22 January 2010 :

The U.S. Supreme Court restored Holly Wood death penalty. The U.S. Supreme Court tightened up interpretations of the Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act, restoring an Alabama death sentence. The 1996 act was designed to trim death row appeals that sometimes went on for decades. In part it says a federal judge may grant a state inmate constitutional review if the inmate's claim in state court "resulted in a decision ... based on an unreasonable determination of the facts in light of the evidence." But it also says a state court's determination of a factual issue must be presumed to be correct, and the burden is on the inmate to show it isn't "by clear and convincing evidence." Holly Wood, 49, black, was convicted in the shooting death of his former girlfriend, Ruby Lois Gosha, on Sept. 1, 1993.  A state jury convicted him and sentenced him to death in 1995, despite his claim of mental deficiency -- the Supreme Court has ruled the mentally retarded are not eligible for the death penalty. Wood's defense had an evaluation of his mental capacity drawn up, but his 3 lawyers failed to introduce it at the penalty stage. After exhausting his state appeals, Wood asked a federal judge for constitutional review based on a claim of ineffective counsel. On November 20 2006, Senior District Judge Harold Albritton of the Middle District in Alabama tossed out the death sentence the ground that his counsel were ineffective for failing to investigate and present evidence of his mental retardation and mental disability. On September 16, 2008 (see) the Atlanta-based 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reinstated the death sentence, ruling that Wood had failed to show that the lawyers was unconstitutionally ineffective. The Supreme Court agreed with the appeals court 7-2. The majority opinion written by Justice Sonia Sotomayor said the decision by Wood's three lawyers not to introduce the evaluation was reasonable, as a state court found. All 3 of the lawyers had read the report and chose to emphasize other issues.