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: Capital Defense Weekly

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By Karl R. Keys, Esq.

My sincerest apologies for a delayed edition. Leading off this belated edition is the Supreme Court’s holding in Smith v. Frank Spisak, Jr. The Court in Spisak reverses a Sixth Circuit grant of penalty phase relief. The Court below granted relief on both a jury unanimity instruction (“Mills”) and a claim relating to penalty phase ineffective assistance of counsel. As to the Mills issue “t he instructions did not say that the jury must determine the existence of each individual mitigating factor unanimously. Neither the instructions nor the forms said anything about how — or even whether — the jury should make individual determinations that each particular mitigating circumstance existed.” As to counsel’s performance, “we conclude that there is not a reasonable probability that a more adequate closing argument would have changed the result...continue to full post

Full post as published by Capital Defense Weekly on January 13, 2010 (boomark / email).