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5th Circuit Judge Notes "Kafkaesque" Result in Capital Case

By Steve Hall

That's the title of John Council's report in today's Texas Lawyer.  LINKIn a decision one judge referred to as "Kafkaesque," a 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals panel found that new evidence of a prison inmate's alleged mental retardation is not enough to prevent his execution under the federal death penalty statute.The Supreme Court outlawed the death sentence for the mentally retarded in 2002's Atkins v. Virginia , finding that such executions violate the Eighth Amendment's ban on cruel and unusual punishment.The 5th Circuit's April 28 decision in In Re: Bruce Carneil Webster shows how strict the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (AEDPA) can be in limiting successive petitions for writs of habeas corpus by death row inmates who do not challenge their guilt but rather the application of the death penalty, according to two death-penalty experts...continue to full post

Full post as published by StandDown Texas Project on May 10, 2010 (boomark / email).