The Supreme Court agreed to take the Virginia death penalty case yesterday, as noted in this post.
AP reports, "Court will decide case of Va. man on death row," via Google News.
The Supreme Court on Monday granted a temporary reprieve to a death row inmate in Virginia to consider whether lower courts correctly weighed his claim that his lawyer did a poor job of representing him.
Edward Nathaniel Bell, 40, had been facing execution in July for murdering a police officer.
Bell asked the court to step into his case, arguing that he could have been spared a death sentence if his lawyer had done a better job of representing him during the sentencing phase of his trial.
His execution was previously delayed by the Supreme Court's consideration of lethal injection procedures. The court upheld the execution method last month.
The justices said they would resolve an issue that has split federal appeals courts around the country.
Death row inmates may petition the federal system to review their cases after they have run out of appeals in state courts. Some appeals courts have deferred to state court rulings against the defendant, even when new evidence becomes available in the federal appeal. Other courts have taken the evidence into account.
Bell contends that the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond was wrong when it determined that Virginia courts acted reasonably in turning down his claims. Bell argues that the state refused to consider evidence that could show he was deprived of adequate representation in violation of his constitutional rights.
The high court will hear arguments in the case in the fall.
In the Washington Post, Tom Jackman writes, "Court Stays Execution of Va. Man, Takes Case."
The appeals lawyers for Edward N. Bell also noted that federal courts are split on the issue of how to analyze whether the trial lawyers' defense was reasonably effective. The Supreme Court often takes cases to resolve such splits and accepted Bell's appeal, without comment, for oral arguments in the fall.
"For some time, there has been an anomaly in the law," said James G. Connell III of Fairfax, one of Bell's appeals lawyers. "Federal courts are expected to defer to state courts, when [in fact] the state court didn't have all the facts."
Bell's lawyers argue that the facts did not all come out until the case reached federal court, because Bell's original lawyers did not present any evidence about his life during the sentencing phase of the case.
In most criminal cases in Virginia, if a jury finds a defendant guilty, the case enters a sentencing phase. Prosecutors give additional evidence, to show that the defendant either committed a particularly vile crime or is a future danger to society. Defense lawyers typically give evidence that their client has had a difficult life or is not an evil person.
In death penalty trials, mitigation evidence produced by the defense is often seen as the most important part of the trial by defense lawyers, who are battling to save their clients' lives.
But Bell's lawyers decided not to introduce any evidence, and the Virginia Supreme Court and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit found that to be a reasonable decision.
The Winchester Star reports, "Supreme Court to review Bell sentencing."
At issue is whether federal courts should consider new information that a lower court didn’t have in determining if the lower court ruled reasonably.
Specifically, the U.S. Supreme Court wants to ponder if the U.S. Fourth District Court of Appeals should consider testimony that the U.S. District Court of Western Virginia heard — but the Virginia Supreme Court didn’t — when the state Supreme Court ruled against a new sentencing hearing for Bell.
The state Supreme Court ruled in 2004 that Bell’s original attorneys Mark B. Williams and Jud A. Fishel should have provided a better defense during the sentencing phase of the original capital murder trial in 2001.
Williams and Fishel didn’t call a character witness supporting Bell during a seven-minute defense in the sentencing phase.
Northern Virginia Daily has three articles. First, "Bell execution delayed." It also has, "Bell's time on death row has cost the state nearly $350,000." Yesterday, before the cert grant, the paper reported, "Death row more solitary than standard prison life."
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