The Ugly Campaign To Punish A Civil Rights Lawyer Because He Helped Save A Man From Execution

Obama Nominee Smeared For Helping Man On Death Row
WASHINGTON, DC - JANUARY 08: Senior counsel to the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee Debo Adegbile testifies during his confirmation hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee January 8, 2014 on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC. Adegbile has been nominated by President Barack Obama to become the next Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division at the Department of Justice. (Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON, DC - JANUARY 08: Senior counsel to the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee Debo Adegbile testifies during his confirmation hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee January 8, 2014 on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC. Adegbile has been nominated by President Barack Obama to become the next Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division at the Department of Justice. (Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)

In 1982, a Pennsylvania jury sentenced a man to die shortly after convicting him for murdering a Philadelphia police officer. Yet, as a federal appeals court determined years later, this sentence violated the Constitution. The trial judge gave the jury a confusing form and confusing jury instructions which could be read to effectively require a sentence of death unless every single member of the jury agreed that mitigating factors were present justifying a life sentence. Thus, even if nearly every member of a jury agreed that the death penalty was not warranted, these confusing instructions could have led to a death sentence if only one juror supported it.

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