CINCINNATI — Lawyers might be tempted to offer a weak defense in death penalty cases because many execution sentences are being overturned due to lawyer incompetence, the chief judge of a four-state federal appeals court said in an opinion released yesterday.
Prisoners who receive ineffective assistance are likely to be spared, "certainly for many years, and frequently forever," wrote Chief Judge Danny Boggs of the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
"To put it bluntly, it might well appear to a disinterested observer that the most incompetent and ineffective counsel that can be provided to a convicted and death-eligible defendant is a fully-investigated and competent penalty-phase defense under the precedents of the Supreme Court and of our court," Boggs wrote.
The 6th Circuit hears appeals of federal cases from Kentucky, Ohio, Michigan and Tennessee. Boggs' comments came in a unanimous, three-judge ruling that threw out the death sentence for a man whose execution has been pending 21 years.
Dewaine Poindexter was convicted of aggravated murder in 1985 for killing the new boyfriend of a former girlfriend in Cincinnati. The appeals court cited ineffective counsel in ruling that Poindexter's death sentence must be thrown out unless Ohio conducts a new penalty proceeding within 180 days.
Details here from the AP via The Courier-Journal. The court's opinion is Poindexter v. Mitchell.