The U.S. Supreme Court has ordered a new sen­tenc­ing tri­al for Pennsylvania death row inmate Ronald Rompilla after find­ing that he was inad­e­quate­ly rep­re­sent­ed by coun­sel dur­ing his 1988 cap­i­tal tri­al. The 5 – 4 rul­ing marks the sec­ond time in one week that the U.S. Supreme Court has over­turned a death sen­tence cit­ing improp­er actions at tri­al. The Court not­ed that Rompilla’s tri­al attor­ney failed to inves­ti­gate records show­ing pos­si­ble mit­i­gat­ing evi­dence of men­tal retar­da­tion and a trau­mat­ic upbring­ing, even after pros­e­cu­tors gave warn­ing they planned to use the same doc­u­ments against him. ​“We hold that even when a cap­i­tal defen­dan­t’s fam­i­ly mem­bers and the defen­dant him­self have sug­gest­ed that no mit­i­gat­ing evi­dence is avail­able, his lawyer is bound to make rea­son­able efforts to obtain and review mate­r­i­al that coun­sel knows the pros­e­cu­tion will prob­a­bly rely on,” wrote Justice David H. Souter, who authored the majority opinion. 

(Associated Press, June 20, 2005). See Supreme Court and Representation.

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