On January 18, the U.S. Supreme Court (7 – 2) ordered a new hear­ing in fed­er­al court for Cory Maples, an Alabama death row inmate whose state and fed­er­al appeals had been reject­ed by low­er courts because his lawyers quit and missed a crit­i­cal fil­ing dead­line. Copies of an Alabama court rul­ing in Maples’s case were sent to a vol­un­teer New York law firm han­dling his appeals but were unopened by the mail­room and returned to the state court because the attor­neys rep­re­sent­ing Maples had left the firm. Justice Samuel Alito, con­cur­ring in the Court’s opin­ion, wrote that the cir­cum­stances sur­round­ing this case cre­at­ed a ​“ver­i­ta­ble per­fect storm of mis­for­tune.” On behalf of the major­i­ty, Justice Ruth Ginsburg wrote, ​“Maples was dis­armed by extra­or­di­nary cir­cum­stances quite beyond his con­trol. He has shown ample cause, we hold, to excuse the pro­ce­dur­al default into which he was trapped when coun­sel of record aban­doned him with­out a word of warning.”

Because Maples missed the fil­ing dead­line to appeal in state court, his fed­er­al habeas cor­pus peti­tion was also default­ed, there­by end­ing his appeals and open­ing the door to his exe­cu­tion. Federal courts allow an excep­tion for such default if the defen­dant can show there was good cause for the default, and that not being able to appeal prej­u­diced his case. Generally, a mis­take by one’s appel­late attor­ney dur­ing this phase of the appeals is not con­sid­ered good cause. However, in this instance the Supreme Court held that the appel­late lawyers at the New York firm had done more than make a mis­take – they com­plete­ly aban­doned Maples at a crit­i­cal time in the process. Since Maples had no effec­tive rep­re­sen­ta­tion at a time in which he was rely­ing on his lawyers to file his appeal, there was good cause for the default. Justice Ginsburg wrote,“In these cir­cum­stances, no just sys­tem would lay the default at Maples’ death-cell door.” The Supreme Court sent the case back to fed­er­al court to deter­mine if his case was hurt by not being able to appeal his con­vic­tion or sentencing.

One of the issues that Maples was try­ing to appeal was the qual­i­ty of the rep­re­sen­ta­tion he received at tri­al. Justice Ginsburg described the tri­al attor­neys appoint­ed by Alabama as ​“min­i­mal­ly paid and with scant expe­ri­ence in capital cases.”

Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas dis­sent­ed, main­tain­ing that Maples did have some form of rep­re­sen­ta­tion from the N.Y. firm and from a local Alabama attor­ney retained sole­ly for procedural reasons.

(R. Barnes, ​“Supreme Court: Alabama death-row inmate Cory Maples should get new hear­ing,” Washington Post, January 18, 2012). Read full U.S. Supreme Court opin­ion (Maples v. Thomas, No. 10 – 63). See Representation and U.S. Supreme Court.

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