COURT REPORTER

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Life, Death, and Jeffrey Landrigan[By James Kilpatrick]

The Supreme Court voted 5-4 last week to kill Jeffrey Landrigan.

Well, not exactly. The high court voted to reverse the ninth Circuit in a case of capital punishment that presents all the familiar arguments in a deeply

troubling context. Let me unload it on you.

No one questions Landrigan’s guilt. Justice

Clarence Thomas, writing for the Supreme

Court’s conservative majority, laid out the

facts. In �989, Landrigan murdered Chester

Dean Dyer in Arizona while Landrigan was

committing a burglary. Earlier Landrigan

had escaped from prison in Oklahoma. He

had been imprisoned there for a different

murder. While in prison he repeatedly

stabbed another inmate. His victim was

“just a guy I got into an argument with. I

stabbed him �4 times. It was lucky he lived.”

After the jury had returned its verdict in the

Arizona case, Landrigan’s court-appointed

counsel tried to forestall a death sentence by

presenting testimony from the defendant’s

mother and ex-wife. Landrigan would have

none of it. When counsel tried to cite the

defendant’s favorable work record, he

interrupted to say that he supported his family

by “doing robberies.” Counsel attempted to

justify the earlier murder in Oklahoma as self-

defense; again Landrigan broke into explain

that “he didn’t grab me. I stabbed him.”

The trial judge ended the pre-sentencing

hearing by agreeing with defense counsel on

this mitigating factor: The defendant’s mother

loved him. Moreover, the murder was not

premeditated. Otherwise, a death sentence

was abundantly justified: The defendant is “a

person who has no scruples and no regard for

human life and human beings.”

After Landrigan was convicted in �990,

court-appointed counsel immediately began

a series of appeals through state and federal

courts. An affirming panel of the ninth

Circuit summarized the case: “Before he was

30 years of age, Landrigan had murdered

one man, repeatedly stabbed another one,

escaped from prison, and within two months

murdered still another man.”

Last year the full ninth U.S. Circuit finally ruled

in Landrigan’s favor: The death sentence,

the court ruled, was the fault of defense

counsel who had “done little to prepare for

the sentencing aspect of the case.” If the

defendant’s lawyers had done a proper job,

said the appellate court, there would have been

“a wealth of mitigating evidence, including the

family’s history of drug and alcohol abuses and

propensity for violence.”

Justice John Paul Stevens, writing for the

four dissenters in the Supreme Court, laid

heavy blame upon Landrigan’s counsel:

“Significant mitigating evidence — evidence

that may well have explained Landrigan’s

criminal conduct and unruly behavior at his

capital sentencing hearing — was unknown

at the time of sentencing. Only years later

did Landrigan learn that he suffers from a

serious psychological condition that sheds

important light on his earlier actions.”

Stevens continued: For example, “counsel

did not complete a psychological evaluation

of Landrigan, which we now know would

have uncovered a serious organic brain

disorder. He failed to consult an expert to

explore the effects of respondent’s birth

mother’s drinking and drug use during

pregnancy. And he never developed a history

of Landrigan’s troubled childhood with his

adoptive family — a childhood marked by

physical and emotional abuse, neglect by

his adoptive parents, his own substance

abuse problems (including an overdose

in his eighth or ninth grade classroom), a

stunted education, and recurrent placement

in substance abuse rehabilitation facilities,

a psychiatric ward, and police custody.

“Counsel’s failure to develop this

background evidence was so glaring that

even the sentencing judge noted that

she had ‘received very little information

concerning the defendant’s difficult family

history. ...’ By any measure, and especially

for a capital case, this meager investigation

fell below an objective standard of

reasonableness.”

The case now goes back to the ninth Circuit,

which presumably will obey the Supreme

Court’s ruling that the trial court in Arizona

had not abused its discretion. The mitigating

evidence that Landrigan sought belatedly to

introduce, said Justice Thomas, “would not

have changed the result.”

Justice Kilpatrick, meaning me, finally

concurs in Justice Thomas’ opinion for

the majority. It’s not an easy call. In this

particular case, there is no question of

the defendant’s guilt. As I read the record,

Landrigan was adequately represented by

counsel. There is persuasive testimony

(though not entirely convincing testimony)

that it ultimately will cost far more to

execute Landrigan than to imprison him for

life, but a cost/benefit ratio is irrelevant.

Landrigan wantonly, cruelly, unforgivably

took the life of another man. Pray for his

soul, and pull the switch.?

(Letters to Mr. Kilpatrick should be sent by

e-mail to kilpatjj@aol.com.)

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