Opinion ID: 516469
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Repetitive Petitioning and Appointed Counsel

Text: 7 The State urges that habeas petitioners may abuse the writ by filing repetitive or successive petitions. 2 It is often asserted that in death cases repetitive writs present motions to stay and that such procedural tactics are used to merely prolong the inevitable. Notwithstanding this possibility, [t]he consequences of injustice--loss of liberty and sometimes loss of life--are far too great to permit the automatic application of an entire body of technical rules whose primary relevance lies in the area of civil litigation. Sanders v. United States, 373 U.S. 1, 24, 83 S.Ct. 1068, 1082, 10 L.Ed.2d 148 (1963) (Harlan, J., dissenting). Concerns for comity to a sovereign state and finality to its judgments do not outweigh the absolute need to protect against the deprivation of an individual's constitutional rights which might invalidate the capital sentence. 8 The apparent question is whether there exists sufficient means within the framework of the law to prevent vexatious delay resulting from state prisoners who seek to abuse the writ. In considering this question, certain preliminary factors must be taken into account. First, it must be recognized that a convicted defendant sentenced to death will attempt to assert every means available to prevent his execution. The instinctive human desire to live accounts for the proliferation of petitions for writs and stays. Nothing short of a complete bar to such petitions will prevent their continued filings. 9 Second, lawyers should not be faulted for their services to indigent condemned prisoners in attempting to set aside a capital sentence. Courts appoint lawyers to serve these prisoners to assure that no condemned person shall die by reason of an unconstitutional process. It is important to understand the serious nature of the voluntary service involved. The American Bar Association has initiated, and the Judicial Conference of the United States has supported, the establishment of Death Penalty Resource Centers. The purpose of these Centers is to increase the availability of competent attorneys to review the state processes and assure competent and effective representation of individuals sentenced to death. This project is inspired by the fact that competent representation is difficult to secure. The scarcity of volunteers among lawyers is understandable considering the fact that the average time that a competent lawyer labors in post-conviction review of a single death sentence is approximately one-quarter of a lawyer's billable hours for one year. These lawyers receive little or no compensation for this service. 10 It is essential to remember that counsel is appointed to ensure the preservation of the defendant's constitutional rights and to make certain that unlawful executions do not occur. The procedural mechanism for reviewing these petitions must strive to promote these same principles. The federal judiciary must therefore take particular care in death penalty cases to give patient and thoughtful review of claims presented by petitioners through their appointed counsel.