High Court Case Spotlights Alabama’s ‘Troubled’ Death Penalty System

An Alabama death-row inmate’s claim that his lawyer failed him is turning a spotlight on the state’s capital punishment system.

Inmate Holly Wood says his lawyer, who at the time had practiced law for less than a year, failed to present evidence of his mental retardation during his sentencing hearing, the New York Times reports. The lawyer, Kenneth B. Trotter, had assisted two other more experienced lawyers during the case in chief but was the lead lawyer during the sentencing hearing. Jurors voted 10-2 to recommend the death penalty.

The 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals based in Atlanta ruled against Wood, saying his lawyer’s decision not to present the evidence was a strategic decision rather than an error. A dissenter said jurors could have considered Wood's 64 IQ as evidence mitigating against the death penalty.

The U.S. Supreme Court granted cert last month, the story says. The case “will give the court a glimpse of Alabama’s capital justice system, which is among the most troubled in the nation,” the Times writes. “The state lacks a public defender’s office, elects judges for whom death sentences are a campaign promise, pays appointed lawyers a pittance, and sometimes leaves death row inmates to navigate the intricacies of post-conviction challenges with no lawyers at all.”

The state capped the lawyers’ pay at $1,000 to prepare for Wood's hearing, an amount that critics say discourages thorough preparation. Another lawyer on the case, Cary Dozier, told the Times money did not play a role. For his part, Trotter confessed doubts in a letter to a colleague, the story says.

“I have been stressed out over this case and don’t have anyone with whom to discuss the case, including the two other attorneys,” wrote Trotter, now an insurance lawyer.

In a decision earlier this month, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled against an Ohio death-row inmate who contended a finding that he had mild to borderline mental retardation foreclosed state efforts to impose the death penalty.