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Court sends death penalty case back for review, cites bad counsel

Carol Zimmermann
A general view of the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington is shown May 3, 2020. The U.S. Supreme Court sent a death penalty case back to the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals June 15, 2020. CNS photo/Will Dunham, Reuters

The Supreme Court sent a death penalty case back to the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals for further review June 15, saying the death-row inmate had not been given sufficient legal counsel.

The 6-3 ruling, issued in the 19-page unsigned opinion, said the lawyer representing Terence Andrus had ignored basic tasks and failed to uncover “vast” amounts of evidence that could have spared him the death sentence. It also criticized the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals for offering an opinion that acknowledged the lawyer’s deficiencies but didn’t see reason to overturn Andrus’ sentence.

The court also said Andrus’ lawyer presented evidence that ended up hurting his case.

The appeals court will now have to determine whether Andrus’ legal representation qualifies him to receive a new sentencing trial, which would decide if he should be given a death sentence or life in prison without parole.

Justice Samuel Alito dissented from the ruling and was joined by Justices Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch. Alito said he disagreed with the court’s decision because the lower court had already concluded that Andrus’ case was not prejudiced by his attorney’s poor performance.

Andrus, 32, was sentenced to death in 2012 for two 2008 shooting deaths in Texas during a carjacking attempt at a grocery store. Last year, the Court of Criminal Appeals rejected the trial court’s recommendation that Andrus get a new trial to determine his punishment because his lawyer failed to raise evidence that could have potentially changed sentencing.

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The Supreme Court opinion pointed out some of this evidence including Andrus’ mother’s drug addiction and prostitution, his role as caretaker for his siblings when his mother would disappear, his own drug use, multiple suicide attempts and a diagnosis of psychosis.

“During Andrus’ capital trial, however, nearly none of this mitigating evidence reached the jury,” the ruling pointed out. “That is because Andrus’ defense counsel not only neglected to present it; he failed even to look for it.”

In his dissenting opinion, Alito said that a new trial would have to show “a substantial, not just conceivable, likelihood that one of the jurors who unanimously agreed on his sentence would not have done so if his trial counsel had presented more mitigation evidence.”

The claims that an attorney’s poor performance violated a defendant’s constitutional right to the assistance of counsel fall under standards set up in the court’s 1984 ruling in Strickland v. Washington requiring an examination of whether the lawyer’s performance was unsatisfactory and if it prejudiced the client.

 


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