The American Bar Association filed an amicus brief on Friday with the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, supporting a challenge to the U.S. Department of Justice’s determination that the state of Arizona met the criteria to certify its system for providing counsel in death penalty cases. The determination gives the state the authority to accelerate and limit the scope of post-conviction review in capital cases.
115 inmates are currently on death-row in Arizona and 20 of those inmates have fully exhausted their appeals. Some of the inmates committed their crimes in the 1970s and early 1980s. Arizona has not conducted an execution since 2014.
Earlier this year, Attorney General William Barr certified, retroactive to 1998, that Arizona had developed appropriate mechanisms in its system for appointing post-conviction counsel for capital defendants. The certification requires states to have a system for ensuring capital defendants receive adequate and effective post-conviction counsel in exchange for shortening the statute of limitations for federal review of state court judgments and to reduce federal courts’ ability to review certain aspects of state judgments.
The ABA brief recalled that the ABA Death Penalty Due Process Review Project identified in a 2006 assessment of Arizona’s death penalty administration “serious problems” with Arizona’s system. The brief also identified several current aspects of Arizona’s system that undermine the safeguards required for certification.
The brief noted the ABA does not take a position on the death penalty, other than to say that the right to assistance of effective counsel and the preservation of due process, or habeas corpus, are essential elements of the fair and constitutional administration of the death penalty.