Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, April 16, 1991 TAG: 9104160607
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A/1 EDITION: EVENING
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Medium
The 6-3 ruling in a case from Georgia was denounced by the dissenters as a drastic curtailment of the rights of criminal defendants.
The court rejected arguments by death row inmate Warren McCleskey that Georgia officials violated his rights when they failed to give him a written statement from the inmate to whom McCleskey allegedly confessed the 1978 slaying of an Atlanta police officer.
Justice Anthony Kennedy, writing for the court, said McCleskey's failure to raise the issue during an earlier appeal in 1981 disqualified him from trying to use it in subsequent appeals.
Kennedy said the burden is on defendants in such cases to prove they had good reason for not raising the issue initially and that their failure to do so has prejudiced their ability to defend themselves.
For example, Kennedy said, the prisoner must prove that state officials deliberately interfered with his ability to raise the issue.
It is not necessary for the state to prove that the defendant deliberately abandoned the issue in an earlier appeal in order to raise it subsequently, Kennedy added.
The only exception to the new restrictions are those rare instances in which the defendant can show he is probably innocent of the crime, Kennedy said.
He said the new rules "should curtail the abusive petitions that in recent years have threatened to undermine the integrity of the habeas corpus process."
Habeas corpus is the system that permits convicted defendants to appeal to the federal courts for help when they claim their constitutional rights have been violated.
A proposal in Congress to limit habeas corpus petitions was introduced after a special study committee appointed by Chief Justice William Rehnquist recommended time limits on death row appeals.
Justice Thurgood Marshall, in a dissenting opinion, said today's ruling "encourages state officials to conceal evidence that would likely prompt" prisoners to appeal their convictions.
The court "tosses aside established precedents without explanation . . . and applies [new] rules in a way that rewards state misconduct and deceit," Marshall said.
McCleskey's murder conviction was overturned in 1989 by a federal judge who ruled the state had violated his rights in obtaining his confession to Offie Evans, a fellow prison inmate.
But the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reinstated the conviction, ruling McCleskey forfeited his right to challenge the constitutionality of the confession by failing to raise the issue in 1981.
McCleskey's lawyers said they lacked evidence to challenge the confession until 1987, when they obtained Evans' written statement after the Georgia Supreme Court ordered police records made public.
by CNB