The Death Penalty

Paper Summary:

This paper explains that the American Bar Association observed that no state meets its own standards for competent counsel in a death case. The author points out that the competence of a defense counsel is of paramount significance in death penalty cases based on the First Judiciary Act of 1789, which provided for the appointment of a "learned" counsel, especially in capital cases. The paper relates that, to improve the quality of representation and the cost effectiveness of defense services in federal cases, the judiciary established the Federal Death Penalty Resource Counsel Project (RCP) in 1992, which consists of three experienced capital litigators who support the counsel and provide input to the Administrative Office on a part-time basis.

From the Paper:

"A solid example of the inadequacy occurred in the case of Delma Banks, Jr., a poor man from Texas, who would have been executed if it were not for the last-minute stay obtained for him by former FBI director and US District Judge William Sessions from the Supreme Court themselves. Judge Sessions said, When a criminal defendant is forced to pay with his life for his lawyer's errors, the effectiveness of the criminal justice system as a whole is undermined. Banks' lawyer did not effectively cross-examine the informant or investigate the case, or he would have known that Blacks was elsewhere at the time of the crime. The lawyer did not challenge the one-day trial systematically held by the prosecutors, so that one day later, Banks was sentenced to death as a "future danger to society". Banks' lawyer did not refute the state's claim despite the fact that his client had no criminal history of violence on record."

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