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| Court Allows Inmate to Pursue Claim |
| By Associated Press |
| Published: 03/20/2006 |
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A Texas federal appeals court reversed itself and decided to allow a death row inmate scheduled for execution next month to present claims he is mentally retarded. A three-judge panel of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals had ruled in December that attorneys for Marvin Lee Wilson missed the deadline to file the appeal. But the panel voted 2-1 Friday in deciding that extraordinary circumstances justified waiving the deadline. Jim Marcus of the Texas Defender Service, which is helping with Wilson's appeal, said the inmate has a clear history of mental retardation. But Rodney Conerly, of the Jefferson County district attorney's office, which prosecuted Wilson, said he doesn't believe the inmate's claim. "There is no evidence presented before he was 18 that he was" mentally retarded, the assistant district attorney said. In 2002, the Supreme Court barred executions of the mentally retarded on grounds that they violated the constitutional ban on cruel and unusual punishment. Marcus said Wilson, 48, had a year to file an appeal based on the mental retardation issue. But the appeal became entangled in a Texas Court of Criminal Appeals rule prohibiting Wilson's attorneys from arguing any issue in state court if they had anything pending in federal court. In its ruling, the 5th Circuit panel called the Texas appeals court rule "problematic." The rule is no longer in place. |
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