Lawyers under scrutiny in overturned death sentences

[flashl]

RALEIGH, North Carolina: The release last week of the third death row inmate in six months in North Carolina is raising fresh questions about whether states are supplying capital-murder defendants with adequate counsel, even as an execution in Georgia ended a seven-month national halt.

In all three cases, North Carolina appeals courts found that prosecutors or investigators had withheld evidence from defense lawyers that would have favored the defendants. In two of the cases, including that of Levon Jones, who was released Friday after 14 years on death row, the courts said the defendants' lawyers had failed to mount an adequate defense. Nationwide, Jones's release was the sixth in a year.

John Holdridge, director of the American Civil Liberties Union's Capital Punishment Project, which provided representation for Jones, said the successful appeals showed that the problem with the death penalty was not the method of execution - the issue ruled on by the U.S. Supreme Court in April after the hiatus - but instead "poor people getting lousy lawyers."

"All these states are gearing up to start executing people again and nobody seems to be concerned about these systemic problems," Holdridge said.

IHT

[DS1]

1. That's total bullshit!

It's the scumbag prosecutors they need to be going after, they're the corrupt ones!

:argh:

[varkam]

2. Keeping evidence from defense counsel is a big no-no.

Especially when said evidence is favorable to the defendant. Alas, there doesn't seem to be a whole lot in the way of consequences for ner-do-well prosecutors.