Christopher Scott Emmett could face exe­cu­tion in Virginia before the end of the year despite the fact that his legal rep­re­sen­ta­tion fell short of decades-old American Bar Association stan­dards, accord­ing to an inves­ti­ga­tion by McClatchy Newspapers reporter Stephen Henderson. Emmett was sen­tenced to death in 2001, and his sto­ry was among the 73 cas­es reviewed recent­ly in the McClatchy series. During the sen­tenc­ing phase of his tri­al, Emmett’s pub­lic defend­er, Lawrence D. Gott, failed to track down or present all of the mit­i­gat­ing evi­dence that could have spared his clien­t’s life. The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that fail­ing to inves­ti­gate a clien­t’s back­ground or fol­low up on clues to seri­ous child­hood trou­bles is a crit­i­cal error in death penal­ty cas­es. According to Matthew Engle, the attor­ney han­dling Emmett’s appeals, unless the U.S. Supreme Court inter­venes in the case, Gott’s errors could cost Emmett his life.

​“The more we look into what was done here, the more egre­gious it seems, hon­est­ly. This was a pret­ty easy case to inves­ti­gate; they just did­n’t do it,” Engel stat­ed. According to Engel, Gott knew that Emmett’s sib­lings were avail­able to tes­ti­fy about his hor­rif­ic child­hood and that school records and oth­er doc­u­ments could prove that con­di­tions in Emmett’s child­hood home were dire. Gott also had men­tal health records show­ing that his clien­t’s child­hood was spent in a filthy, abu­sive, and chaot­ic home head­ed by a moth­er who was prone to aban­don­ing her chil­dren phys­i­cal­ly and emo­tion­al­ly. In fact, her fail­ure to care for her chil­dren led to one inci­dent in which Emmett, as an infant, fell down a flight of stairs while unsu­per­vised. ​“It was real­ly just a mat­ter of fol­low­ing up on obvi­ous leads. You’re not even talk­ing about a lot of records, and it’s right there,” Engel stat­ed. Instead of using what infor­ma­tion he had about his clien­t’s trou­bled child­hood and men­tal health issues dur­ing the tri­al’s sen­tenc­ing phase, Gott chose not to present this infor­ma­tion to the jury. Instead, Gott argued that his client deserved mer­cy and would not pose a future dan­ger to soci­ety.

Virginia courts have not­ed that Gott’s inves­ti­ga­tion was not ade­quate, but still denied Emmett’s appeals in rul­ings that note the inves­ti­ga­tion was incom­plete because Emmett and his fam­i­ly failed to present all the evi­dence to his attor­ney. The Virginia Supreme Court even incor­rect­ly cred­it­ed Gott with hav­ing inter­viewed all the wit­ness­es Emmett had sug­gest­ed. Gott him­self has nev­er claimed as much. In fed­er­al court, in a sharply-word­ed dis­sent, Judge Robert L. Gregory of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit said that Emmett’s case was a clas­sic exam­ple of inef­fec­tive lawyer­ing accord­ing to Supreme Court stan­dards.

Virginia typ­i­cal­ly sched­ules an exe­cu­tion after the appeals court denies a rehear­ing and is one of only a few states that sets a date before the U.S. Supreme Court has issued its final rul­ing. Given past prac­tices, Emmett’s exe­cu­tion date could come by the end of May unless the U.S. Supreme Court decides to inter­vene. ​“We’re get­ting down to the end, for sure. You just hope some­one will step in,” Engle said.

(McClatchy Newspapers, February 6, 2007). Read Stephen Henderson’s news series ​“No Defense: Shortcut to Death Row.” See also, Representation.

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