Appeals Wrongly Denied in 2 Death Cases, Justices Say

Two Virginia men on death row won reprieves from the U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday as the justices concluded that conservative judges in Richmond had wrongly closed the courthouse door to their appeals.

While federal judges should be cautious about second-guessing the handling of state cases, they should intervene when “clearly established” constitutional rights have been ignored, the justices said.

In the first case, lawyers for a mildly retarded man who was abused by his alcoholic parents will get a new chance to argue that he deserves life in prison, not death, for his crimes. During his original sentencing hearing, the man’s lawyer never mentioned to jurors that he had been fed whiskey as a child and that his parents had been imprisoned for child abuse and neglect.

The lawyer’s shoddy performance clearly violates constitutional standards, the court said on a 6-3 vote.

And in the second case, a man convicted of murder by the testimony of his accomplice will get a new chance to argue that his trial was tainted because the jury forewoman failed to disclose that she was the ex-wife of the sheriff and a former client of the prosecutor.

In late October, the high court intervened in this case just two hours before the inmate, Michael Wayne Williams, was to be put to death. And on Tuesday, they ruled unanimously that he deserved a new hearing to review his trial.

The pair of rulings announced Tuesday set a moderately conservative standard for reviewing death penalty cases in federal courts. The opinions reject the more extreme approaches on the conservative and liberal sides.

State prosecutors, taking the most conservative view, wanted to close the door to virtually all such reviews in federal courts. They said that Congress intended to do just that in the Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996.

On the other side, defense lawyers said that federal judges retained the power to independently review the handling of state cases.

With Justice Sandra Day O’Connor taking the lead, the high court turned away from both approaches. The 1996 law “places a new constraint” on the power of federal courts to take up appeals from state inmates, she said. However, it does not close the door entirely, she added. Federal judges should take up appeals when they see state cases that “involve an unreasonable application . . . of clearly established” constitutional standards, she said.

In the two cases decided Tuesday, the court said that federal judges in Virginia had gone too far by turning away reasonable appeals.

The legal battle over federal appeals has a long history and remains important in death penalty cases. Just after the Civil War, Congress passed the Habeas Corpus Act of 1867 to give federal judges the power to take up cases of inmates in state prison who say that their constitutional rights were violated. Since then, the Supreme Court has struggled to set rules on when cases can move into federal court.

On Tuesday, advocates on both sides saw something to like in the rulings.

Defense lawyer John H. Blume of Columbia, S.C., called the outcome “encouraging.”

“This sends a clear signal that habeas review hasn’t been eliminated. They’ve rejected the draconian standard the prosecutors wanted,” Blume said.

However, Kent Scheidegger of the conservative Criminal Justice Legal Foundation in Sacramento said he was pleased that the court upheld the pro-prosecutor reforms in the 1996 law. “Habeas review is a safety net to catch a clear error. It’s not for federal judges to second-guess every state decision they disagree with.”

Often in recent years, the high court has issued opinions to restrain the liberal-leaning U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals from intervening in California criminal cases.

This year, it also has turned its attention on the staunchly conservative U.S. 4th Circuit Court of Appeals, based in Richmond, Va. Last year, the 4th Circuit overturned the well-known Miranda ruling, an issue the high court will take up today.

Among death penalty experts, Virginia is known for having a fast track toward the execution chamber. Since 1976, it has ranked second among the states in total executions with 76. Texas is the clear leader with 211 executions. Florida ranks third with 46, even though it is more than twice as large as Virginia. California has carried out eight executions during the same period.

Virginia prosecutors have been aided by a state Supreme Court and a conservative U.S. appeals court that routinely reject all claims from murderers once they are convicted by a jury and sentenced to death. Since 1995, the state Supreme Court has reviewed 31 cases without giving a single inmate a new hearing or ordering an investigator to take a second look at a case. And defense lawyers say that the 4th Circuit has not reversed a death sentence in years.

In Michael Wayne Williams vs. Taylor, 99-6615, the 4th Circuit said the inmate was to blame for failing to discover that the forewoman had not told the truth when she denied any relationship with her ex-husband and her former lawyer. The Supreme Court disagreed.

In the case of the mildly retarded man, the 4th Circuit said that the lawyer’s shoddy performance probably had no bearing on the jury’s decision. Again, the high court disagreed and reversed the ruling (Terry Williams vs. Taylor, 98-8384).