In Part Two of its inves­ti­ga­tion into the fed­er­al review of state death penal­ty cas­es, Death by Deadline, The Marshall Project found that in almost every case where lawyers missed crti­ical fil­ing dead­lines for fed­er­al appeals, the only per­son sanc­tioned was the death row pris­on­er. Often the inmate’s entire fed­er­al review was for­feit­ed. The report high­light­ed the dis­par­i­ty between the 17 fed­er­al judi­cial dis­tricts where gov­ern­ment-fund­ed attor­neys care­ful­ly mon­i­tor cap­i­tal cas­es to ensure dead­lines are met, and the oth­er 77 dis­tricts, where appeals lawyers are appoint­ed by judges and receive lit­tle over­sight. In Florida, which pro­duced 37 of the 80 missed dead­line cas­es, appeals lawyers are select­ed from a state reg­istry that includes lawyers who have pre­vi­ous­ly missed dead­lines in sev­er­al cap­i­tal cas­es. U.S. District Court judge Timothy Corrigan chas­tised one attor­ney who filed after the cut­off in three sep­a­rate cas­es, say­ing, ​“I would be remiss if I did not share my deep con­cern that in these cas­es our fed­er­al sys­tem of jus­tice fell short in the very sit­u­a­tion where the stakes could not be high­er.” U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder recent­ly com­ment­ed on the strict dead­lines in cap­i­tal cas­es, say­ing, ​“When you’re talk­ing about the state tak­ing someone’s life, there has to be a great deal of flex­i­bil­i­ty with­in the sys­tem to deal with things like dead­lines. If you rely on process to deny what could be a sub­stan­tive claim, I wor­ry about where that will lead us.” 

(K. Armstrong, ​“When lawyers stum­ble, only their clients fall,” The Marshall Project, pub­lished in Washington Post, November 16, 2014). See Part One of the series. See Representation and Studies.

Citation Guide