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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH
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To: ThirdEye who wrote (145098)5/13/2001 8:23:19 PM
From: Mr. Palau  Read Replies (1) of 769670
 
"Unfortunately, nearly seven decades of studied progress in the application of the Sixth Amendment's guarantee of effective assistance of counsel was turned upside down in October of this year. Calvin Burdine, a Texas death row inmate filed an asking that his sentence of death be set aside because his trial attorney was ineffective. The specific allegations of ineffectiveness of his trial counsel were supported by evidence that his trial attorney often fell asleep during his capital trial.

The lower court, upon hearing and apparently believing, the evidence that his trial attorney had slept through significant portions of the death penalty trial, overturned Burdine's death sentence in September 1999. Relying on Strickland and Cronic, the lower court also reasoned that an attorney who slept through portions of a death penalty trial created a presumption of the denial of effective assistance of counsel at a critical stage of the proceedings against him.

However a Fifth Circuit three judge panel reversed the lower court and found that none of the evidence, i.e., evidence that the attorney slept through significant portions of the trial

'[s]upports presuming prejudice. First, neither the prosecutor nor the trial judge (nor Burdine) was aware of [the trial attorney]'s sleeping; accordingly, such conduct could not have been easily prevented by the State. . . .'"

gidc.com
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