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.

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