Van v. Jones, 04-2277 (6^th Cir., Jan. 16, 2007)

Benge v. Johnson, 05-3122 (6^th Cir., Jan. 16, 2007)

Today, the Sixth Circuit issued two habeas decisions denying relief, both provoking dissents regarding the petitioners’ Sixth Amendment right to counsel.

Van asks whether a consolidation hearing is a critical stage of the prosecution that triggers a defendant’s right to a lawyer. The petitioner, a Cambodian with limited English skills, was the ringleader of a vicious assault. Van was not represented by counsel at the hearing in which the trial court consolidated Van’s trial with that of three other defendants. The majority concludes that Van was not prejudiced by this decision, so there is no Sixth Amendment issue. Judge Moore dissents, arguing that a consolidation hearing is always a critical stage. Because she would hold that defendants should always have attorneys at consolidation hearings, she concludes that the question of prejudice is irrelevant.

Benge asks whether an attorney in a capital case was constitutionally ineffective for failing to object to flawed jury instructions. As in Van, the majority concludes that the defendant was not prejudiced. Judge Martin dissents, using the case as another opportunity to criticize the death penalty as arbitrary. Here, the only aggravating factor in the underlying murder was that Benge stole the victim’s ATM card while killing her. 

Judge Martin writes,

Had Benge impulsively and fatally hit his common law wife in the head with a tire iron in an abhorrent act of extreme domestic violence, instead of killing her to gain access to her ATM card, . . . would his conduct somehow be less heinous and reprehensible? Such a murder would be at least as revolting as the one that occurred here, yet as far as I can tell, would have presented none of the aggravating factors required for a death sentence under Ohio law. Benge’s actions can certainly not be taken lightly in any respect, but his “theft” of an ATM card . . . as a means of accessing money to support his drug habit, is better characterized as a pathetic act of a sick and miserable man than as a factor that makes this murder more heinous or deserving of the death penalty than any other.

Posted Tue, 16 Jan 2007 19:51:29 and filed under Death Penalty, Habeas, Decision of the Day. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.