NEWS (6/​4/​21) — Arizona: The Arizona Supreme Court has ruled that the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2016 deci­sion in Lynch v. Arizona, which struck down the state’s uncon­sti­tu­tion­al refusal to instruct cap­i­tal-sen­tenc­ing juries that defen­dants who are sen­tenced to life are not eli­gi­ble for parole, does not pro­vide grounds for a death-row pris­on­er to seek new state-court review of that issue.

The court dis­missed an attempt by John Cruz to raise the issue, say­ing that his pri­or lawyers had failed to present it on direct appeal. It said that Arizona law per­mits a claim to be raised in a suc­ces­sive post-con­vic­tion peti­tion based on an inter­ven­ing court deci­sion only if the deci­sion con­sti­tute ​“a sig­nif­i­cant change in the law” and that Lynch, which cor­rect­ed Arizona’s long-stand­ing mis­ap­pli­ca­tion of fed­er­al con­sti­tu­tion­al law, did not qual­i­fy as such a change. The court said that U.S. Supreme Court caselaw requir­ing courts to instruct juries on a cap­i­tal defendant’s inel­i­gi­bil­i­ty for parole was already ​“clear­ly estab­lished at the time of Cruz’s tri­al, sen­tenc­ing, and direct appeal, despite the mis­ap­pli­ca­tion of that law by Arizona courts” and thus ​“was not a sig­nif­i­cant change in the law for pur­pos­es of per­mit­ting relief” in state post-conviction proceedings.

NEWS (6/​3/​21) — Florida: The Florida Supreme Court has upheld the con­vic­tion and death sen­tence imposed against Scottie Allen for the October 2017 mur­der of his prison cell­mate. Allen, who told inves­ti­ga­tors at the time of the mur­der that he want­ed the death penal­ty, was per­mit­ted to rep­re­sent him­self at tri­al and on appeal.

Allen pre­sent­ed no defense to the charges against him and did not make a clos­ing argu­ment to the jury. News reports indi­cat­ed that it took the jury less than a half hour of delib­er­at­ing before con­vict­ing him of cap­i­tal mur­der. In the penal­ty phase lat­er that same day, Allen rep­re­sent­ed him­self and did not present mit­i­ga­tion or argu­ment to the penal­ty-phase jury. Again after less than half an hour of delib­er­a­tions, the jury unan­i­mous­ly rec­om­mend­ed Allen be sen­tenced to death.

NEWS (6/​2/​21) — Arkansas: The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit has over­turned a fed­er­al dis­trict court’s grant of penal­ty-phase relief to Arkansas death-row pris­on­er Andrew Sasser. The appeals pan­el did not dis­cuss the mer­its of the dis­trict court find­ing that Sasser had been pro­vid­ed inef­fec­tive rep­re­sen­ta­tion in the penal­ty phase of his cap­i­tal tri­al. Instead, it ruled that Sasser’s inef­fec­tive­ness claim was pro­ce­du­ral­ly default­ed because his state-appoint­ed lawyer had failed to include the issue in his appeal from the denial of post-con­vic­tion relief in the state courts and that the more devel­oped inef­fec­tive­ness claim raised in the fed­er­al courts con­sti­tut­ed an imper­mis­si­ble sec­ond or suc­ces­sive habeas corpus petition.

The Eighth Circuit pan­el also denied Sasser’s claim that he is inel­i­gi­ble for the death penal­ty because of intellectual disability.

NEWS (6/​1/​21) — Georgia: The Georgia Supreme Court has affirmed the con­vic­tion and death sen­tence imposed upon Rodney Young, deny­ing his con­sti­tu­tion­al chal­lenge to a state statute requir­ing a defen­dant who seeks to demon­strate inel­i­gi­bil­i­ty for the death penal­ty because of intel­lec­tu­al dis­abil­i­ty to prove beyond a rea­son­able doubt that he or she is intel­lec­tu­al­ly dis­abled. No Georgia jury has ever found a defen­dant to be intel­lec­tu­al­ly dis­abled under that standard.

Justice Charles Bethel dis­sent­ed, cit­ing the U.S. Supreme Court’s rul­ings in Hall v. Florida and Moore v. Texas. He wrote that, like those cas­es, which struck down state stan­dards for deter­min­ing intel­lec­tu­al dis­abil­i­ty that devi­at­ed from con­tem­po­rary diag­nos­tic cri­te­ria, Georgia’s use of ​“the high­est bur­den of proof known to our judi­cial sys­tem is also unrea­son­able because it fails to pro­tect intel­lec­tu­al­ly dis­abled per­sons who are unable to prove that fact beyond a reasonable doubt.”

