After U.S. Supreme Court Orders Further Review, Federal Appeals Court Overturns Death Sentences of Two Brain Damaged Prisoners

A fed­er­al appeals court has over­turned the death sen­tences imposed on two brain dam­aged death-row pris­on­ers in cas­es sep­a­rate­ly sent back for fur­ther review by the U.S. Supreme Court. On October 15, 2019, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit ordered a new sen­tenc­ing hear­ing for Alabama death-row pris­on­er James McWilliams. Two days lat­er, anoth­er three-judge pan­el of the 11^th Circuit grant­ed a new penal­ty hear­ing to Georgia death-row pris­on­er Lawrence Jefferson. Both men had been sen­tenced to death in 1986 and lat­er chal­lenged their death sen­tences because their juries had not heard evi­dence of their brain dam­age. State and fed­er­al courts had turned down the appeals for both men but — for dif­fer­ent rea­sons — the U.S. Supreme Court reversed those rul­ings and direct­ed the low­er courts to recon­sid­er the issues in the cases.

Lawrence Jefferson was sen­tenced to death for a 1985 mur­der dur­ing an armed rob­bery in Cobb County, Georgia. Although Jefferson had a vis­i­bly mis­shapen skull and scar­ring on his fore­head from being run over by a car when he was two years old, the lawyers the coun­ty appoint­ed to rep­re­sent him failed to inves­ti­gate evi­dence of brain dam­age. A defense psy­chol­o­gist rec­om­mend­ed that Jefferson’s tri­al lawyers obtain a neu­ropsy­cho­log­i­cal eval­u­a­tion to assess Jefferson’s brain injury and men­tal health, but the lawyers ignored that advice. When an exam­i­na­tion was con­duct­ed dur­ing Jefferson’s appeals, it dis­closed sig­nif­i­cant evi­dence of brain dam­age that the 11^th Circuit lat­er described as ​“the most pow­er­ful expla­na­tion for an oth­er­wise inex­plic­a­ble crime.” A defense neu­rol­o­gist explained that ​“the most com­mon thing with a closed head injury, trau­mat­ic injury of this sort, is prob­lems with judg­ments, exec­u­tive plan­ning, and impulse con­trol, the abil­i­ty to fore­see the con­se­quences of your action in the future, as opposed to right now.”

James McWilliams has been on Alabama’s death row since 1986. Like Jefferson, he also has brain dam­age that was not pre­sent­ed at his tri­al. In McWilliams’ case, the evi­dence was not pre­sent­ed because he was denied assis­tance from an inde­pen­dent men­tal health expert. The court appoint­ed a men­tal health expert who pro­duced a neu­ropsy­cho­log­i­cal report find­ing ​“organ­ic brain dam­age,” ​“gen­uine neu­ropsy­cho­log­i­cal prob­lems,” and ​“an obvi­ous neu­ropsy­cho­log­i­cal deficit.” However, his defense team was giv­en the report only two days before his sen­tenc­ing hear­ing, were pro­vid­ed volu­mi­nous men­tal health records one day lat­er, and received his prison records on the day of the sen­tenc­ing. The tri­al court denied Jefferson a con­tin­u­ance to obtain the help of an expert to review the infor­ma­tion and, despite the votes of two jurors for a life sen­tence, imposed the death penal­ty. The U.S. Supreme Court sent his case back for fur­ther con­sid­er­a­tion in 2017.

Both cas­es involved seri­ous pro­ce­dur­al bar­ri­ers to the fair pre­sen­ta­tion of men­tal health evi­dence and to a fair adju­di­ca­tion of the issues. Without the assis­tance of a men­tal health expert, McWilliams’ lawyers could not review and under­stand the report and records they received about his men­tal impair­ments in time for the hear­ing, and with the expert appoint­ed by the court con­sult­ing with the pros­e­cu­tion, noth­ing they dis­cussed with him — includ­ing defense strat­e­gy — would be legally privileged. 

The Supreme Court held that the denial of an inde­pen­dent men­tal health expert vio­lat­ed due process and direct­ed the court of appeals to deter­mine if that error required revers­ing McWilliams’ death sen­tence. Two of the judges ruled that the denial of an expert con­sti­tut­ed a ​“struc­tur­al error” that made it impos­si­ble for McWilliams to receive a fair sen­tenc­ing. A third judge dis­agreed that the error was struc­tur­al, but found the denial of an inde­pen­dent expert was prejudicial. 

Jefferson’s case turned on the fair­ness of the state court’s con­sid­er­a­tion of his brain dam­age evi­dence. After Jefferson’s appeal lawyers pre­sent­ed evi­dence of his brain dam­age to the state court, the tri­al court judge asked the pros­e­cu­tion to pre­pare an order deny­ing relief. The court adopt­ed the pro­posed order — which con­tained numer­ous inac­cu­ra­cies, includ­ing refer­ring to wit­ness­es who had not even tes­ti­fied — with­out chang­ing a word and with­out pro­vid­ing Jefferson’s lawyers an oppor­tu­ni­ty to respond. 

The U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia reversed the deci­sion, find­ing that Jefferson’s lawyers had been inef­fec­tive. However, declar­ing itself ​“duty bound” to defer to the state court factfind­ing, the fed­er­al appeals court rein­stat­ed Jefferson’s death sen­tence. In 2010, the Supreme Court reversed and direct­ed the fed­er­al courts to deter­mine whether the state courts had pro­vid­ed Jefferson a full and fair hear­ing. After addi­tion­al years of lit­i­ga­tion, the dis­trict court ruled in 2017 that the state court hear­ing had not been full and fair and again found Jefferson’s penal­ty phase rep­re­sen­ta­tion to have been inef­fec­tive. This time, the 11^th Circuit agreed and, 33 years after Jefferson had been sent to death row, it grant­ed him a new sentencing hearing.