At the end of last month, the six-justice conservative majority on the Supreme Court went out of its way again to make clear its fervent support for the death penalty and its hostility to claims of ineffective assistance of counsel in capital cases. In a May 30 decision, the court’s majority used its opinion in Thornell v. Jones to show that it will only grant relief (if it grants relief at all) in cases where capital defense lawyers commit the most extreme and egregious errors.
Danny Lee Jones had been convicted and sentenced to death in Arizona for the 1992 murders of Robert Weaver, his 7-year-old daughter Tisha Weaver, and Robert’s grandmother Katherine Gumina. He killed them during an attempt to steal Weaver’s gun collection, which Jones thought was worth $2,000. Jones blamed his drug use for the crime.
Critically, according to Courthouse News, the public defender who represented Jones
learned that he was oxygen-deprived at birth and had a lithium deficiency—a condition linked to serious psychiatric disorders. Jones’s medical records showed that he was medicated for mood disorders, had attempted suicide and had been admitted to a mental hospital.
But “despite having access to this information,” the Courthouse News report continues, “Jones’s attorney did not further investigate his mental health until after he was convicted.” Jones appealed his sentence, claiming that his Sixth Amendment right to the effective assistance of counsel had been violated.
AdvertisementWhile a federal district court dismissed his claims, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit reversed the decision. It found that the public defender’s performance was deficient and that there was a “reasonable probability” that “Jones would not have received a death sentence” if the full evidence about his mental health had been presented at sentencing.
Advertisement Advertisement AdvertisementThe state of Arizona appealed to the Supreme Court. That appeal, in front of several justices who treat the death penalty as sacrosanct at the expense of so many constitutional rights, did not go well for Jones. During oral argument, Justice Samuel Alito, who would end up writing the majority opinion, likened the defendant to “Hannibal Lecter.”
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