Home -> Law Blog Directory -> Criminal Law Blogs -> Capital Defense Weekly

Criminal Law

: Capital Defense Weekly

A death sentence reversed in Oklahoma

By Karl R. Keys, Esq.

On Wednesday the Oklahoma Court of Criminal appeals vacated the death sentence of Keary Lamar Littlejohn. The Court held, simply, trial counsel should have known that their client was likely to lose and be convicted of capital murder; counsel needed to start thinking about the penalty phase long before they did. Specifically: On October 12, 2007, the district court submitted a detailed document entitled, ?Agreed Findings of Fact and Conclusions of Law,? approved by counsel for both parties. Given the State?s position on this claim, we need not present Appellant?s argument in great detail. Essentially, he claims that trial counsel did not devote sufficient time and attention to developing a persuasive mitigation strategy. Trial counsel presented only two witnesses in the mitigation phase of the trial, Appellant and his mother...continue to full post

Full post as published by Capital Defense Weekly on March 26, 2008 (boomark / email).