On March 24, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear arguments in Jennings v. Stephens (No. 13-7211), a Texas death penalty case involving ineffectiveness of counsel. In his request for federal relief from his death sentence, Robert Jennings cited three instances in which his trial lawyers failed to adequately represent him. A U.S. District Court granted him relief on two of those claims (including failure to present evidence of his mental problems), while denying the third (his own lawyers told the jury they agreed he was eligible for the death penalty). Texas appealed the District Court’s grant of relief on the first two claims to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, which then held they could not consider Jennings’ third claim of ineffective representation because his lawyers failed to file formal appeal papers on that claim. Jennings’ attorneys maintain that no such filing was required since the Fifth Circuit was already reviewing the general issue of ineffectiveness of counsel at the state’s request. The case may be set for argument in the fall.

(L. Denniston, “Arbitration with public spectators? Maybe…,” SCOTUSblog, March 24, 2014; D. C. Weiss, “Did procedural misstep bar defendant from raising lawyer’s capital concession? SCOTUS to decide,” ABA Journal, March 24, 2014). See U.S. Supreme Court and Representation.

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