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SCOTUS stays Texas execution based on pending Alabama case

By Douglas A. Berman

As detailed in this AP report, the "U.S. Supreme Court Wednesday night stopped the scheduled execution of Texas death row inmate Kenneth Mosley a day before he was to receive lethal injection for the fatal shooting of a suburban Dallas police officer."  Here's why: The court agreed to halt the lethal injection until it resolves an Alabama death penalty case that Mosley's attorney said could affect his case. The Alabama case, to be heard by the high court in November, centers on whether a trial lawyer was constitutionally deficient in failing to raise objections during the punishment phase of the trial. Mosley's attorneys have raised similar claims, saying his trial attorneys were deficient for not objecting to victim impact testimony from the officer's wife and for not calling witnesses to testify about Mosley's drug and alcohol addictions...continue to full post

Full post as published by Sentencing Law and Policy on September 24, 2009 (boomark / email).