Constitutional Law

Justice Delayed

After a decade, and the reversal of an ethics ruling, a Virginia criminal defense attorney revealed information that commuted the sentence of a death row prisoner to life in prison based on prosecutorial misconduct. 

Although the Virginia Bar in 1998 ruled that Leslie Smith, who had represented the prisoner’s co-defendant, could not ethically reveal exculpatory information because it would jeopardize the interests of his own client, he raised the issue again last year.  This time, the Bar's Ethics Counsel ruled that Smith was free to testify. 

Full post as published by ACS Blog on January 26, 2008 (boomark / email).