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: Capital Defense Weekly

email edition

By Karl R. Keys, Esq.

This week’s email edition is available here. From the introduction: This edition marks a slight change in format that will hopefully bring to readers’ attention “new” cases more quickly than has been happening.  Please note that at the end of this edition is an analysis of the new Administration’s likely criminal justice actions.] In the lead off position is Michael Anthony Archuleta v. Galetka from the Utah Supreme Court ostensibly on the narrow appeal by the State on the applicability of Rule 11 sanctions to capital postconviction litigation.  The decision, however, moved well beyond Rule 11 and to the core of one of the biggest problems in capital litigation and indigent defense today, the quality and availability of counsel: If, in the future, we find that the unavailability of competent and willing counsel impedes prompt, constitutionally sound resolution in capital cases, we may be forced to hold that the lack of such counsel is sufficient grounds for outright reversal of a capital sentence and remand for the imposition of a sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole, for which the required degree of sophistication and skill reposed in counsel is slightly less...continue to full post

Full post as published by Capital Defense Weekly on November 10, 2008 (boomark / email).