Court Opinion

ID: 9657216
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 20:17:42.540768+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:13:42.251791
License: Public Domain

DICKINSON, Justice,
Specially Concurring:
¶ 54. I fully join Presiding Justice Graves’s excellent analysis of the first issue, and I agree that this matter should be remanded for a new sentencing hearing. I write separately because of my concern that, in recent years, the acceptable standard for effective assistance of counsel in death-penalty cases has slipped to an unacceptably low level. See e.g. Byrom v. State, 927 So.2d 709, 731-32 (Miss.2006) (Dickinson, J., dissenting).
¶ 55. Although I have no personal reluctance in voting to affirm the death penalty in an appropriate case, I cannot do so where the defendant has not had reasonable (not necessarily perfect) representation and a fair trial; and particularly during the phase of the trial in which the fact-finder decides whether or not to put the defendant to death.
¶ 56. Doss — who very well may deserve the death penalty- — certainly did not have effective or reasonable representation during the penalty phase of his trial. I find it amazing that anyone might conclude otherwise, after reading the affidavit9 submitted by his trial counsel. I agree that we must remand for a new sentencing hearing on the question of whether Doss should be executed or serve life without parole.
CHANDLER, J., JOINS THIS OPINION.

. The content of the affidavit is set forth in detail in Presiding Justice Graves's opinion.