03 November 2020 :

The U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Alabama has granted habeas corpus relief to William Marshall, holding that Marshall’s trial counsel provided ineffective representation when they failed to present any mitigating evidence to spare their client’s life. Even with that failure, one the jurors in Marshall’s case voted for life, but the trial judge imposed a death penalty under a provision of Alabama law that permits a death sentence based upon a jury’s non-unanimous sentencing recommendation. The court asserted that the failure to present any mitigating evidence in a defendant’s case for life is not automatically ineffective, but that in Marshall’s case, lead counsel ignored clear mental health mitigating evidence and retained an investigator who “had never previously investigated family members for a death penalty case.” Counsel was provided a psychological report that contained evidence that his client had experienced a significant history of childhood trauma and abuse, but nevertheless failed to “seek medical records, school records, or social services records from Marshall’s childhood … that he admitted he knew may have had some mitigation potential.” Counsel also failed to follow up on this information or present the mitigating evidence that was already available from the incomplete psychological assessment he had authorized and “failed to uncover any documentation of Marshall’s adult life, including military records, probation records, and medical records.” The Alabama state courts ruled against Marshall, asserting that counsel’s failures were justified because Marshall’s family purportedly was unwilling to help in the investigation. The federal district court reversed, pointing to the existence of “multiple red flags indicating readily available and compelling mitigation evidence, as well as leads on where to find that evidence.” The court said “No reasonable attorney would have failed to investigate Marshall’s background further.”

https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/stories/capital-case-roundup-death-penalty-court-decisions-the-week-of-october-26-2020