Capital Case Roundup — Death Penalty Court Decisions the Week of April 52021

NEWS (4/​8/​21) — Nevada: The Nevada Supreme Court has grant­ed cap­i­tal defen­dant Wilber Ernesto Martinez-Guzmans emer­gency motion to stay a pre­ma­ture dead­line the tri­al court had set for his lawyers to file a claim that he is inel­i­gi­ble for the death penal­ty because of intel­lec­tu­al dis­abil­i­ty. A tri­al court in Reno had set an April 20 dead­line for Martinez-Guzman, four months ear­li­er than the time allot­ted under Nevada law, which per­mits a defen­dant to file up to ten days before the sched­uled start of tri­al. The court’s unan­i­mous deci­sion did not explain why it grant­ed the stay. However, Martinez-Guzman’s lawyers argued that the tri­al court dead­line impaired their abil­i­ty to inves­ti­gate and present evi­dence to estab­lish his inel­i­gi­bil­i­ty for the death penalty. 

Martinez-Guzman is a Salvadoran nation­al. Proof of intel­lec­tu­al dis­abil­i­ty requires pro­vid­ing evi­dence of deficits in dai­ly func­tion­ing that were present before age 18, and his lawyers told the court that COVID-19 trav­el restric­tions have made it impos­si­ble to inves­ti­gate and inter­view wit­ness­es in El Salvador to obtain nec­es­sary evi­dence about Martinez-Guzman’s child­hood impair­ments. This court must allow him the oppor­tu­ni­ty to inves­ti­gate, col­lect, ana­lyze and mar­shal the best and most reli­able evi­dence on his intel­lec­tu­al dis­abil­i­ty,” Martinez-Guzman’s lawyers told the court.

Washoe County pros­e­cu­tors argued that the defense request was a delay tactic.


NEWS (4/​8/​21) — Ohio: The Ohio Supreme Court has stayed the sched­uled May 26, 2021 exe­cu­tion of David Martin. The court set the exe­cu­tion date in September 2017, when it affirmed Martin’s con­vic­tion and death sen­tence. However, the state failed to appoint a lawyer to rep­re­sent him in state post-con­vic­tion pro­ceed­ings, caus­ing his time lim­it for fil­ing fed­er­al appeals to expire with­out ever pro­vid­ing him state post-con­vic­tion review of his case. When fed­er­al defend­ers dis­cov­ered that Martin was unrep­re­sent­ed, they sought appoint­ment in the case and moved to stay his execution.

It’s shock­ing to me that this fell through the cracks, that this could go a whole year and nobody could notice this guy didn’t have a lawyer,” assis­tant fed­er­al pub­lic defend­er David Stebbins said. I thought we had bet­ter safe­guards in place.” The court grant­ed the stay, which pros­e­cu­tors did not oppose, pend­ing dis­po­si­tion of … all state post­con­vic­tion pro­ceed­ings, includ­ing any appeals.”


NEWS (4/​6/​21) — Alabama: In an unpub­lished opin­ion, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit has upheld the death sen­tence imposed on Kenneth Smith by an Alabama tri­al judge in 1996 after the sen­tenc­ing jury had vot­ed 11 – 1 to spare Smith’s life. No state in the United States any longer per­mits tri­al judges to over­ride jury votes for life.

After the fed­er­al dis­trict court denied Smith’s habeas cor­pus peti­tion, the appeals court grant­ed Smith per­mis­sion to appeal a sin­gle issue, whether the dis­trict court erred in hold­ing that Smith was not prej­u­diced by his tri­al counsel’s fail­ure to object to the valid­i­ty of the search war­rant issued in his case. The court denied that claim, hold­ing that the war­rant, though fail­ing to com­ply with the let­ter of Alabama law, did not vio­late Alabama law and was not invalid.


NEWS (4/​6/​21) — Oklahoma: After a one-day penal­ty phase, an Oklahoma County jury has rec­om­mend­ed that Derrick Laday be sen­tenced to death for a 2015 mur­der. Laday was one of eight defen­dants charged in stab­bing a man to death, mov­ing his body to a loca­tion under a bridge, and then set­ting a fire to burn the body and destroy evi­dence. The oth­er sev­en — includ­ing Laday’s broth­er and girl­friend — plead­ed guilty to lesser charges. 

Laday was per­mit­ted to waive his right to coun­sel and rep­re­sent­ed him­self in the guilt phase of the tri­al. Stand-by coun­sel took over the case for the short penalty phase.