Ellington

A challenge to Mississippi's system for representing those convicted of capital crimes has picked up some high-profile supporters. The Magnolia Bar Association and Mississippi Center for Justice filed a friend-of-the-court brief today supporting a suit filed on behalf of 15 death-row prisoners, earlier this year.

The lawsuit, Knox v. Mississippi, accuses the state of deliberately hampering the Office of Capital Post-Conviction Counsel, the state-funded program that represents prisoners who have been convicted and sentenced to death. The office is responsible for bringing up new evidence or challenges to the prisoner's conviction, such as signs that the trial defense was inadequate. A death-sentenced prisoner must present any available new evidence or arguments during the state post-conviction process before using it in appeals at the federal level.

"We welcome the support of the Magnolia Bar and the Mississippi Center for Justice, two organizations with roots in the civil-rights movement," said Jim Craig, lawyer for the 15 plaintiffs. "Their concern for meaningful access to justice is a welcome perspective in this case about the need to provide competent, conscientious lawyers to death-row prisoners."

Craig's initial lawsuit, filed May 6 in Hinds County Chancery Court, argued that the state Supreme Court, which appoints the office's executive director, prevented the office from hiring enough attorneys to handle a rapidly growing caseload. In a two-month span after its creation in 2000, the office's three attorneys received 16 cases, each requiring a post-conviction petition to be filed within six months. The American Bar Association's guidelines for post-conviction work estimate that each case requires 800 to 1,200 hours to prepare or about six months for each case.

In addition to being understaffed, the office also lost funding, the lawsuit argued, dropping from $987,285 to $647,702 from 2001 to 2003.

Because it lacked resources, the post-conviction office's arguments on behalf of its death-row clients were woefully inadequate, the lawsuit argues. In many post-conviction petitions, the office raised arguments that were procedurally barred from the outset while also failing to investigate other evidence. In the case of two death-row prisoners, Steve Knox and Blayde Grayson, the office did not look into evidence that another person was responsible for the murders they allegedly committed, Craig argued.

The lawsuit was dismissed May 16 for "lack of jurisdiction," and Craig filed an appeal with the state Supreme Court last week.

"The State deliberately and effectively rendered the state post-conviction process meaningless for death-sentenced prisoners in Mississippi and denied this Court the information it needed to review fairly the convictions and sentences of Appellants," Craig wrote in the Oct. 18 appeal.