Poor system can mean poor results

An unfortunate byproduct of a hodgepodge system of courts appointing lawyers for defendants charged with capital crimes, especially without strong standards for doing so, is that some inmates get less-than-excellent results. Some examples:

George Daniel was tried, convicted and sentenced to death in Russell County for shooting a police officer. His trial lawyers asked Daniel's mother for his last paycheck, supposedly for evidence, but cashed it and kept the money for themselves.

Daniel had become severely mentally ill after a car wreck that caused brain damage. His bizarre behavior in the wreck's aftermath led to the confrontation with the officer. But an "expert" from the state had declared Daniel mentally fit, and his trial lawyers never questioned the expert's qualifications. The "expert," it turns out, was a high school dropout with no degree, training or credentials.

A U.S. district court judge granted Daniel relief, and he was removed from Death Row and sent to a mental hospital.

In 1988, a Talladega County jury convicted Judy Haney of capital murder and sentenced her to death for hiring someone to kill her allegedly abusive husband in 1984.

At her original trial, Haney's court-appointed lawyer, Gould Blair, "was so drunk during the trial ... that he was held in contempt and sent to jail," according to a 1995 report by the Death Penalty Information Center, an anti-capital punishment group.

Blair maintained Haney got good representation. "I would affirm to anybody the fact that I had a bad day in court does not in these circumstances mean this woman was other than more than adequately represented," he said.

On appeal, Haney argued Blair had not adequately represented her. Blair "had a severe drinking problem at the time of the trial" and "appeared intoxicated in court during the trial on other occasions," the filing said.

Talladega Circuit Court Judge Jerry Fielding reduced Haney's sentence to life without parole in 1997.

In 1998, David Hocker lured his boss to a rural area near Dothan, stabbed him to death and stole his truck.

The mentally ill man was convicted in a trial that lasted one day. Hocker's defense lawyer, Michael Crespi, called no witnesses on his behalf, saying his client didn't want his family embarrassed by his troubled background.

Jurors never heard about the defendant's mental illness, his abusive upbringing or his father's mental illness and suicide. Hocker was sentenced to death.

Despite clear signs of mental illness - he mutilated himself on Death Row, including removing his testicles - Hocker was allowed to abandon his appeals before courts could determine whether he was competent and had received an adequate defense.

Hocker was executed in 2004. Sources: Equal Justice Initiative, Death Penalty Information Center, news archives.