This post contains news of a ruling today, a ruling on jury selection procedures in Georgia, and an argument preview in a case involving AEDPA.
The Court this morning ruled against an Alabama death row inmate in Wood v. Allen. The opinion is here, in Adobe .pdf format. AP reports, "Supreme Court upholds death penalty for mentally impaired Ala. man with inexperienced lawyer," via Newser.com
The court, in a 7-2 vote, refused to overturn the death sentence of Holly Wood, who was convicted in the shooting death of his former girlfriend, Ruby Lois Gosha, in 1993. She was killed by a shotgun blast to her head as she slept in her home in Troy, Ala.
A federal judge had tossed out the death sentence on the basis of the poor performance of Wood's lawyer in the sentencing phase of his trial. The lawyer, described in court papers as lacking criminal law experience, failed to tell jurors that Wood had an IQ of less than 70 and had been classified as mentally retarded.
The Atlanta-based 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reinstated the death sentence, ruling that Wood had failed to show that the lawyers was unconstitutionally ineffective.
The Supreme Court agreed. "Even if it is debatable, it is not unreasonable to conclude that ... counsel made a strategic decision not inquire further into the information contained in the report about Wood's mental deficiencies and not present to the jury such information," Justice Sonia Sotomayor said.
She was joined in the opinion by Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Antonin Scalia, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Clarence Thomas, Stephen Breyer and Samuel Alito.
Justice John Paul Stevens and Anthony Kennedy dissented, with Stevens saying he cannot see why Wood's lawyer did not investigate or present "powerful mitigating evidence of Wood's mental deficits for the penalty phase" of the trial.
Earlier coverage of the case is here.
There is news coverage of the Court's ruling in Presley v. Georgia, concerning the openness of jury selection.
"High Court Justices Underscore Importance of Open Criminal Trials," is the title of Tony Mauro's NLJ report.
The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday strengthened the right to public criminal trials, ruling in a Georgia case that jury voir dire proceedings should be open to defendants and to the public.
In an unsigned 7-2 ruling in Presley v. Georgia (pdf), the high court also said that a trial judge has a duty to seek alternatives that will preserve openness even when, for example, it appears that there are so many prospective jurors in the courtroom that there are not enough seats for the public.
"Trial courts are obligated to take every reasonable measure to accommodate public attendance at criminal trials," the Court majority stated. "The public has the right to be present whether or not any party has asserted the right."
Justice Clarence Thomas, joined by Justice Antonin Scalia, dissented, asserting that the case should have been decided only after full briefing and oral argument. Thomas also wrote that the ruling "belittles the efforts of our judicial colleagues" who have to interpret conflicting precedents on the issue. Per curiam decisions like the one in Presley usually occur without any oral argument or briefing beyond the initial petition and response, and deal with relatively uncontroversial issues.
And:
Defendant Eric Presley was convicted by a Georgia jury on cocaine trafficking charges, but he challenged the trial judge's exclusion of the public -- Presley's uncle, specifically -- during voir dire of prospective jurors.
The judge, DeKalb County Superior Court Judge Linda Hunter, justified the exclusion by telling the man, who was the only person in the audience, that prospective jurors would be filling the seats, and "you can't sit on the same row with the jurors." Presley's lawyer objected, but the judge still excluded the man, stating, "We have very small courtrooms and the witnesses and relatives cannot sit in the audience beside the potential jurors. That will be grounds for a mistrial."
A divided Georgia Supreme Court in March 2009 upheld the conviction, ruling that the judge had "an overriding interest" in protecting potential jurors from taint. It also ruled that the judge was not obliged to consider alternatives when none of the parties offered any.
Leah Ward Sears, then chief justice of Georgia, dissented, stating, "A room that is so small that it cannot accommodate the public is a room that is too small to accommodate a constitutional criminal trial." Carol Hunstein, the current chief justice, joined her dissent.
Adam Liptak writes, "Supreme Court Rules on Trial Conduct in Georgia," for the New York Times.
Joan Biskupik writes, "Supreme Court: Jury selection should be open," for USA Today.
Finally for today, SCOTUS Blog previews the case Berghuis v. Smith in "AEDPA and the Sixth Amendment’s 'Fair Cross-Section' Requirement." It's written by James Bickford.
Today the Court will hear oral argument in Berghuis v. Smith, the latest in the line of cases tracing the limits of habeas corpus review under the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act (AEDPA) of 1996. AEDPA precludes federal habeas relief when a state court has adjudicated a federal claim on its merits, unless the state court ruling was “contrary to, or involved an unreasonable application of, clearly established Federal law, as determined by the Supreme Court of the United States.” In Terry Williams v. Taylor (2000), the Court held that under AEDPA, federal habeas relief is available only when a state court’s application of federal law is objectively unreasonable, rather than merely incorrect.
At issue in this case is the intersection of AEDPA and the Court’s precedents governing jury selection. In Taylor v. Louisiana (1975), the Court held that the Sixth Amendment guaranteed a jury drawn “from a representative cross section of the community.” Four years later, in Duren v. Missouri (1979), the Court outlined a three-part test to determine whether a group has been unconstitutionally excluded from the jury pool: the group must be (1) distinctive and (2) lacking “fair and reasonable representation” for reasons that are (3) caused by the system of jury selection.
Related posts are in the Supreme Court index.
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