Fifth Circuit rules that Constitution requires Texas courts to give full consideration to defendants’ mental health before handing down death penalty

by PegNews wire

"Today, in Nelson v. Quarterman, the full Fifth Circuit sitting en banc resolved a long-standing dispute under the Supreme Court's Penry decisions, over whether pre-1991 penalty-phase questions posed to Texas juries in capital cases allowed them to weigh the moral culpability of the defendant in light of mitigating evidence relating to mental health and experiences of abuse during childhood.

The result is an important victory for defendants in capital cases who suffer from mental illness or from the effects of an abusive childhood.

Drawing heavily from the amicus brief filed by Mayer, Brown, Rowe and Maw, the court ruled that the Fifth Circuit and Texas state courts have not been following the Supreme Court's long-standing requirement that capital juries be given the means to give full consideration and full effect to mitigating evidence about a defendant's mental health problems and abusive childhood.

The decision will affect a number of other Texas death row inmates sentenced under the pre-1991 scheme, as well as any other defendant condemned to death by a jury unable to give full effect to all mitigating evidence."

Background:

The Fifth Circuit ruled that (1) statutory sentencing schemes must allow capital juries to give full effect to a defendant's mitigating evidence, and (2) the contested Texas capital sentencing scheme failed to give full effect to Nelson's mitigating evidence. Mayer, Brown, Rowe and Maw has been involved in litigating Penry issues in the Fifth Circuit and in the Supreme Court for more than five years, including the representation of a death row inmate whose habeas petition remains in suspension pending the outcome of other cases raising similar issues.

During this period, we have filed a series of amicus briefs in the Court of Appeals and in the Supreme Court challenging the Fifth Circuit's narrow reading of Penry. The Supreme Court recently struck down 15 years of Fifth Circuit jurisprudence on the issue. In Nelson, we filed an Amicus brief on behalf of the National Mental Health Association, arguing that the Supreme Court long ago imposed the full effect requirement. The Nelson court formally endorsed that standard and granted federal habeas relief.

Christopher Richart and Lee Kovarsky, both from the MBR&M Houston Office, authored the Nelson amicus brief.

Source: Mayer, Brown, Rowe and Maw

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