Capital Case Roundup — Death Penalty Court Decisions the Week of September 28, 2020

NEWS (10/​1/​20) — Washington, D.C.: The fed­er­al gov­ern­ment has sched­uled an eighth exe­cu­tion for 2020, set­ting a November 19 exe­cu­tion date for Orlando Hall. Hall’s case would be the first fed­er­al exe­cu­tion in more than a half-cen­tu­ry for the killing of an African-American vic­tim and the sec­ond con­sec­u­tive exe­cu­tion of an African-American pris­on­er after the exe­cu­tions of five white pris­on­ers and the sole Native American on fed­er­al death row.

There are cur­rent­ly 55 pris­on­ers on the fed­er­al death row, near­ly two-thirds of whom are pris­on­ers of col­or. 45% of fed­er­al death-row pris­on­ers are Black.

Hall was sen­tenced to death by an all-white Texas fed­er­al jury for the drug-relat­ed 1994 kid­nap­ping, rape, and mur­der of a 16-year-old girl. Five peo­ple were charged in the mur­der, and a co-defen­dant, Bruce Webster, was also sen­tenced to death. Webster’s death sen­tence was over­turned in June 2019, find­ing that he is intel­lec­tu­al­ly dis­abled. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit affirmed that rul­ing on September 22. Hall’s cur­rent lawyers allege that the Texas fed­er­al courts appoint­ed inef­fec­tive lawyers to rep­re­sent him at tri­al, who dur­ing jury selec­tion ​“enlist­ed the help of a for­mer state pros­e­cu­tor known for keep­ing Black cit­i­zens from serv­ing on crim­i­nal juries.” They fur­ther allege that tri­al coun­sel con­duct­ed no mean­ing­ful inves­ti­ga­tion into mit­i­gat­ing cir­cum­stances in his case and failed to present evi­dence of extreme pover­ty and severe trau­ma Hall endured growing up.

The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights ruled on April 22, 2020 that the United States had vio­lat­ed Hall’s human rights by deny­ing him access to an effec­tive rem­e­dy on his claim of racial dis­crim­i­na­tion and his rights to a fair tri­al and due process of law. 

NEWS (10/​1/​20) — Virginia: A Central Virginia judge has acquit­ted Darcel Murphy of all charges in the March 2016 mur­der of Kevin Robinson in Louisa County. In a bench tri­al, Judge Timothy Sanner dis­missed all charges against Murphy at the close of the pros­e­cu­tion’s case, find­ing that pros­e­cu­tors had proven only that he had been present at the scene of the mur­der, not that he fired or pos­sessed the murder weapon.

The cap­i­tal case had attract­ed nation­al atten­tion after defense coun­sel filed a motion seek­ing to remove a por­trait of Confederate General Robert E. Lee from the court­room in which Murphy, who is African American, was to be tried. The court ordered that the paint­ing be tak­en down. The pros­e­cu­tion sub­se­quent­ly dropped the death penal­ty and Murphy waived his right to a jury trial. 

NEWS (10/​2/​20) — Florida: A Miami-Dade County tri­al court has grant­ed a motion by coun­ty pros­e­cu­tors to deny William Lee Thompson a hear­ing on his claim of intel­lec­tu­al dis­abil­i­ty, despite rul­ings by the Florida Supreme Court in 2016 to recon­sid­er his claim and in 2019 set­ting para­me­ters for a pros­e­cu­tion men­tal health expert’s eval­u­a­tion of Thompson.

The Florida state courts had ini­tial­ly denied Thompson’s intel­lec­tu­al dis­abil­i­ty claim, apply­ing an over­ly restric­tive IQ require­ment that the U.S. Supreme Court declared uncon­sti­tu­tion­al in Florida v. Hall. In 2016, the Florida Supreme Court direct­ed that Thompson be pro­vid­ed a hear­ing so that his intel­lec­tu­al dis­abil­i­ty claim could be recon­sid­ered under a sci­en­tif­i­cal­ly and con­sti­tu­tion­al­ly appro­pri­ate stan­dard. Three mem­bers of the court who had vot­ed to apply the Hall deci­sion to all death-penal­ty intel­lec­tu­al dis­abil­i­ty deter­mi­na­tions in Florida reached manda­to­ry retire­ment in 2019. The court, with new jus­tices fill­ing those vacan­cies, issued an opin­ion in Phillips v. State on May 21, 2020 chang­ing the law to apply Hall only to future cas­es. Thompson’s tri­al court retroac­tive­ly applied Phillips to deny Thompson a new hear­ing and restore the judg­ment against him that had been reached using an uncon­sti­tu­tion­al def­i­n­i­tion of intellectual disability.