is already a problem in the criminal defense bar with many taking the position that it’s a lawsuit against them personally, causing them to gleefully throw their clients under the bus, thus further compounding the failure of justice.

But can one really blame Florida when its an attitude that permeates from the top? A week or so ago, the United States Supreme Court did the unthinkable. It dismissed as improvidently granted [PDF] Boyer v. Louisiana. What that means is that after deciding to decide the important issue of just who pays when the system can’t pay to prosecute the cases prosecutors initiate, 5 justices of the august court decided that they didn’t want to decide that issue after all. Not because it isn’t an important issue, but because it was the defendant’s fault for raising that issue:

In sum, the record shows that the single largest share of the delay in this case was the direct result of defense requests for continuances, that other defense motions caused substantial additional delay, and that much of the rest of the delay was caused by events beyond anyone’s control. It is also quite clear that the delay caused by the defense likely worked in petitioner’s favor. The state court observed that petitioner’s assertions of his speedy trial right were “more perfunctory than aggressive.” 2010–693, p. 34 (La. App. 3 Cir. 2/2/11), 56 So. 3d 1119, 1143.

…

And as noted, most of this delay was caused by the many defense requests for continuances of   hearings on the issue of funding. If the defense had not sought and obtained those continuances, the trial might well have commenced at a much earlier date—and might have reached a conclusion far less favorable to the defense.

Justice Alito, apparently with a straight face, because he just gone writing that if only the damn defense didn’t raise that issue of the systemic lack of funding for capital defendants, the case wouldn’t have taken 7 years and we’d have had a death sentence already. So it’s the defendant’s fault that his right to a speedy trial was violated, but we’ll never say that because that would mean a new trial. So dismissed. And good luck with the next case, because the money still isn’t there but don’t you dare bring it up again.

Justice apparently need only be speedy when it is racing toward execution. The rest of the time, the system could grind itself to a halt for all anyone cares.

“Only God can judge,” Matt Gaetz, a Republican who sponsored the bill in the House of Representatives, said last week during House debate. “But we sure can set up the meeting.”

Let’s be sure we’re sending the right person to that meeting, first.

Perhaps intelligence committee is a misnomer

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The Constitution of The United States of America is a self-executing document. It does not need permission to grant you your rights, nor does it require a magical incantation to appear and shield you with its protections, as if it were a concoction of a fantasy universe created by a now-very-wealthy female author from England.

But people – many people – with purported intelligence and advanced degrees and those who are presumed to have a basic understanding of these simple facts continue, yet again, to exhibit why we are electing a Congress of fools.

Lawmakers in our nation’s capital – albeit mostly ones with an R next to their name – have made an abrupt about face when it comes to the inviolability of the Constitutional guarantees and have now subjected the rights to a matter of convenience.

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Rogers (R., Mich.) said in an interview Thursday. “We have a long-standing tradition that the judiciary does not interfere with investigations. This sets a very dangerous precedent.”

The “this” that he is referring to, is the story that a Magistrate Judge, on Monday, advised Dzhokhar Tsarnaev of his Privilege Against Self-Incrimination at his arraignment [PDF]. We will get to Mike Rogers, who went on to make even more dangerous comments, in a minute. But first some background.

Apparently, the entire Federal Law Enforcement PolitBuro was “surprised” when a “judge and a US attorney” entered the interrogation room. By then, 16 hours had passed, and any semblance of legitimacy for the use of the “public safety exception” in Quarles. The danger of their “surprise” is that law enforcement expected to be able to “interrogate” Tsarnaev indefinitely/longer/for however long they wanted. Because the Constitution explicitly states that these Rightf are Not Enforceable Until At Leaft 48 Hourf Have Paffed And Thou Art Not A Muflim Terrorift. Wait, no it doesn’t? As my buddy Scott Greenfield writes (linked above):

If this is about the public safety exception, than the government has taken a quantum leap into the temporal abyss. But it’s not clear that this has anything to do with the public safety exception, as it’s hard to imagine anyone arguing with a straight face that they needed five hours, ten, 16, more, to find out whether this 19 year old kid, this kid who had been shot, this kid who (for all he knew) was about to disappear in some black hole the government reserves for terrorists, knew anything about another imminent attack.

Indeed one need only look to this compilation of the changing information of the dangerousness of the two Tsarnaevs to realize that law enforcement’s state goal of “public safety’ was nothing more than an excuse for extraction of information from a U.S. citizen in an extra-judicial manner.

But Rep. Rogers, a former FBI agent, apparently has no such concerns because he’s white not a Muslim.

