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Justice Clarence Thomas, writing for the Supreme Court's conservative majority, laid out the facts. In 1989, Landrigan murdered Chester Dean Dyer in Arizona while Landrigan was committing a burglary.
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COURT REPORTER
PAGE �
www.lawcrossing.com 1. 800.973.1177
Life, Death, and Jeffrey Landrigan[By James Kilpatrick]
The Supreme Court voted 5-4 last week to kill Jeffrey Landrigan.
Well, not exactly. The high court voted to reverse the ninth Circuit in a case of capital punishment that presents all the familiar arguments in a deeply
troubling context. Let me unload it on you.
No one questions Landrigan’s guilt. Justice
Clarence Thomas, writing for the Supreme
Court’s conservative majority, laid out the
facts. In �989, Landrigan murdered Chester
Dean Dyer in Arizona while Landrigan was
committing a burglary. Earlier Landrigan
had escaped from prison in Oklahoma. He
had been imprisoned there for a different
murder. While in prison he repeatedly
stabbed another inmate. His victim was
“just a guy I got into an argument with. I
stabbed him �4 times. It was lucky he lived.”
After the jury had returned its verdict in the
Arizona case, Landrigan’s court-appointed
counsel tried to forestall a death sentence by
presenting testimony from the defendant’s
mother and ex-wife. Landrigan would have
none of it. When counsel tried to cite the
defendant’s favorable work record, he
interrupted to say that he supported his family
by “doing robberies.” Counsel attempted to
justify the earlier murder in Oklahoma as self-
defense; again Landrigan broke into explain
that “he didn’t grab me. I stabbed him.”
The trial judge ended the pre-sentencing
hearing by agreeing with defense counsel on
this mitigating factor: The defendant’s mother
loved him. Moreover, the murder was not
premeditated. Otherwise, a death sentence
was abundantly justified: The defendant is “a
person who has no scruples and no regard for
human life and human beings.”
After Landrigan was convicted in �990,
court-appointed counsel immediately began
a series of appeals through state and federal
courts. An affirming panel of the ninth
Circuit summarized the case: “Before he was
30 years of age, Landrigan had murdered
one man, repeatedly stabbed another one,
escaped from prison, and within two months
murdered still another man.”
Last year the full ninth U.S. Circuit finally ruled
in Landrigan’s favor: The death sentence,
the court ruled, was the fault of defense
counsel who had “done little to prepare for
the sentencing aspect of the case.” If the
defendant’s lawyers had done a proper job,
said the appellate court, there would have been
“a wealth of mitigating evidence, including the
family’s history of drug and alcohol abuses and
propensity for violence.”
Justice John Paul Stevens, writing for the
four dissenters in the Supreme Court, laid
heavy blame upon Landrigan’s counsel:
“Significant mitigating evidence — evidence
that may well have explained Landrigan’s
criminal conduct and unruly behavior at his
capital sentencing hearing — was unknown
at the time of sentencing. Only years later
did Landrigan learn that he suffers from a
serious psychological condition that sheds
important light on his earlier actions.”
Stevens continued: For example, “counsel
did not complete a psychological evaluation
of Landrigan, which we now know would
have uncovered a serious organic brain
disorder. He failed to consult an expert to
explore the effects of respondent’s birth
mother’s drinking and drug use during
pregnancy. And he never developed a history
of Landrigan’s troubled childhood with his
adoptive family — a childhood marked by
physical and emotional abuse, neglect by
his adoptive parents, his own substance
abuse problems (including an overdose
in his eighth or ninth grade classroom), a
stunted education, and recurrent placement
in substance abuse rehabilitation facilities,
a psychiatric ward, and police custody.
“Counsel’s failure to develop this
background evidence was so glaring that
even the sentencing judge noted that
she had ‘received very little information
concerning the defendant’s difficult family
history. ...’ By any measure, and especially
for a capital case, this meager investigation
fell below an objective standard of
reasonableness.”
The case now goes back to the ninth Circuit,
which presumably will obey the Supreme
Court’s ruling that the trial court in Arizona
had not abused its discretion. The mitigating
evidence that Landrigan sought belatedly to
introduce, said Justice Thomas, “would not
have changed the result.”
Justice Kilpatrick, meaning me, finally
concurs in Justice Thomas’ opinion for
the majority. It’s not an easy call. In this
particular case, there is no question of
the defendant’s guilt. As I read the record,
Landrigan was adequately represented by
counsel. There is persuasive testimony
(though not entirely convincing testimony)
that it ultimately will cost far more to
execute Landrigan than to imprison him for
life, but a cost/benefit ratio is irrelevant.
Landrigan wantonly, cruelly, unforgivably
took the life of another man. Pray for his
soul, and pull the switch.?
(Letters to Mr. Kilpatrick should be sent by
e-mail to [email protected].)
COPYRIGHT 2005 UNIVERSAL PRESS
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