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: Capital Defense Weekly

last week in September edition

By cdw

From this weeks edition [html / pdf] Leading off this week’s is the Tennessee Court of Criminal Appeals’ decision in Leonard Edward Smith v. State.  Smith presents a new twist on an old story, trial counsel’s failure to investigate. Rather than dealing with the usual failure of trial counsel find and present mitigation evidence, Smith involves the failure to discover and present evidence supporting a motion to recuse the sentencing judge. Specifically, trial counsel failed to uncover evidence that the trial judge overseeing the resentencing – and serving as the “thirteenth juror” under Tennessee’s sentencing scheme – had previously been involved in the prosecution of Mr. Smith on the very charges for which he was facing death...continue to full post

Full post as published by Capital Defense Weekly on September 29, 2010 (boomark / email).