“What I find shocking is that the judiciary proactively inserted itself into this circumstance and the Justice Department so readily acquiesced to the circumstance,” he said. “The court doing this proactively, they may have jeopardized our ability to get public-safety information.”

A sitting United States Congressman has just stated that the judiciary should not interfere with the administration of law and our rights and that determination of those rights depends entirely on the goodwill of law enforcement agents.

If this were the McCarthy era, or 1984, and I had to give up people I suspected as Communist sympathizers, the first name out of my mouth would be Rep. Mike Rogers of Michigan.

It gets worse.

The revelation about the judge’s role came late Wednesday at a briefing before the House Intelligence Committee. One lawmaker in the meeting asked FBI Deputy Director Sean Joyce why the FBI didn’t raise objections, according to another U.S. official. Mr. Joyce said in essence it wasn’t the FBI’s role to object to such a determination, the official said.

It came as a surprise to the nation’s lawmakers that it was not law enforcement’s role to intercede in the judiciary doing its job. In other words, something as basic and simple as the separation of powers, the administration of justice and due process elude these people who sit on the “Intelligence Committee”.

Let me repeat: the Constitution is self-executing. The rights exist, whether you like them or not, whether you say the magic words or not. The rights enumerated therein do not require the grace and goodwill of lawmakers like Mike Rogers of Michigan to “activate”. Do you want your Constitutional rights to be subject to the permission of Mike Rogers of Michigan?

Let Jon Stewart take it away:

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This month at the Supreme Court: blockbuster session

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not an actual judge

not an actual judge

I’m reviving a series I briefly dabbled in, back in 2008, called ‘This Month‘, which serves to preview the cases assigned for oral argument in the CT Supreme Court in the upcoming month. I may also include cases of special interest in SCOTUS, depending on whether I’m in the mood. I’ve also added a permanent link to this post in the sidebar, alongside the above picture, so you can find it at any time. The link will be updated every month to the most current ‘this month’ post.

The reason for reviving this is this upcoming April term, in which the court is scheduled to hear at least four cases that can have significant and profound impacts on the state of individual rights in Connecticut: State v. Kelly; State v. Brown, Brown v. Commissioner and State v. Santiago, impacting, in turn, the Fourth, Fifth, Sixth and Eighth Amendments.

The following is the listing of criminal cases scheduled for oral argument in the CT Supreme Court by date.

Monday, April 15 @ 10:00am: State v. Richard Annulli. [Briefs available here.] The defendant was charged with several sex related crimes. During the trial, he wanted to cross-examine the complaining witness to show that she was lying by questioning her about another separate instance in which she allegedly lied to the police in order to get someone else arrested. The trial judge, after hearing what that evidence would be, disagreed with the defendant’s characterization that she “lied” and thus did not permit the defendant to question her about that. The Appellate Court affirmed the conviction and the Supreme Court will review whether his Sixth Amendment right to confront one’s accuser was violated by the trial court. There is also a claim that the evidence was insufficient, but that’s going nowhere.

Tuesday, April 16 @ 10:00am: State v. Jeremy Kelly. The link to the left is to a separate post for this case. I don’t often engage in hyperbole but it is my opinion that this is one of the most important cases the CT Supreme Court will have to deal with for a while (except that other case coming up on April 23). This case involves the ability of the police to seize or detain groups of people when they have a reasonable suspicion to stop only one person out of that group. The implications of permitting such an “automatic companion” rule are staggering, especially for policing in minority neighborhoods, given the dubious “stop and frisk” tactics that are already employed there.

Wednesday, April 17 @ 10:00am: State v. Brown. [Briefs available here.] One of the fundamental concepts of the privilege against self-incrimination is that you have the right to remain silent. The police, pursuant to Miranda v. Arizona, generally advise a suspect of his rights. So, if a person chooses to invoke his rights and remain silent, that fact cannot be used to show that he is guilty. See Doyle v. Ohio. The question in Brown is whether post-arrest silence can be used against the defendant if the defendant first puts on evidence that he was co-operative with police and answered their questions. Has he, in essence, “opened the door” to harmful questioning? Once he does that, can the prosecutor show that when asked by the police how much he (in this case) had to drink, the defendant remained silent? The Appellate Court said yes and the Supreme Court will decide if that important protection of Due Process has an exception of these circumstances.

Interestingly enough, on the very same day, the United States Supreme Court will hear oral argument in Salinas v. Texas, in which the issue to be decided is whether the pre-arrest silence of a suspect can be used to show his guilt. [Greenfield has more here.]

