US Supreme Court throws out precedent in negligent ruling about death penalty cases

The Death Penalty Information Center reports that since 1973, at least 189 people who were wrongly convicted and sentenced to death have been exonerated. That includes 11 in Ohio.

For its part, the National Registry of Exonerations counts nearly 3,200 people wrongly convicted of crimes since 1989.

The criminal justice system makes mistakes — sometimes big ones.

Thus, the system needs mechanisms to help minimize errors. That explains the procedural care in death penalty cases. It points to the role of a public defender, upholding the right to effective counsel for those who cannot afford an attorney to represent them, though the offices of public defenders are notoriously underfunded, at the state and federal levels.

All of this frames a negligent ruling by the Supreme Court, the 6-3 conservative majority diminishing the right to effective counsel, leaving two men on death row, one plainly innocent, the other intellectually disabled. This ruling arrived in May, before the immodest majority abandoned or weakened precedent on other fronts, for instance, reproductive rights and the separation of church and state.

Shinn v. Martinez Ramirez deserves wide attention. In her appropriately biting dissent, Justice Sonia Sotomayor describes the ruling as “perverse” and “illogical.” She declares the line of argument “makes no sense,” as it “reduces to rubble” the Sixth Amendment guarantee of legal representation.

Why does the majority merit such stinging criticism?

It walked away from a precedent set just a decade ago, when the court, in two rulings, adopted a thoughtful way to protect the right to counsel without eroding the state interest in pursuing criminals.

The challenge then facing the court involved rare instances when a defendant receives ineffective legal counsel during both the trial and post-conviction proceedings. Yes, horrible luck.

A direct appeal relies exclusively on the trial record. Thus, it is difficult to weigh the question of effective counsel. Often, the shortcomings involve omissions, such as failing to investigate fully in crafting a defense. The post-conviction phase presents an opportunity to expand the record, developing evidence favorable to the defendant, now prisoner, evidence the trial attorney should have uncovered and introduced.

What if the post-conviction attorney also proves to be ineffective, not bothering to show how the trial attorney messed up?

In 2012 and 2014, the court ruled that prisoners in such a spot deserve a hearing so a federal judge can review the claim of ineffective counsel. That is fair and just. Otherwise, the system flirts with grievous error. The court insisted such claims must have real merit, and that threshold, as Sotomayor notes, has worked to prevent frivolous attempts.

These rulings opened the door for two prisoners in Arizona facing death sentences. Both raised claims of ineffective counsel. One pointed out that his attorney made no effort to challenge a flawed method for dating the injuries of the victim. The evidence now shows the defendant could not have committed the killing. The other argued his attorney failed to present his intellectual disability, something that could have spared him the death penalty.

In the former case, four federal judges, one at the district level, three on the appellate bench, sided with the prisoner, concluding that his counsel had been ineffective to the extent of violating his constitutional right. The Supreme Court had ample reason to apply precedent and do the same.

Unfortunately, the majority landed off course.

Arizona argued that a 1996 federal law, the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act, barred a federal court from holding an evidentiary hearing to weigh facts that were not developed in state court. Writing for the court majority, Justice Clarence Thomas embraced the state argument, essentially putting the prisoners in a Catch-22. They could bring the claim but could not develop evidence to support it.

As Sotomayor makes clear, the law hardly is so fixed. She notes that Congress acted in the shadow of a court decision that recognized how defendants could be victims — through no fault of their own — of ineffective counsel. She rejects, too, the majority prioritizing “finality” and overstating the burden on state resources.

Again, these instances are rare. Yet the constitutional stakes are high.

The state appointed the attorneys. It bears responsibility for ensuring an adequate level of performance at trial and in the post-conviction phase. That means deploying the federal system as a safety, seeking a complete record, not to mention justice.

In Ohio, Tyrone Noling sits on death row for two killings in Atwater Township three decades ago. The evidence today shouts: He didn’t do it. So far, the criminal justice system has let him down.

Now, the Supreme Court has done its own damage in this realm, ditching a balanced precedent and leaving critics to ask: Somehow the whole truth doesn’t matter?

Douglas was the Beacon Journal editorial page editor from 1999 to 2019. He can be reached at mddouglasmm@gmail.com.

This article originally appeared on Akron Beacon Journal: US Supreme Court ruling adds to problems with death penalty