Justices accept state clemency case (June 23, 2008)
The Supreme Court has agreed to decide whether poor death row inmates seeking clemency have a right to federal taxpayer-funded lawyers.
The case concernas Edward Jerome Harbison, who has been on death row for more than 20 years. He was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to death in 1985 for the 1983 murder of an elderly woman in her home.
Harbison has maintained that the confession he gave to police was coerced because the officers threatened to arrest his girlfriend and take away her children
In December 2006, Harbison asked the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Tennessee to expand the appointment of counsel and permit Federal Defender Services to represent him in state clemency proceedings in the event that his efforts to obtain judicial relief should fail.
Harbison asserted that the expanded appointment was authorized by Section
3599 and by 18 U.S.C. 3006A(a)(2)(B), which permits a district court to appoint “representation * * * for any [indigent] person who * * * is seeking relief under [28 U.S.C. 2254].”
In January 2007, the district court denied the motion, noting that “there is a circuit split on whether [Section 3599], which authorizes the appointment of federal habeas corpus counsel, extends that appointment to state clemency proceedings.”
In September, a three-judge panel on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit affirmed the district court holding.
The Supreme Court accepted the case for review on June 23. The justices will hear oral arguments in the case this fall.
"There is no constitutional right either to clemency itself or to counsel to pursue it," Justice Department lawyers argued in asking the Supreme Court to uphold the Sixth Circuit decision.
Question presented: Whether the Terrorist Death Penalty Enhancement Act of 2005 provides prisoners sentenced under state law the right to federally appointed and funded counsel to pursue clemency under state law, and whether a district court’s denial of such a request may be appealed without a certificate of appealability.