Death Penalty

The US Supreme Court agreed today to hear the case of Edward Nathaniel Bell (Bell v. Kelly), who was scheduled to be executed in Virginia on July 24. The main issue in Bell's case is that his attorneys presented absolutely no mitigating evidence during the sentencing phase of his trial, basically leaving the field to the prosecution and virtually ensuring that he would get a death sentence.  On appeal, the Virginia Supreme Court upheld the death sentence, ruling that Bell's trial attorneys had not been ineffective.

But the federal courts ruled that the work of Bell's trial attorneys was indeed constitutionally deficient.  Nonetheless, they held that Bell had still not been "prejudiced" by his attorneys' behavior.  The federal courts upheld the Virginia Supreme Court's ruling in part by relying on the 1996 Anti-terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act (AEDPA), which requires federal courts to show substantial deference to state courts, unless their rulings are "unreasonable".   

Bell argues that in fact he was "prejudiced" by his attorneys' deficient performance, and that the federal courts, including most recently the 4^th Circuit US Court of Appeals, had misinterpreted AEDPA and should have ruled that way, and further, that if he had been in a different circuit (for example, the 3rd, 10^th or 11^th) he would have gotten the favorable ruling he deserved.  Bell's petition to the Supreme Court urges them to take the case in part to resolve this discrepancy in interpretation between the different circuits.  The Supreme Court will hear it in the Fall.

Brian
DPAC