Marvin Lee Wilson
April 26, 2006
Texas
Marvin Lee Wilson, a black man, was convicted of capital murder and sentenced to death for the kidnapping and murder of 21-year old Jeffrey Robert Williams, a police informant. On Nov. 4 1992 Wilson abducted Williams outside of a grocery store in Beaumont, Texas after learning that Williams had divulged to police information regarding possession of cocaine that had led to Wilson’s arrest. Williams’ body was discovered by a bus driver the following day on the side of a road. An autopsy determined that Williams died from gunshot wounds to the neck and head.
Wilson’s case highlights many of the most troubling issues of the U.S. death penalty system. In 2002, the U.S. Supreme Court held that the execution of the mentally retarded violated the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment. Generally, a person with an IQ of 70 or below is considered mentally retarded. The most recent measure of Wilson’s IQ, presented by a psychologist at a 2004 state hearing, was 61. With the passage of the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act (AEDPA) in 1996, death row inmates are severely limited in their rights to appeal their convictions and sentences. In this particular case, the attorney assigned to Wilson failed to meet a deadline laid out by the AEDPA, which governs the habeas appeals process, and as a result, Wilson will likely be executed on a technicality.
In a December 2005 ruling the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals callously refused to consider Wilson’s case despite their acceptance that Wilson made a prima facie showing of mental retardation simply because Wilson’s court-appointed attorney failed to file the appeal on time. The average court-appointed capital defense lawyer is overworked and underpaid, so it is not surprising that those factors, combined with the somewhat incomprehensible statutes of the AEDPA, led to Wilson’s attorney failing to file his appeal within the necessary time frame.
Wilson’s case illustrates one of the many ways the AEDPA has severely limited the ability of death row inmates to have their convictions and sentences reviewed to determine if they are being held contrary to the laws of the Constitution. In most capital cases, habeas is the last stage of review, but because habeas proceedings are blamed as a major culprit for delaying executions, it became the target of Congressional legislation. The result was a federal law that describes itself as one to “deter terrorism, provide justice for victims, provide for an effective death penalty and for other purposes.” As the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals explained in its decision on Wilson’s case, “[h]owever harsh the result may be…Congress acted deliberately in enacting a strict limitations period under the AEDPA, severely restricting the filing of habeas claims in furtherance of its policy to accelerate the process and curb abuse of the writ.” A right guaranteed to prisoners to ensure that they are not being held in violation of the Constitution is being circumvented by the AEDPA when clearly Wilson’s sentence is contrary to the Constitution’s prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment. In short, Wilson, unable to raise the issue of his mental retardation in court, will be executed notwithstanding the Supreme Court’s forbiddance against executing mentally retarded persons.
As this case shows, the death penalty is not reserved for the worst of the worst. The capital punishment system preys upon the impoverished, the marginalized and the disabled. If this case does not prove that the death penalty is an irresponsible policy, what will?
