A recent four-part news inves­ti­ga­tion by McClatchey News exam­ined the qual­i­ty of coun­sel in four death penal­ty states. The series, ​“No Defense: Shortcut to Death Row,” explores cap­i­tal rep­re­sen­ta­tion in Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia and Virginia. The research revealed that those states have exten­sive prob­lems with ade­quate coun­sel, a fact under­scored in the series through case exam­ples that illus­trate the sys­tems’ inad­e­qua­cies. The series found:

  • In 73 of 80 cas­es reviewed, lawyers did lit­tle or noth­ing to defend their clients at the crit­i­cal stage where juries are weigh­ing life and death. The attor­neys often missed unspeak­able abuse, abject pover­ty, and pro­found men­tal dis­abil­i­ties in their clients’ back­grounds. All of these can be fac­tors that juries cite as the basis for a life sentence.
  • Appeals courts in the four states rou­tine­ly refused to cite bad lawyer­ing as a rea­son to over­turn death sen­tences, despite sev­er­al U.S. Supreme Court deci­sions set­ting stan­dards for representation.
  • In one of four states reviewed, Georgia, a new office of new but well-trained lawyers is now han­dling all the state’s death penal­ty cas­es. These lawyers, with ade­quate resources and train­ing, have had far dif­fer­ent results. So far, none of their 46 clients has been sen­tenced to death.

(North Carolina News & Observer, January 20, 2007). Read the series. See Representation.

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