Court considers claims of bad legal assistance

WASHINGTON -- The Supreme Court considered a Vietnam veteran's contention that his lawyer did next to nothing to save him from a death sentence in a 20-year-old case that could clarify death row inmates' right to claim they got bad legal help at trial.

The general issue of poor legal representation for death penalty defendants has troubled at least two Supreme Court justices in recent months. Justice Sandra Day O'Connor said it may be time to require minimum standards for lawyers.

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said among all the inmates who have asked the court for last-minute reprieves, she has never seen one who got really good legal help at trial.

Defendants facing execution usually cannot afford to hire their own lawyers, and so get lawyers appointed by the state. Some are experienced death penalty advocates, others may be trying their first death case or juggling dozens of other cases at the same time.

Monday's case concerned Gary Bradford Cone, who robbed a Memphis jewelry store, shot a police officer and a bystander, stole a car and threatened a woman before breaking into the home of an elderly couple and beating them to death in 1980.

Convicted in 1982

He claimed drugs and the stress of his wartime experiences led to the crime, and that he was temporarily insane during the spree. A jury convicted him in 1982 and sentenced him to death.

Cone's lawyer was allegedly mentally ill during the trial. He was later found incompetent to practice law, and he eventually committed suicide.

At issue for the Supreme Court is whether the lawyer, John Dice, did enough to try to persuade the jury to spare Cone a death sentence. Dice gave a brief opening statement, but did not back it up with potentially mitigating evidence, and he did not make a closing statement after the prosecutor requested a death sentence.

Dice said almost nothing about the Bronze Star that Cone received for valor in Vietnam, Cone's new lawyer argued Monday.

There was no evidence of what kind of person Cone had been before he went to war, and the changes war and personal tragedy had wrought on his personality.

Dice utterly failed to present a case that might have led the jury to sentence Cone to life in prison, lawyer Robert Hutton argued to a mostly skeptical court.

Several justices suggested that Cone's lawyer did not do such a bad job after all, and may have had his reasons for staying silent.

Monday's case is Bell v. Cone, 01-400.