An inves­ti­ga­tion by The Marshall Project showed that since Congress put strict time restric­tions on fed­er­al appeals in 1996, lawyers for death row inmates missed the dead­line at least 80 times, includ­ing 16 in which the pris­on­ers have since been exe­cut­ed. The most recent of such cas­es occurred on Nov. 13, when Chadwick Banks was put to death in Florida with no review in fed­er­al court. This final part of a death penal­ty appeal, also called habeas cor­pus, has been a life­saver for inmates whose cas­es were marked with mis­takes ignored by state courts. The Project’s report, Death by Deadline, not­ed, ​“Some of the lawyers’ mis­takes can be traced to their mis­un­der­stand­ings of fed­er­al habeas law and the noto­ri­ous­ly com­plex pro­ce­dures that have grown up around it. Just as often, though, the errors have exposed the lack of care and resources that have long plagued the patch­work sys­tem by which indi­gent death-row pris­on­ers are pro­vid­ed with legal help.” One Alabama lawyer who missed the dead­line was addict­ed to metham­phet­a­mine and was on pro­ba­tion for pub­lic intox­i­ca­tion. An attor­ney in Texas who filed too late had been rep­ri­mand­ed for mis­con­duct, while anoth­er Texas lawyer had been put on pro­ba­tion twice by the state bar. Two weeks after being appoint­ed in the death penal­ty case, he was put on probation again.

(K. Armstrong, ​“Lethal mix: Lawyers’ mis­takes, unfor­giv­ing law,” Washington Post (The Marshall Project, Part I), November 16, 2014). See Representation and Studies.

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