On April 1, the U.S. Supreme Court held in Harbison v. Bell that federally appointed counsel can represent indigent capital clients in state clemency procedures. The case, which was argued before the Supreme Court in January 2009, asked whether a federal law that provides lawyers to indigent state death row inmates for parts of their appeal guarantees them the continuation of that representation through the state clemency process. The law says that such lawyers are to represent their clients in “all available post-conviction process,” including “proceedings for executive or other clemency.” Federal appeals courts had been divided over the interpretation of the law, with one side saying that the law applies only to federal clemency proceedings.
However, the Court determined that the reference to “proceedings for executive and other clemency” in the federal statute reveals that the law is intended to encompass state clemency proceedings. Justice John Paul Stevens, writing for the majority, clarified that “[f]ederal clemency is exclusively executive: Only the President has the power to grant clemency for offenses under federal law. By contrast, the States administer clemency in a variety of ways.” In the dissenting opinion, Justice Antonin Scalia argued that the federal law in question applies only to federal death row inmates and does not intend to extend representation of state inmates by federally appointed and funded counsel to the state clemency process.
Justice Stevens stated that “[i]n authorizing federally funded counsel to represent their state clients in clemency proceedings, Congress ensured that no prisoner would be put to death without meaningful access to the ‘fail-safe’ of our justice system.”
See Harbison v. Bell, No. 07 – 8521 U.S. (April 1, 2009). See Supreme Court and Representation.
