"Supreme Court grants death row inmate chance for new appeal," by David G. Savage in the Los Angeles Times.
The Supreme Court, citing a "perfect storm" of missing lawyers and unopened letters, gave an Alabama death row inmate a new chance to appeal his conviction in a case that sharply split the conservatives on the bench.
Corey Maples had been "abandoned" by his two New York lawyers who left their law firm without telling him and missed the deadline for filing his appeal. "In these circumstances, no just system would lay the default at Maples' death-cell door," Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote for a 7-2 majority.
It was the second time in two weeks the high court rebuked prosecutors and judges from the South in a case of justice gone wrong. In both cases, Chief JusticeJohn G. Roberts Jr.and JusticeSamuel A. Alito Jr.sided with the majority in ruling for the defendant.
And:
Virginia Sloan, president of the Constitution Project, a bipartisan legal reform group, praised the ruling for putting "justice over technicalities and fundamental fairness over procedural rules."
Death penalty foes have pointed to Alabama as having a "broken" system of capital punishment. Its trial lawyers are poorly paid and often are newcomers to capital cases. No state funding is provided for appeals. Most defendants must rely on out-of-state law firms that volunteer to represent them.
CNN posts, "Justices rule for death row inmate after legal mistakes," by Bill Mears.
This high court victory for Maples does not mean he will eventually receive the new trial he is seeking. Because so much of the facts and testimony of the various parties remains in question -- particularly the actions of the county clerk and the in-state attorney for Maples -- lower state and federal courts could be wrestling with this case for years.
I have to also point readers to Jeff Gamso's post, "Unfair & Unconscionable: The Capital Jurisprudence of Antonin Scalia," at his Gamso - For the Defense blog.
He'll get a chance because his lawyers abandoned him. So said 7 of 9. Ginsburg wrote the opinion. Alito (no pushover he) joined but wrote also his own concurrence to point out that it was the lawyers who were at fault and not the deeply flawed Alabama system of providing (or not providing) capital representation.Scalia dissented. Joined by Clarence Thomas, Scalia explained that really, he was abandoned by only some of his lawyers. And sure it's all unfair but then if we demanded fairness of our criminal justice system it would be the end of the republic.OK, he didn't actually say that. What he said was this.
Gamso's blog is one of the left-column Essential Law Blogs. Visit it for more of his takes on criminal justice.
Coverage of yesterday's Supreme Court ruling is at the link. The opinion in Maples v. Thomas is available in Adobe .pdf format.
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