U.S. Supreme Court revives Texas death row inmate's funding claim
Source: Reuters
MARCH 21, 2018 / 9:31 AM / UPDATED 4 HOURS AGO
Lawrence Hurley
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday gave a boost to a Texas death row inmate, allowing him to try to secure government funding to press his claim that his trial lawyers made errors that could enable him to avoid execution.
The justices, ruling 9-0, threw out a lower court ruling preventing a Honduran man named Carlos Manuel Ayestas from seeking funds to collect mitigating evidence that could lead to his death sentence being thrown out. The justices tossed out a lower courts ruling denying Ayestas access to public funding to cover the cost of investigations to assist low-income defendants at trial.
Ayestas, convicted of the 1995 murder of a 67-year-old woman during a Houston home robbery, has said his trial lawyers neglected to offer evidence to a jury that could have spared him from receiving a death sentence. Ayestas is a Honduran national who entered the United States illegally.
The justices sent the case back to lower courts so Ayestas can mount another attempt to get the funding. Justice Samuel Alito wrote on behalf of the court that the New Orleans-based 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals adopted the wrong legal rationale in deciding the case.
Read more: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-court-deathpenalty/u-s-supreme-court-revives-texas-death-row-inmates-funding-claim-idUSKBN1GX20B?rpc=401&
elleng
(130,732 posts)marble falls
(57,010 posts)give one a disadvantage when seeking justice?
Now if we can only get rid of 'money is free speech' and 'corporations have the right of free speech' by treating them as equal access issues.
Scalded Nun
(1,236 posts)Is something changing or are they trying to lure us all into a false sense of judicial security before lowering the boom?