Wednesday, April 17 @ 11:00am: State v. Stephen J.R. [Briefs available here.] The defendant, who was accused of sexually abusing the minor victim on four occasions, was charged with eight counts of sexual assault in the first degree and eight counts of risk of injury. At trial, the victim testified that the defendant abused her on “three or four” occasions and that she was forced to engage in two sexual acts each time. The defendant subsequently was convicted of all sixteen charges. He argues that the victim’s testimony was too vague to support the guilty verdicts on all sixteen charges, as she described generally what happened each time the abuse occurred but did not differentiate between the incidents. In addition, the defendant contends that the trial court, after conducting an in camera review of the records of the department of children and families pertaining to the victim and her family, improperly failed to fully disclose all of the relevant records. Finally, the defendant asserts that the prosecutor, during closing argument, improperly appealed to the emotions of the jury and thereby denied him a fair trial.

Thursday, April 18 @ 10:00am: O’Neil Brown v. Commissioner. [Briefs available here.] A case that will decide the applicability of Padilla v. Kentucky here in Connecticut. Padilla said that it was a lawyer’s responsibility to advise a defendant about any immigration consequences of a guilty plea. While Padilla was an important case for defendants going forward, the question here is whether it applies retroactively to people whose convictions are final and who may be awaiting deportation. While SCOTUS has said no, Chaidez v. US [PDF], they have also said that states are free to provide retroactivity under state law, Danforth v. Minnesota. Further, last year the Connecticut Supreme Court also said too bad you’re shit out of luck to a guy who sought to vacate his 1999 conviction because he was facing deportation in 2010 and no one told him that he could be deported. He relied on CGS 54-1j, but the Court said no, that only provides relief within the first three years. So O’Neil Brown is critical for defendants who may have pled guilty without any knowledge of the negative deportation consequences of that plea.

Monday, April 22 @ 10:00am: State v. Pires. The issue in this case is whether the defendant properly invoked his right to represent himself and whether that right was violated. The Appellate Court said no and the Supreme Court will review that decision.

Monday, April 22 @ 11:00am: State v. Mitchell Henderson. In 1993, the defendant was found guilty of several crimes and due to his extensive criminal record, was also found to be a persistent serious felony offender and a persistent dangerous felony offender, both of which triggered a greater punishment than normal. As a result of this, his sentence was lengthened or “enhanced”. In 2007, our Supreme Court decided that any such “enhancements” must be based on facts that are found by a jury beyond a reasonable doubt, rather than by a judge. So Henderson argued that his enhanced sentence is illegal because the facts weren’t found by a jury. The Appellate Court said no, the 2007 rule doesn’t apply backwards. The Supreme Court will now review.

Tuesday, April 23 @ 10:00am: State v. Eduardo Santiago. [Briefs available here.] This is the other big one this month, which will decide whether the prospective repeal of the death penalty is Constitutional or whether the entire death penalty needs to be scrapped or whether the repeal needs to be repealed. Keep in mind that the hearings on the racial and geographic disparity in the application of the death penalty are still pending.

Wednesday, April 24 @ 10:00am: State v. Milner. Here’s another fascinating case (and the last one of) this term. Milner was placed on probation in 2005. Sometime later, he was charged with a new crime and as a result of that, also charged with violating his probation. He apparently had a hearing on the violation of probation (VOP) first and a judge decided to revoke his probation and sentence him to jail. He appealed that judge’s decision. While that appeal was pending, he pled guilty to one of the new charges that formed the basis for the violation of his probation. He didn’t appeal that conviction (he couldn’t, really, because you typically can’t appeal from a guilty plea), but he did challenge its legality by filing a habeas corpus petition. The Appellate Court held that it wasn’t the same, his conviction was final and so his pending appeal (from the VOP) was moot. The Supreme Court will decide if that’s the case.

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If you have the briefs in any of these cases, please email them to me. If you’re going to see oral argument in any of these cases, please leave a comment with your observations.

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Image via. License details there.

 

 

 

 

Racism in the death penalty? We’re North Carolina after all!

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Tar_Heel_postcard

What do you call people from North Carolina? Whatever that word is, they were faced with a choice: do they appear to be racist murderers or just plain Northeastern Liberal Sissies?

I know what I’d choose and I know what stereotype says that the North Carolinians would choose. And proving that stereotypes are stereotypes for a reason, they chose the former. The Senate just repealed (here‘s the bill) the Racial Justice Act, which allows inmates to use statistics to prove that their death sentences are obtained based on racial injustice.

