Capital Case Roundup — Death Penalty Court Decisions the Week of May 18, 2020

NEWS (5/​22/​2020) — Washington, D.C.: The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit has stayed the issuance of its man­date in the fed­er­al exe­cu­tion-pro­to­col law­suit until June 8, 2020, to allow the fed­er­al death-row pris­on­ers to seek review in the U.S. Supreme Court. On November 21, 2019, the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia issued a pre­lim­i­nary injunc­tion bar­ring the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment from imple­ment­ing the chal­lenged pro­to­col. A split pan­el of the appeals court lift­ed the injunc­tion on April 7. The order assures that fed­er­al exe­cu­tions will not go for­ward before the pris­on­ers file their Supreme Court appeal.

The prisoner’s motion assert­ed that care­ful review of the appeals court deci­sion was cru­cial because the D.C. Circuit deci­sion lift­ing the injunc­tion had employed ​“a nov­el inter­pre­ta­tion” of the fre­quent­ly used statu­to­ry lan­guage ​“pre­scribed by the law of the State.” If left stand­ing, the pris­on­ers argued, the deci­sion could have an unin­tend­ed impact far beyond the fed­er­al death penal­ty statute, affect­ing ​“thou­sands of oth­er statutes that use the phrase ​‘pre­scribed by law’ and vir­tu­al­ly every chal­lenge to [fed­er­al] agency action.” 

NEWS (5/​22/​2020) — Texas: Jury selec­tion in the first death-penal­ty tri­al in San Antonio since Joe Gonzales was elect­ed Bexar County dis­trict attor­ney in November 2018 has been delayed again as a result of the coro­n­avirus pan­dem­ic. Otis McKane had been sched­uled to go on tri­al on April 27, accused of cap­i­tal mur­der in the killing of San Antonio Police Detective Benjamin Marconi. However, in March, the Bexar County courts sus­pend­ed all jury tri­als and, on May 22, the sus­pen­sion of jury ser­vice was extend­ed through June 30, delay­ing jury selec­tion in McKane’s case until at least July.

No one has been sen­tenced to death in Bexar County since January 2016.

NEWS (5/​21/​2020) — Nevada: The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit has upheld a Nevada dis­trict court rul­ing that denied death-row pris­on­er Joseph Weldon Smith’s habeas cor­pus chal­lenge to his con­vic­tion and death sen­tence. The court found two sep­a­rate con­sti­tu­tion­al vio­la­tions in Smith’s case but ruled that the vio­la­tions were not prejudicial.

Smith was con­vict­ed in 1992 for the mur­ders of his wife and two step-daugh­ters and sen­tenced to death for his step-daugh­ters’ mur­ders. The Nevada Supreme Court reversed his death sen­tences, find­ing they were based on an uncon­sti­tu­tion­al­ly vague aggra­vat­ing cir­cum­stance. In his resen­tenc­ing tri­al, the jury again sen­tenced him to death for the two mur­ders, but the state appeals court vacat­ed one of the death sen­tences, again because it was based sole­ly on the invalid aggra­vat­ing cir­cum­stance. In his fed­er­al habeas cor­pus pro­ceed­ings, the Ninth Circuit found that por­tions of the jury instruc­tion on the remain­ing death sen­tence were uncon­sti­tu­tion­al­ly vague and that the jury did not unan­i­mous­ly agree on the fac­tu­al pred­i­cate for find­ing an aggra­vat­ing cir­cum­stance. However, the court ruled that this con­sti­tu­tion­al vio­la­tion was harm­less because the jury unan­i­mous­ly found the aggra­vat­ing cir­cum­stance, even if they did not unan­i­mous­ly agree on the rea­sons why the aggra­va­tor was proven.

The court also found that Smith’s lawyers in the sec­ond penal­ty-phase tri­al and in his state post-con­vic­tion pro­ceed­ings had failed to inves­ti­gate and present avail­able mit­i­gat­ing evi­dence to spare his life. However, while the court deter­mined that counsel’s per­for­mance fell below pro­fes­sion­al­ly accept­able norms, it denied relief on Smith’s inef­fec­tive­ness claim, rul­ing that there was no rea­son­able prob­a­bil­i­ty the mit­i­gat­ing evi­dence pre­sent­ed by Smith’s fed­er­al habeas cor­pus coun­sel would have changed the sentencing outcome.

