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| Supreme Court Leaves Death Sentence |
| By Associated Press |
| Published: 10/22/2001 |
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The Supreme Court recently left a death sentence in place for a Tennessee killer whose new lawyers hoped he would be a test case for an examination of the quality of legal help given to people facing the death penalty. The court turned down an appeal from Abu-Ali Abdur'Rahman, convicted of killing a drug dealer and leaving a butcher knife in the back of another victim. His lawyers had asked the court to consider whether better legal help could have persuaded a jury to sentence Abdur'Rahman to life in prison in 1987. The case was seen as a possible test of the premise, widespread among death penalty opponents, that death penalty defendants often get lousy legal help, and that many of them could avoid a death sentence if their lawyers worked harder, or had more resources. The quality of leagl help for people facing trial for a crime that could carry the death penalty is a question that apparently concerns at least two Supreme Court justices. 'I have yet to see a death case among the dozens coming to the Supreme Court on eve-of-execution (reprieve) applications in which the defendant was well represented at trial,'' Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said in a speech in April. |
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