NEW RESOURCES: The Absence of Adequate Counsel in Alabama Death Penalty Appeals

Professor Celestine Richards McConville explores the plight of inmates on Alabama’s death row who face execution despite being denied adequate representation for key parts of their appeal in her law review article, “The Meaninglessness of Delayed Appointments and Discretionary Grants of Capital Postconviction Counsel.” The article is part of a University of Tulsa Law Review symposium issue on “The Death Penalty and the Question of Actual Innocence.” The article points out that Alabama’s courts will not grant counsel to a death row inmate in post-conviction appeals until after the petitioner files the petition and survives a challenge from the state for summary dismissal of the appeal. Prof. McConville argues that those are two very difficult tasks to accomplish without representation.

The author states that Alabama’s system of “forcing indigent capital inmates to run the post-conviction course alone—even for a brief time—undermines the very purpose of granting post conviction counsel in the first place.” She adds that, “Alabama’s system provides nothing more than an empty promise” and does not protect the rights of capital inmates.
(C. McConville, “The Meaninglessness of Delayed Appointments and Discretionary Grants of Capital Postconviction Counsel,” 42 Tulsa Law Review 253 (2006)). See Law Reviews.