Legal Incompetence - Death Penalty

LEGAL INCOMPETENCE

Topic 2 :
'Explain a couple examples of legal incompetence.'

Example 1:

-October 28,2000-
            The ruling came in the case of Calvin J. Burdine, whose death sentence for a 1983 murder in Texas drew considerable--and unfavorable--attention to that state's death penalty system.

            During Burdine's trial, his court-appointed lawyer, Joe Frank Cannon, frequently fell asleep, according to jurors and the court clerk. Last year, a federal district judge in Houston ordered a new trial for Burdine, saying that "a sleeping counsel is equivalent to no counsel at all."

            But by a 2-1 majority, a panel of the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals disagreed. The judges were not "condoning sleeping by defense counsel during a capital murder trial," Judges Rhesa Barksdale and Edith H. Jones wrote in their ruling. But from the trial record, "it is impossible to record, "it is impossible to determine--instead, only to speculate--that counsel's sleeping" actually hurt Burdine's case, the majority said.

More in detail at againstdp.org

Example 2

- March 3, 1993 -
            Walter McMillian was released from Alabama's death row after having spent six years there because of perjured testimony and withheld evidence that indicated his innocence. He was convicted of the shooting death of a storekeeper. On the day of the murder he was at a fish fry with his friends and relatives, many of whom testified to this at his trial. No physical evidence linked him to the crime, but three people who testified at his trial connected him to the murder.

            Only sheer luck saved Walter McMillian. After listening to a tape recording of a key witness testimony against McMillian, a volunteer lawyer flipped the tape to see if there was anything on the other side. Only then did he hear the same witness complaining that he was being pressured to frame McMillian. With that fortuitous break, the whole case against McMillian began to fall apart.

            All three prosecution witnesses recanted their testimony. On March 3, 1993, the County District Attorney joined the defense in a motion to dismiss the charges. Walter McMillian was finally freed.