The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit upheld the con­vic­tion and death sen­tence of a death row inmate on a tie vote (7 – 7), despite the fact that the defen­dant was rep­re­sent­ed by an attor­ney who did not even learn his clien­t’s true name. The defense lawyer mis­led a review­ing court about his expe­ri­ence in cap­i­tal cas­es and has been indict­ed for per­jury. The defen­dant, who was tried in Kentucky as James Slaughter but whose real name is Jeffrey Leonard, is appar­ent­ly brain dam­aged and endured a bru­tal child­hood. A num­ber of judges have con­curred that the lawyer’s inves­ti­ga­tion into Leonard’s back­ground was below Constitutional stan­dards, but there were not enough votes to say that a bet­ter inves­ti­ga­tion would have made a dif­fer­ence in sentencing.


One of the dis­sent­ing judges, Guy Cole, sharply crit­i­cized the Court of Appeals’ decision:

We are uneasy about exe­cut­ing any­one sen­tenced to die by a jury who knows near­ly noth­ing about that per­son. But we have allowed it. We are also uneasy about exe­cut­ing those who com­mit their crime at a young age. But we have allowed that as well. We are par­tic­u­lar­ly trou­bled about exe­cut­ing some­one who like­ly suf­fers brain dam­age. We rarely, if ever, allow that – espe­cial­ly when the jury is not afford­ed the oppor­tu­ni­ty to even con­sid­er that evi­dence. Jeffrey Leonard, known to the jury only as ​“James Slaughter,” approach­es the exe­cu­tion cham­ber with all of these char­ac­ter­is­tics. Reaching this new chap­ter in our death-penal­ty his­to­ry, the major­i­ty deci­sion can­not be rec­on­ciled with estab­lished prece­dent. It cer­tain­ly fails the Constitution.” 

He high­light­ed the arbi­trari­ness of the court’s rul­ing: ​“Although we can­not be absolute­ly cer­tain that a sin­gle juror sen­tenc­ing Jeffrey Leonard — a brain-dam­aged man whose fam­i­ly would cor­rob­o­rate his tes­ti­mo­ny and plead for his life — would come to a dif­fer­ent con­clu­sion, this court’s deci­sion leaves one aspect of this case indis­putable: We will never know.”

(N.Y. Times, Nov. 2, 2006; Slaughter v. Parker, 01 – 6359 (6th Cir., Nov. 1, 2006)). 

See Representation and Arbitrariness.

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