On March 7, 2008, the Tennessee Court of Criminal Appeals reversed the con­vic­tion and death sen­tence of Richard Taylor. The court’s rul­ing grants Taylor a new tri­al due to a vari­ety of con­sti­tu­tion­al errors at his orig­i­nal tri­al. These errors include the denial of his con­sti­tu­tion­al right to coun­sel at a pre-tri­al com­pe­ten­cy hear­ing, the fail­ure of the tri­al court to hold a com­pe­ten­cy hear­ing dur­ing the tri­al, and the fail­ure of the tri­al court to appoint advi­so­ry coun­sel. Taylor, who is severe­ly men­tal­ly ill, was per­mit­ted to rep­re­sent him­self at tri­al with lit­tle ques­tion­ing of his com­pe­ten­cy. At his 2003 tri­al, Taylor rep­re­sent­ed him­self with­out advi­so­ry coun­sel and pre­sent­ed no evi­dence towards his defense. 

Cassandra Stubbs, a staff attor­ney with the ACLU’s North Carolina-based National Prison Project, stat­ed, ​“The deci­sion by the Court of Criminal Appeals rights the ter­ri­ble injus­tice of a death sen­tence imposed against Richard Taylor, who faced his cap­i­tal tri­al – while men­tal­ly ill, like­ly incom­pe­tent, and forcibly med­icat­ed – with­out the ben­e­fit of coun­sel. By rec­og­niz­ing the impor­tance of Mr. Taylor’s right to coun­sel, includ­ing the right to stand­by coun­sel, the Court firm­ly estab­lished crit­i­cal pro­tec­tions for men­tal­ly ill defen­dants who face cap­i­tal charges.”

Additional back­ground infor­ma­tion about this case can be found here.
(ACLU, Press Release March 11, 2008). See Mental Illness and Representation.

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