Capital Case Roundup — Death Penalty Court Decisions the Week of April 27, 2020

NEWS (5/​1/​20) — California: A split three-judge pan­el of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit has upheld the con­vic­tion and death sen­tence of Richard Allen Benson for the sex­u­al molesta­tion of two young girls, mur­der­ing them, their moth­er, and their baby broth­er. The court unan­i­mous­ly agreed that a police officer’s false state­ment dur­ing inter­ro­ga­tion that Benson would not face the death penal­ty did not ren­der his con­fes­sion invalid. In a 2 – 1 penal­ty-phase deci­sion, the pan­el ruled that the California Supreme Court had not unrea­son­ably applied U.S. Supreme Court law on inef­fec­tive rep­re­sen­ta­tion when it reject­ed Benson’s claim that his tri­al coun­sel had failed to inves­ti­gate and present crit­i­cal mitigating evidence. 

Judge Mary H. Murguia dis­sent­ed from the penal­ty-phase rul­ing. She wrote, ​“No fair-mind­ed jurist objec­tive­ly review­ing the unin­tro­duced mit­i­gat­ing evi­dence in this case could con­clude, with con­fi­dence, that the out­come would have been the same. … The unin­tro­duced mit­i­gat­ing evi­dence of unpro­voked, grotesque abuse inflict­ed on Benson as a child is pre­cise­ly the type of mit­i­gat­ing evi­dence that could have moved the jury to sen­tence Benson to life in prison rather than death.”

NEWS (5/​1/​20) — Florida: The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit has affirmed the rul­ing of a Florida fed­er­al dis­trict court deny­ing death-row pris­on­er Raymond Knight​’s habeas cor­pus chal­lenge to his con­vic­tion and death sen­tence. The court reject­ed Knight’s claim that his tri­al coun­sel had ​“ren­dered inef­fec­tive assis­tance by fail­ing to ade­quate­ly inves­ti­gate and present mit­i­gat­ing evi­dence dur­ing the sen­tenc­ing phase of his capital-murder trial.”

NEWS (4/​30/​20) — Arkansas: The Arkansas Supreme Court has affirmed a tri­al court rul­ing deny­ing death-row pris­on­er Latavious Johnson​’s post-con­vic­tion chal­lenge to his con­vic­tion and death sen­tence in his retri­al for the 2012 killing of a prison guard. The court ruled that tri­al coun­sel was not inef­fec­tive when he failed to uti­lize the mit­i­gat­ing evi­dence pre­sent­ed in Johnson’s first tri­al and pre­sent­ed only a sin­gle mit­i­ga­tion wit­ness — Johnson’s sis­ter — in the sen­tenc­ing phase of the retrial.

NEWS (4/​29/​20) — Arkansas: The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit has affirmed an Arkansas fed­er­al dis­trict court’s rul­ing over­turn­ing the mur­der con­vic­tions of Tina Jimerson and John Brown, Jr. based upon extra­or­di­nary mis­con­duct by a pros­e­cu­tor who is now a jus­tice of the Arkansas Supreme Court. In a death-penal­ty pros­e­cu­tion that became non-cap­i­tal on retri­al, a third co-defen­dant false­ly con­fessed to avoid the death penal­ty and now-Justice Robin Wynne with­held and appar­ent­ly delib­er­ate­ly destroyed excul­pa­to­ry evi­dence, pre­sent­ed false tes­ti­mo­ny, and lied to the jury.

Jimerson was rep­re­sent­ed by the Center on Wrongful Convictions at Northwestern Law School and Brown was rep­re­sent­ed by the Midwest Innocence Project. Prosecutors must now decide whether to retry the case.

NEWS (4/​28/​20) — Alabama: The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit has affirmed an Alabama fed­er­al dis­trict court rul­ing that coun­sel for death-row pris­on­er Joe James was not inef­fec­tive in the penal­ty phase of James’ cap­i­tal retri­al. Defense coun­sel, whom the court laud­ed as ​“expe­ri­enced,” con­duct­ed vir­tu­al­ly no mit­i­ga­tion inter­views, obtained no insti­tu­tion­al records, and did not seek the assis­tance of any men­tal health expert. The court ruled that the Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals rea­son­ably applied U.S. Supreme Court caselaw when it said that James had ​“failed to show a rea­son­able prob­a­bil­i­ty that his counsel’s per­for­mance affect­ed the out­come of his sentencing proceeding.”