Just last year I was congratulating the Second in Flight State for a decision reversing the death sentence for a man who proved that racial bias played a significant role in the jury selection process. The opinion by Judge Weeks [PDF] said that:

Race played a “persistent, pervasive and distorting role” in jury selection and couldn’t be explained other than that “prosecutors have intentionally discriminated” against Robinson and other capital defendants statewide, Weeks said. Prosecutors eliminated black jurors more than twice as often as white jurors, according to a study by two Michigan State University law professors Weeks said he found highly reliable.

The opinion relied in part on a study [PDF] by Michigan State University. This was all made possible due to the Racial Justice Act, an avant-garde piece of legislation enacted in North Carolina that did exactly what the United States Supreme Court prohibited a quarter century ago in McCleskey v. Kemp. Continue reading →

The joke’s on all of us

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Our priorities have gone askew. Never has this been clearer to me than today, viewing from afar the circus surrounding an apparent once-in-a-decade event gathering steam: the utterance of words out loud by a Supreme Court Justice. Yes, he spoke. Yes, he said something incomprehensible. Yes, he and Scalia were making fun of Yale and Harvard. And that, apparently, is newsworthy. That, apparently, has been the impetus for hundreds of posts and BREAKING NEWS items and thousands of wasted pixels speculating exactly what he meant. Has the streak been broken, the L.A. Times – which I thought was a reputable newspaper, but apparently not – asks of its readers and also somewhat funnily has this sentence in the same article:

It’s a slow news day at the U.S. Supreme Court when the biggest story is whether an overheard, offhand comment by Justice Clarence Thomas means he has broken his nearly seven-year streak of silence.

It’s a slow news day if you don’t really care about the issue of the massive funding crisis that is threatening indigent defense across the country; it’s a slow news day if you’re too fucking stupid to realize that everyone’s due process rights are about to take it in a most impolite way if it’s okay for the State to hold someone for 5 years without giving them a trial. It’s a slow news day if writing about Justice Thomas uttering half a sentence at the Supreme Court is what you do when you’re waiting for Lindsay Lohan to fire another lawyer.

I’m amazed at the number of articles that keep popping up in my feed reader about Thomas and his words of wisdom. Hell, the New Yorker got into it to remind us that, in their opinion, Thomas really hates Yale. Liptak engages in a Zapruder film like frame-by-frame analysis of what this man might’ve uttered. I could go on and on with links, but you get the point.

You know what’s missing in every single one of these articles? A mention of Boyer. Who’s Boyer, you ask? Boyer, of Boyer v. Louisiana [SCOTUSBlog preview; oral argument transcript here]. Boyer, who sat in jail for 5 years facing the death penalty because the State could afford to only pay one of his lawyers – one that wasn’t qualified to represent him in a death penalty case. Boyer, in whose case witnesses died while he was waiting for the political football of indigent defense funding to stop getting punted around from endzone to endzone like it was a Browns vs. Cardinals game. Boyer, whose egregious delay the state of Louisiana seeks to shrug off as not really important and certainly not their fault.

The State of Louisiana which had the gall to argue before Justice Thomas and the rest of the Court that using funds to pay prosecutors to prosecute crimes but not defense lawyers to defend against those crimes is not a “deliberate choice”. It’s the same State that will argue that it’s the fault of the poor, jailed defendant with an 8th-grade education that he wasn’t tried for 5 years after arrest. It’s the same State that thinks it’s okay for him to proceed to defend a death penalty case with counsel who is ineffective.

You want a story? I’ll give you a story: this is the 50th anniversary of Gideon v. Wainwright. That the decision trumpeted the arrival of an era of equal justice for all, but that era has never materialized. That states still woefully underfund indigent defense; that access to justice isn’t equal and that people get screwed. Every. Single. Day. And it’s this Court – Thomas and others – who have the authority to change that, to alter that reality for hundreds of thousands of Americans. Today for all my clients; tomorrow, perhaps for you.

But no. Let’s continue to be cute and write funny stories about what an odd man that Justice Thomas is that he hasn’t asked a question in 6 years and well, was he making fun of Harvard or Yale? Because, really, who gives a fuck about Boyer, right? Stupid Constitution getting in the way, just like Thomas always said.

Priorities.

TL;DR: Thomas mumbles, internet creams itself, Boyer sits in jail, Gideon weeps.

[Update: Sorry, couldn't resist this update. After my rant above, I stumbled across this stunningly bizarre, tone-deaf, self-important post by Tom Goldstein of SCOTUSBlog, who, apparently, chides the internet not for taking a serious issue and making light of it like I do, but almost the opposite: for taking the joke too seriously. That's some fucking serious level of meta that even I haven't been able to get to in all my years of internet trolling. Well played, TG, well played.]