NEWS (6/​1/​21) — Alabama: Montgomery County, Alabama pros­e­cu­tors and defense coun­sel for Richard Flowers have agreed to a plea deal in which Flowers will be resen­tenced to life with­out parole in exchange for with­draw­ing the remain­ing appeals of his conviction.

A fed­er­al dis­trict court in January had over­turned Flowers’ death sen­tence, find­ing that he had been ​“rep­re­sent­ed by a cas­cade of unpre­pared tri­al attor­neys.“ The court also found that Flowers had received inef­fec­tive rep­re­sen­ta­tion in the guilt phase of tri­al, but that because of the strength of evi­dence of guilt, he was unable ​“to prove the nec­es­sary lev­el of prejudice.”

NEWS (6/​1/​21) — Arizona: The Arizona Supreme Court has upheld a Pima County tri­al judge’s rul­ing dis­qual­i­fy­ing the entire Tucson office of the Arizona Attorney General’s office from the mur­der tri­al of Darren Goldin because of pros­e­cu­to­r­i­al mis­con­duct by Assistant Attorney General Richard Wintory.

The court said Wintory had ​“engaged in a series of improp­er phone con­ver­sa­tions with a court-appoint­ed con­fi­den­tial inter­me­di­ary, whose assign­ment was to iden­ti­fy mit­i­ga­tion evi­dence for defense coun­sel after locat­ing and inter­view­ing Goldin’s bio­log­i­cal moth­er.” Wintory did not noti­fy defense coun­sel or the court of the improp­er con­tact for a week, and even then failed to inform any­one — includ­ing his co-coun­sel and his super­vi­sors — of the extent of his con­ver­sa­tions with the con­fi­den­tial inter­me­di­ary. Wintory also failed to dis­close that there was a wit­ness to his first con­ver­sa­tion, say­ing he had for­got­ten that the wit­ness had been present.

Prosecutors dropped the death penal­ty in Goldin’s case after the ethics breach. After a plea deal on less­er charges col­lapsed, Goldin’s coun­sel moved to dis­qual­i­fy the entire Tucson prosecutor’s office from the case.

Wintory pre­vi­ous­ly con­sent­ed to a 90-day sus­pen­sion of his law license in Arizona and received a two-year sus­pen­sion in Oklahoma — where Goldin had pre­vi­ous­ly been a homi­cide pros­e­cu­tor in the Oklahoma County District Attorney’s office — as a result of his mis­con­duct in Goldin’s case. In sus­pend­ing Goldin’s license, the Oklahoma Supreme Court not­ed that courts had pre­vi­ous­ly found that Wintory had com­mit­ted mis­con­duct in two Oklahoma death penal­ty cas­es. He also was impli­cat­ed in mis­con­duct in the Pinal County, Arizona death-penal­ty pros­e­cu­tion of Richard Wilson that led to a tri­al judge dis­qual­i­fy­ing that office from the case. In Wilson’s case, Wintory was among the pros­e­cu­tors who improp­er­ly obtained and reviewed sealed med­ical and men­tal health records that the defense was con­sid­er­ing using as mit­i­gat­ing evi­dence, act­ing, the court said ​“in delib­er­ate dis­re­gard of court orders.”

NEWS (3/​12/​20): The Arkansas Supreme Court ruled on March 12, 2020 that death-row pris­on­er Jerry Lard, who lawyers say is intel­lec­tu­al­ly dis­abled, may waive his post-conviction appeals.

Lard’s ini­tial post-con­vic­tion lawyer was per­mit­ted to with­draw from the case cit­ing ​“irrepara­ble harm” to the attor­ney-client rela­tion­ship after he had pre­sent­ed evi­dence that Lard was intel­lec­tu­al­ly dis­abled. The court appoint­ed new coun­sel to rep­re­sent Lard, who then asked the tri­al court to with­draw his appeals. The tri­al court grant­ed the motion to waive the appeals and the appeals court affirmed that ruling.

However, the court not­ed that a per­son who has intel­lec­tu­al dis­abil­i­ty may not be exe­cut­ed, but declined to rule on Lard’s intel­lec­tu­al dis­abil­i­ty claim, say­ing it is not ripe in the absence of an execution date.