Oct 28, 2000 · But by a 2-1 majority, a panel of the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals disagreed. The judges were not “condoning sleeping by defense counsel …
Jun 04, 2002 · Mr. Burdine, 48, was convicted of killing a 50-year-old man in 1983. His murder trial lasted six days. It is not clear how much of the proceedings …
Jul 15, 2000 · But “the defense never did present any meaningful evidence and because of what the prosecutor presented I felt I had no choice but to …
Apr 07, 2014 · A recent decision by the United States Court of Appeals (Murray v. Shriro D.C. No. 2:03-CV-00775-DGC) gives us a look into what can happen if your attorney dozes off during the course of a trial. Dean Morrison and Jacqueline Appelhans were found shot to death in the home they shared in Arizona. Brothers Robert and Roger Murray were indicted for first-degree murder …
Absolutely not. The brothers’ requested a new trial because they felt that the attorney slept through “substantial portions” of trial. The Court of Appeals disagreed because they felt that the trial transcript did not show this.
Fortunately, this can be grounds for a new trial, depending on the circumstances of your case. It can be difficult, but you need to be able to prove a few things:
Although the Sixth Amendment guarantees you an attorney in your criminal trial, we understand that you may not have been effectively represented. Certain actions by your attorney may be grounds for getting a new trial.
Perhaps the most famous botched execution occurred in the case of Willie Francis in the 1940s. In his case, the United States Supreme Court allowed the state of Louisiana to electrocute a convicted murderer twice.
As widely reported in the press, it took Florida thirty-four minutes to kill him, twice the usual time. The needles that carried the lethal chemicals were mistakenly inserted completely through their intended targets--the veins in Diaz's arm--into the flesh of his arms. Thus, instead of being unconscious within the usual three or four minutes after the administration of the first chemical in the execution protocol, Diaz "appeared to be moving twenty-four minutes after the first injection, grimacing, blinking, licking his lips, blowing and appearing to mouth words."
More than thirty states use the same three-drug sequence that Florida uses for lethal injections - the sequence that led to such horrific consequences in the Diaz case. In recent years, groups opposed to the death penalty have had increasing success arguing that the pain the cocktail inflicts constitutes "cruel and unusual punishment."
Executions will reach record numbers in the United States in 1995: by the end of the year, the number of people put to death will be almost double any other year since the Supreme Court allowed the death penalty to resume in 1976. But a look at who is executed and who is spared reveals a glaring inequality: too often, the death penalty is reserved not for those who committed the worst crimes, but for those who were given the worst lawyers. And this miscarriage of justice is about to become much worse.
When a defendant is convicted and sentenced to death, he or she has the right to a direct appeal to the state’s highest court and the right to an attorney to file that appeal. Often, the attorney who handles the appeal is the same one who lost at trial.
“Notwithstanding the heroic efforts of the resource centers and appellate projects throughout the country, the meager hourly rates and expenditure caps that many states impose on appointed counsel in capital cases do not suggest that a solution to this crisis is imminent.”#N#—Justice William Brennan , Jr., 1994
The federal reports are filled with stories of counsel who presented no evidence in mitigation of their clients’ sentences because they did not know what to offer or how to offer it, or had not read the state’s sentencing statute.#N# —Justice Thurgood Marshall [60]
If the court allows only $2,000 to prepare for a death penalty trial, then a lawyer who puts in 20 hours will be making about $100 per hour, which is a minimal fee in many kinds of practice. (Of course, 20 hours is a seriously deficient amount of time to prepare for a death penalty trial.) An attorney who decides to devote 200 hours of preparation, however, would be making only $10 per hour, and someone who was diligent enough to put in the 500 to 1,000 hours which experts estimate is often needed to prepare a capital case [91] would be working for below minimum wage.
No state epitomizes the death penalty more than Texas. With three times the executions of any other state and one of the largest death rows in the country, Texas is far and away the execution leader. Not coincidentally, Texas has one of the worst systems for providing death penalty lawyers.
Andrew Golden is a former teacher who had never even received a traffic ticket. He had been married to his wife, Ardelle, for twenty-four years, sharing a very close relationship. He adored his two sons, Chip and Darin. That is why life on Florida’s death row was so difficult for Golden, almost driving him to suicide. He kept his sanity by making things for the boys and helping them with their college applications—and by fighting to prove his innocence. [3]