The U.S. Supreme Court has heard argument in two death penalty cases that present highly technical legal issues that could profoundly affect the extent to which prisoners convicted in state courts will have meaningful access to federal review of their cases. In two of the last cases to be argued before Justice Stephen Breyer’s retirement at the end of the Court’s term, the Court on April 25 and 26 considered Nance v. Ward , a Georgi a case about the proper way to challenge execution protocols, and Shoop v. Twyford , an Ohio case about federal courts’ authority to transport state prisoners for forensic testing relating to the investigation and presentation of issues in their federal habeas corpus appeals. The arguments took place while the consolidated death penalty cases Shinn v. Ramirez and Jones remain pending before the court. Those appeals by Arizona prosecutors seek to limit the evidence a federal court can consider in reviewing cases in which prisoners have been provided a series of ineffective lawyers in state court proceedings. Georgia death-row prisoner Michael Nance challenged the state’s use of lethal injection to execute him, arguing that his severely compromised veins would make such an execution cruel […]
