On February 24, the U.S. Supreme Court unan­i­mous­ly ordered an Alabama court to recon­sid­er the case of Anthony Hinton, who has main­tained his inno­cence since he was sen­tenced to death 28 years ago. Mr. Hinton’s lawyer wrong­ly believed that he could spend only $1,000 on a firearms expert dur­ing the tri­al, and as a result, hired a wit­ness whom he knew was unqual­i­fied, and who the Court said was ​“bad­ly dis­cred­it­ed” by the pros­e­cu­tion. Hinton’s appel­late lawyers lat­er claimed that his tri­al lawyer’s mis­take con­sti­tut­ed inef­fec­tive assis­tance of coun­sel. During Hinton’s appeals, three experts tes­ti­fied that they could not con­clude Hinton’s gun had fired the bul­lets used in the crime, essen­tial­ly rebut­ting the pros­e­cu­tor’s pri­ma­ry evi­dence. Bryan Stevenson of the Equal Justice Initiative in Alabama, who has rep­re­sent­ed Hinton since 1999, said, ​“There’s dra­mat­ic evi­dence that he’s been wrong­ly con­vict­ed and no one can cred­i­bly assert that a cap­i­tal defen­dant can get the assis­tance he needs for $1000.” The Court returned the case to Alabama’s courts to deter­mine whether the tri­al’s lawyer error preudiced the out­come of the case.

(J. Wegman, ​“The One- Eyed Witness,” New York Times, February 24, 2014). See Representation and U.S. Supreme Court.

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