The US Supreme Court’s strained relationship with Texas and the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals over death penalty cases — which was previously discussed here and here — is back in the news as the high court again takes up the case of LaRoyce L. Smith, who was convicted and sentenced to die for the murder of a former co-worker. The Supreme Court overturned the sentence in 2004, but the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals promptly reinstated the conviction on the ground that the constitutional error that the Supreme Court had identified was harmless. The main issue in the second appeal is whether the Court of Criminal Appeal’s response was an appropriate one to the Supreme Court’s previous mandate in the case.
As the article points out, the recent history of capital punishment in the United States is inextricably tied to capital punishment in Texas, where 380 prisoners have been put to death since the Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976. That number is far more than any other state — Virginia is second with 98.
Meanwhile, this Ralph Blumenthal/NY Times story reports on a case that reflects the main reason why I oppose the death penalty (previous posts here, here and here) — a 50 year-old Dallas black man being exonerated by DNA evidence after serving nearly half his life in prison after being wrongfully convicted of rape. It is the 12th such case in Dallas County alone of a conviction being overturned by DNA evidence since 2001.
Finally, sentencing expert Doug Berman provides this post and related links explaining why the Supreme Court’s fixation on death penalty cases is not such a good thing.