Sean Carter

U.S. Supreme Court to decide execution delay case

The U.S. Supreme Court will decide if a federal appeals court in Cincinnati ruled correctly when it concluded that federal post-conviction appeals should be delayed for an Ohio man convicted of rape and murder.

The justices, without comment, agreed today to hear the case, a victory for Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine. The high court will hear oral arguments next fall.

The 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled last year that Sean Carter, convicted by a Trumbull County jury for the 1997 murder of his adoptive grandmother, suffered from such mental illness that he was not competent to have his appeals heard by the courts.

Instead, in a 2-1 ruling, the court concluded that no further appeals could be heard until it was determined whether Carter was competent enough to understand the appeals process.

Carter, who has been held in a state facility for mentally ill prisoners, is suffering from schizophrenia and hallucinations. He faces the death penalty.

After exhausting his state appeals, new attorneys for Carter filed his federal court appeals, arguing that he did not have an effective lawyer during his trial.

The federal appeals panel said “only Carter knows critical parts of the factual basis for these claims . . . and that evidence is inaccessible as long as he remains unable to communicate’’ with his new attorneys.

DeWine, however, said in a statement that he was “pleased that the Supreme Court has decided to hear this important case. Our state courts have mechanisms in place to address a defendant's allegations of incompetency. This decision unnecessarily opens the door to decades of delay and collateral litigation in federal court.’’

www.dispatch.com/content/stories/local/2012/03/19/u-s.supreme-court-to-decide-execution-delay-case.html

Source; www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/jurisprudence/2012/09/supreme_court_docket_2012_what_are_the_big_cases_to_watch_this_term_.html

Tibbals v. Carter, Tuesday, Oct. 9: We are not supposed to execute mentally insane people in this country. The Supreme Court said so in 1986. At the time, no state allowed such an execution; as Justice Thurgood Marshall pointed out, British judges back in the 17th century worried about the “miserable spectacle” of “extreme inhumanity and cruelty” presented by executing a “mad man.” That’s still the law, though it’s worth worrying over the low standard of competence courts use. Apart from that, what exactly is supposed to happen if a defendant is sentenced to death and then found to be incompetent, because of mental illness, to help his lawyer press his appeals?
Two federal appeals courts, the 6th Circuit and the 9th Circuit, have essentially found that defendants have a right to be competent during the federal court proceeding called habeas corpus—basically, a defendant’s last-ditch chance to get off death row. The 9th Circuit stayed proceedings indefinitely in the case of Ernest Valencia Gonzales, who is psychotic, and who killed a man in the course of a burglary. In Ohio, a district court similarly ordered an indefinite stay for Sean Carter, sentenced to die for killing his adoptive grandmother, and then found to be delusional with schizophrenia. The state of Ohio, which wants to execute Carter, imagines courts handing out lots more delays under “extraordinarily loose standards,” bringing the death penalty to a halt in the state.

Tuesday, Oct. 9:
blogs.findlaw.com/supreme_court/2012/07/scotus-releases-october-hearing-schedule-for-2012-term.html

Supreme Court debates whether inmate incompetence can delay appeals in death penalty cases

www.newser.com/article/da1q94500/supreme-court-debates-whether-inmate-incompetence-can-delay-appeals-in-death-penalty-cases.html