NEWS (5/​21/​2020) — Texas: The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit has denied Texas death-row pris­on­er David Renteria per­mis­sion to appeal a fed­er­al dis­trict court’s denial of his habeas cor­pus chal­lenge to his con­vic­tion and death sen­tence. Renteria was sen­tenced to death for the 2001 abduc­tion and mur­der of a five-year-old girl. The Texas fed­er­al courts have grant­ed relief to only one of 151 cap­i­tal habeas peti­tion­ers con­vict­ed after 2000 who have com­plet­ed fed­er­al habeas corpus review.

The Fifth Circuit denied Renteria a cer­tifi­cate of appeal­a­bil­i­ty, pre­clud­ing him from appeal­ing a num­ber of issues, includ­ing: that he was incom­pe­tent to stand tri­al and his state appoint­ed tri­al and post-con­vic­tion coun­sel failed to inves­ti­gate his men­tal con­di­tion, request a com­pe­ten­cy hear­ing, and lit­i­gate the issue; that the tri­al court pre­vent­ed Renteria from pre­sent­ing expert tes­ti­mo­ny on the amount of time he would serve before becom­ing eli­gi­ble for parole if sen­tenced to life and on his lack of dan­ger­ous­ness to soci­ety if sen­tenced to life; and that the dis­trict court had improp­er­ly denied him fund­ing to inves­ti­gate his habeas claims.

NEWS (5/​21/​2020) — Florida: In an unsigned opin­ion, the Florida Supreme Court aban­doned a key pro­ce­dur­al pro­tec­tion for intel­lec­tu­al­ly dis­abled death-row pris­on­ers, refus­ing to enforce a U.S. Supreme Court opin­ion that had struck down uncon­sti­tu­tion­al lim­i­ta­tions the state had placed on deter­min­ing whether a prisoner’s intel­lec­tu­al impair­ments barred his or her execution. 

In 2014, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Hall v. Florida that Florida’s estab­lish­ment of a 70-IQ cut­off score before a pris­on­er could be deemed intel­lec­tu­al­ly dis­abled was incon­sis­tent with the clin­i­cal cri­te­ria for diag­nos­ing intel­lec­tu­al dis­abil­i­ty and con­trary to a nation­al leg­isla­tive con­sen­sus on the def­i­n­i­tion of intel­lec­tu­al dis­abil­i­ty. After Hall struck down Florida’s uncon­sti­tu­tion­al­ly nar­row inter­pre­ta­tion of intel­lec­tu­al dis­abil­i­ty, the state supreme court ruled that Hall would be applied to all intel­lec­tu­al dis­abil­i­ty cas­es. In its deci­sion in Phillips v. Florida, the court reversed itself, say­ing it would enforce Hall only in those cas­es that reached the state appeals court for the first time after Hall was decid­ed. The court had reject­ed Harry Phillips’ intel­lec­tu­al dis­abil­i­ty claim in 2008, apply­ing the uncon­sti­tu­tion­al def­i­n­i­tion of intel­lec­tu­al dis­abil­i­ty to his case.

NEWS (5/​20/​2020) — Texas: A fed­er­al dis­trict court judge has over­turned the con­vic­tion and death sen­tence of Texas death-row pris­on­er Ronald Prible, find­ing that celebri­ty ​“true crime” host Kelly Siegler (pic­tured) had engaged in exten­sive mis­con­duct as a Harris County homi­cide pros­e­cu­tor in Prible’s cap­i­tal tri­al in 2002. 

The court grant­ed Prible relief on six sep­a­rate claims of mis­con­duct involv­ing the sup­pres­sion of evi­dence, includ­ing that Siegler — now host of the Oxygen Network’s Cold Justice — had an orga­nized sys­tem of pro­vid­ing favors to prison infor­mants in exchange for fab­ri­cat­ing false con­fes­sions, that the infor­mants fab­ri­cat­ed tes­ti­mo­ny against Prible, that Siegler hid evi­dence that could have impeached the infor­mants and with­held excul­pa­to­ry evi­dence that the tri­al court had ordered pro­duced to the defense, that Siegler ille­gal­ly used infor­mants as state agents to ques­tion Prible out­side of the pres­ence of coun­sel after he was rep­re­sent­ed by coun­sel, and that Siegler had sup­pressed excul­pa­to­ry evi­dence that the head of the Harris County Crime Lab had con­firmed that semen found in the vic­tim could have been deposit­ed up to 72 hours ear­li­er, con­sis­tent with Prible’s defense that he had con­sen­su­al sex with the vic­tim days before the murder.