Appellate Law

The end of Atkins?

By S. COTUS

Okay, the case has gone up to the Supreme Court, and back down.  The Virginia Supreme Court reversed because the judge in his ?retard-trial? (to see if he was really retarded ? shouldn?t that be presided over by a special master?) told the jury that the case was on remand from the Supreme Court.

How does it end?

It turns out that there was a fair amount of prosecutorial misconduct and Virginia?s bar counsel had advised the person that knew about it that he should keep his trap shut about how the prosecutors has coached people into changing their testimony.

Just think ? because of the bar counsel's actions (in the name of "legal ethics") and the actions of a couple of prosecutors, Virginia and the rest of the country has lost its right to kill a retard.  (I used the term "retard" because this is the term at least two prosecutors and one state Supreme Court judge have used to describe Atkins.)

If he 1) wasn?t in jail; and 2) wasn?t a retard, then Mr. Atkins would probably find this quite ironic.   Legal Ethics Forum comments here.

Full post as published by Appellate Law and Practice on January 19, 2008 (boomark / email).