High court reverses inmate's death sentence
From Bill Mears
CNN
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Delma Banks
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WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Supreme Court justices Tuesday ruled Texas prosecutors withheld evidence from defense lawyers and reversed the death penalty for a man who at one time was minutes away from execution.
The case renewed a long-standing debate over whether capital defendants consistently receive adequate representation and fair treatment from the courts.
Writing for a 7-2 majority, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said, "When police or prosecutors conceal significant exculpatory or impeaching material, we hold, it is ordinarily incumbent on the state to set the record straight."
In a rare move, justices on March 13, 2003, halted Delma Banks' scheduled execution 10 minutes before he was to receive a lethal injection. Weeks later, they agreed to hear his habeas corpus appeal.
Banks was to become the 300th person put to death in Texas since capital punishment was reinstated 27 years ago. He remains on death row.
Prosecutors in his case said Banks got a fair trial. But his attorneys, in their appeal to the Supreme Court, claimed his trial counsel was incompetent and court testimony from witnesses was not strong enough to convict him.
Banks, 44, claims he was wrongly convicted of the 1980 murder of 16-year-old Richard Whitehead, a co-worker at a Texarkana restaurant. Witnesses testified Banks had been last seen with Whitehead.
Banks has been on death row since 1981, making him one of the state's longest-serving capital inmates. A Texas appeals court and the parole board have rejected his case.
His Supreme Court appeal was broad-based, but during oral arguments the justices seemed to focus almost exclusively on the credibility of two key prosecution witnesses from the 1981 trial. Charles Cook testified Banks admitted to murder, and Robert Farr testified Banks retrieved a gun to commit armed robberies.
But Banks' lawyers claim that Cook lied on the stand when denying he was coached in his testimony by the prosecution and that he struck a deal for leniency. Attorney George Kendall said the district attorney let the discrepancies pass without correcting them during the trial or the appeal process.
And Kendall told the court, "We were misled by the state. Farr denied he was a [police] informant, but he was an informant, and the prosecution told the jury everything Farr testified to was truthful."
During oral arguments last December, many of the justices seemed skeptical of the state's claims.
Justice Anthony Kennedy said, "So the prosecution can lie and mislead, and the defense still has the burden" to show misconduct by the government?
Texas Assistant Attorney General Gena Bunn confirmed the testimony of Farr and Cook was "untruthful" but said prosecutors were not malicious when they mistakenly issued a "general denial" of Farr being a paid police informant.
Bunn defended the actions of prosecutors, saying Banks' lawyers were "able to procure this evidence" involving Farr and Cook without help from the government. Bunn claims the state is not responsible if Banks' defense failed to adequately cross-examine witnesses and plead errors at trial.
Texas has put more people to death than any other state since the high court reinstated the death penalty in 1976. Texas capital punishment amounts to roughly a third of the nation's total.
The case is Banks v. Dretke (Case number #02-8286).
