Capital Case Roundup — Death Penalty Court Decisions the Week of September 21, 2020

NEWS (9/​24/​20) — Ohio: The Ohio Supreme Court has upheld the con­vic­tion and death sen­tence of Terry Lee Froman for a September 2014 dou­ble mur­der in Warren County. Among oth­er issues, the court ruled that Froman’s due process rights were not vio­lat­ed when he was forced to wear leg shack­les through­out the tri­al. The court not­ed that while shack­ling is gen­er­al­ly inap­pro­pri­ate, the tri­al court had made an indi­vid­u­al­ized assess­ment that leg shack­les were war­rant­ed and had tak­en pre­cau­tion­ary steps to ensure the shack­les were not vis­i­ble to the jury.

The court also denied claims that Froman’s jury was racial­ly biased and that his tri­al coun­sel was inef­fec­tive. Froman may ask the U.S. Supreme Court to review the Ohio appeals court’s deci­sion or can ini­ti­ate the post-con­vic­tion appeal process in his case.

NEWS (9/​23/​20) — Pennsylvania: The Pennsylvania Supreme Court quashed an appeal filed by death-row pris­on­er Aaron Jones, after the tri­al court had restored his appeal rights based upon what it con­sid­ered a con­flict of inter­est of for­mer Pennsylvania Supreme Court Justice Ronald Castille. While serv­ing as Philadelphia District Attorney, Castille had autho­rized two pri­or mur­der pros­e­cu­tions of Jones. 

The court held that its August 2020 rul­ing in Commonwealth v. Anthony Reid that sub­ject­ed judi­cial con­flict of inter­est claims to the state post-con­vic­tion relief act’s juris­dic­tion­al time-bar require­ments applied to Jones’ case. In a per curi­am order, it said that Jones should have raised his claim when he could have become aware of the con­flict, rather than wait­ing until the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Williams v. Pennsylvania that Castille’s dual role in autho­riz­ing cap­i­tal pros­e­cu­tions and then par­tic­i­pat­ing in decid­ing appeals in those cas­es vio­lat­ed due process. The time-bar rul­ing will have the effect of deny­ing a con­flict-free appeal to most of the 42 Philadelphia death-row pris­on­ers who are affect­ed by Castille’s conflict. 

Justice Christine Donohue con­curred in the rul­ing, but also said that Castille had no con­flict in Jones’ case because he was no longer dis­trict attor­ney at the time Jones was charged in the capital case.

NEWS (9/​23/​20) — Alabama: Christopher Revis, who had been sen­tenced to death by his tri­al judge in 2006 after a non-unan­i­mous jury sen­tenc­ing vote, has been resen­tenced to life with the pos­si­bil­i­ty of parole. On September 16, as prepa­ra­tions for an October 26 retri­al were get­ting under way, Revis and Winston County pros­e­cu­tors entered a plea deal to end the case. On September 23, Judge John H. Bentley — who had twice sen­tenced Revis to death — ordered that the 16 years Revis had spent in prison since his arrest, includ­ing 14 years on death row, be count­ed towards his time served for pur­pos­es of parole eligibility.

Bentley ini­tial­ly imposed the death penal­ty on Revis after the jury vot­ed 11 – 1 to rec­om­mend death. He reim­posed the death penal­ty after the Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals over­turned the death sen­tence, rul­ing that the court had dou­ble-count­ed aggra­vat­ing facts about the mur­der. In 2015, Bentley over­turned Revis’ con­vic­tion because of juror mis­con­duct, find­ing that two jurors had vio­lat­ed the court’s orders not to dis­cuss the case before delib­er­a­tions. He also found that Revis’ court-appoint­ed coun­sel had been inef­fec­tive in the penal­ty phase for fail­ing to inves­ti­gate and present avail­able mit­i­gat­ing evi­dence. At that time, Bentley wrote that it was his ​“unshake­able opin­ion” that the jury would have rec­om­mend­ed a life sen­tence if it had been aware of ​“even a frac­tion of the avail­able mit­i­gat­ing evi­dence” coun­sel had failed to inves­ti­gate, and that if the jury had still rec­om­mend­ed death, ​“the Court would have over­rid­den the jury’s death sentence.”

NEWS (9/​22/​20) — Texas: A split pan­el of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit reversed a Texas fed­er­al court’s deci­sion grant­i­ng habeas cor­pus relief to Faryion Wardrip and ordered that Wardrip’s death sen­tence be reinstated. The rul­ing comes ten years after the dis­trict court ruled that Wardrip’s tri­al coun­sel was inef­fec­tive for fail­ing to inves­ti­gate and obtain prison records that could have shown Wardrip was unlike­ly to pose a con­tin­u­ing threat to soci­ety if he was spared the death penalty.

Judge Patrick E. Higginbotham dis­sent­ed from the panel’s rul­ing. He said that counsel’s reliance on ​“a sin­gle piece of evi­dence: that Wardrip ​‘had only two minor dis­ci­pli­nary reports’ over the course of near­ly twelve years in prison,” with­out request­ing oth­er prison records was unrea­son­able and prej­u­di­cial. Higginbotham not­ed that the oth­er prison records con­tained ​“numer­ous facts that would have giv­en the jury a more com­plete pic­ture of Wardrip’s life in prison than a bare recita­tion of his dis­ci­pli­nary infrac­tions,” includ­ing that ​“while in prison, Wardrip worked as a fire­man and reporter, earned his GED, attend­ed class­es, act­ed as a trustee, and raised funds for a young man in need of a kidney transplant.”