U.S. Supreme Court Rules in Favor of Alabama Death-Row Prisoner in McWilliams v. Dunn

In a 5 – 4 deci­sion released June 19, 2017, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Alabama had uncon­sti­tu­tion­al­ly denied death-row pris­on­er James McWilliams (pic­tured) the assis­tance of an inde­pen­dent men­tal health expert. 

The Court wrote that its 1985 rul­ing in Ake v. Oklahoma, which enti­tles indi­gent defen­dants to the assis­tance of a men­tal health expert, encom­passed a clear­ly estab­lished right to an expert who is ​“inde­pen­dent from the pros­e­cu­tion.” In his opin­ion for the Court, Justice Breyer wrote that ​“Alabama’s pro­vi­sion of men­tal health assis­tance fell … dra­mat­i­cal­ly short of Ake​’s require­ments.”

The defense had no expert to help it pre­pare to exam­ine the doc­tors who tes­ti­fied for the state, and only pre­sent­ed tes­ti­mo­ny about his men­tal con­di­tion from McWilliams and his moth­er. After the jury vot­ed 10 – 2 to rec­om­mend the death penal­ty, the court sched­uled a for­mal sen­tenc­ing hear­ing and appoint­ed a state neu­ropsy­chol­o­gist to exam­ine McWilliams. That doc­tor pre­pared a report of the eval­u­a­tion and con­sult­ed with the prosecution. 

Defense coun­sel received the neu­ropsy­cho­log­i­cal report — which stat­ed that McWilliams had ​“organ­ic brain dam­age,” ​“gen­uine neu­ropsy­cho­log­i­cal prob­lems,” and ​“an obvi­ous neu­ropsy­cho­log­i­cal deficit” — only two days before his sen­tenc­ing hear­ing. On the day of the hear­ing, coun­sel received exten­sive prison men­tal health records that con­tained evi­dence that McWilliams was being pre­scribed anti-psy­chot­ic med­ica­tion. After deny­ing the defense time to con­sult with an inde­pen­dent expert to devel­op the men­tal health evi­dence for use in mit­i­ga­tion, the court found no mit­i­gat­ing evi­dence and sen­tenced McWilliams to death. 

Justice Breyer wrote, ​“Ake clear­ly estab­lished that when cer­tain thresh­old cri­te­ria are met, the state must pro­vide a defen­dant with access to a men­tal health expert who is suf­fi­cient­ly avail­able to the defense and inde­pen­dent from the pros­e­cu­tion to effec­tive­ly ​‘con­duct an appro­pri­ate exam­i­na­tion and assist in eval­u­a­tion, prepa­ra­tion, and pre­sen­ta­tion of the defense.’ ” The Court remand­ed the case to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11^th Circuit, which must now deter­mine whether Alabama’s vio­la­tion of McWilliams’ right to an inde­pen­dent expert had the “ ​‘sub­stan­tial and inju­ri­ous effect or influ­ence’ required to war­rant a grant of habeas relief.” 

Stephen Bright, who argued on behalf of McWilliams before the Supreme Court, said, ​“Today’s deci­sion is about fair­ness. The adver­sar­i­al process can­not func­tion prop­er­ly if the pros­e­cu­tion can retain men­tal health experts, but the defense is not even allowed to con­sult with an expert.” He said, ​“James McWilliams could not have a fair tri­al with­out a men­tal health expert to assess his brain dam­age and oth­er men­tal impair­ments and to help his coun­sel present that infor­ma­tion to the sentencing court.”