Court restores Ala. death penalty

WASHINGTON, Jan. 20 (UPI) -- The U.S. Supreme Court Wednesday tightened up interpretations of the Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act, restoring an Alabama death sentence.

The 1996 act was designed to trim death row appeals that sometimes went on for decades. In part it says a federal judge may grant a state inmate constitutional review if the inmate's claim in state court "resulted in a decision ... based on an unreasonable determination of the facts in light of the evidence." But it also says a state court's determination of a factual issue must be presumed to be correct, and the burden is on the inmate to show it isn't "by clear and convincing evidence."

Holly Wood shot and killed his ex-girlfriend while she slept in her Troy, Ala., home in 1993. A state jury convicted him and sentenced him to death, despite his claim of mental deficiency -- the Supreme Court has ruled the mentally retarded are not eligible for the death penalty.

Wood's defense had an evaluation of his mental capacity drawn up, but his three lawyers failed to introduce it at the penalty stage.

After exhausting his state appeals, Wood asked a federal judge for constitutional review based on a claim of ineffective counsel. A federal judge agreed and threw out the death penalty, but a federal appeals court reversed.

The Supreme Court agreed with the appeals court 7-2. The majority opinion written by Justice Sonia Sotomayor said the decision by Wood's three lawyers not to introduce the evaluation was reasonable, as a state court found. All three of the lawyers had read the report and chose to emphasize other issues.