Justices weigh whether inmate should die after mailroom slipup

[struggle4progress]

By Bill Mears, CNN Supreme Court Producer
updated 3:23 PM EST, Tue October 4, 2011

... "Mr. Maples has lost his right to appeal through no fault of his own, through a series of very unusual and unfortunate circumstances," said Justice Samuel Alito. "Now, when his attorneys moved to file an out-of-time appeal, why wouldn't you just consent to that? If he did not receive an effective assistance of counsel at trial, why not give a decision on the merits of that? Why push this technical argument?"

Maples was convicted in the 1995 murder of two companions, Stacy Alan Terry and Barry Dewayne Robinson II, with whom he had been drinking heavily. Court records showed that Maples took a .22-caliber rifle in his Decatur, Alabama, home and shot both men twice in the head, execution-style. He later confessed to police but offered no explanation for the crimes. The defendant was convicted, and the jury recommended the death sentence by a vote of 10-2.

Post-conviction, two attorneys from the law firm Sullivan & Cromwell -- working on behalf of Maples for free -- filed a motion in an Alabama court, claiming ineffective assistance by the trial defense. The chain of errors may have begun when the appellate lawyers did not list the name of their firm in the papers filed in Alabama.

When that court later sent two copies of its ruling denying the motion to the New York-based attorneys, the mailroom inexplicably sent them back unopened. Both envelopes were labeled "Return to Sender -- Left Firm" and similar language: "Return to Sender -- Attempted Not Known." ...

http://www.cnn.com/2011/10/04/justice/scotus-mail-error/

[dtexdem]

1. The issue isn't Maples' guilt; nor should it be who 'made a mistake.'

The issue is that the death penalty process in this country is stacked in favor of death, regardless of the guilt of the condemned person, regardless of what violations or accidents may have occurred in the process leading to that state-perpetrated killing.

[REP]

2. Despite this case being a good case for DP, I'm still for a moratorium

A man who killed two people for the hell of it needs to be kept from society forever. I think caging a man (or woman) forever in a small cell is inhumane; death is kinder, however, the legal system is too corrupt (especially for the poor and poorly educated) to be trusted to make such a determination. While there may be no question at all of guilt in this case, there is in far too many others. Barbaric as it is, we must cage humans in tiny cells alive as too many if them were wrongly convicted (or overcharged).