There are news reports today of cases in Florida, Texas, and Virginia.
Florida's Lakeland Ledger reports, "Defense Attorneys Seek to Halt Execution of Lakeland Man Convicted of Murder," by Suzie Schottelkotte.
Lawyers for condemned murderer Eddie Wayne Davis are seeking to halt his July 10 execution, arguing that his longtime alcoholism and sexual abuse as a youth stunted his brain development.
And:
Davis' court-appointed lawyers are asking Circuit Judge Donald Jacobsen for an evidentiary hearing to determine whether Davis should be granted relief.
Prosecutors will file their response today, and Jacobsen has scheduled a preliminary hearing Friday.
In Texas, "Lawyers for convicted killer Thuesen push to get death penalty off the table," is the Bryan-College Station report by Maggie Kiely.
Attorneys for Brazos County death row inmate John Thuesen continued presenting evidence Tuesday in an attempt to prove he had ineffective representation during his 2010 trial.
At the conclusion of the more than two-week trial, the 30-year-old was sentenced to death by a jury that convicted him of shooting and killing his ex-girlfriend and her brother, Rachel and Travis Joiner, on March 6, 2009 inside the home of the Aggie siblings.
And:
In a 235-page application for writ of habeas corpus, Thuesen's attorneys assert Carter and Esparza failed to adequately develop the main defense theory -- that Thuesen, a Marine, had returned from Iraq in 2004 with post-traumatic stress disorder, a mental illness that contributed to the double-murder.
"John Thuesen's PTSD was the factor that best could have explained to the jury both the crime and Thuesen's reduced moral culpability for the events that occurred," the writ application states.
"Death-row inmate pursues intellectual disability claim," is the Virginia news report in the Richmond Times-Dispatch. It's by Frank Green.
Lawyers for a Virginia death-row inmate who contends he is intellectually disabled will argue their case in federal court today, hoping to take advantage of a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision that struck down the strict use of IQ test score cutoffs.
A hearing on a motion to dismiss the appeal and other issues is set before U.S. District Judge Henry E. Hudson for Alfredo R. Prieto, 48, who was convicted of a 1988 rape and double murder in Fairfax County.
Related posts are in the post-conviction review category index.
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