Court says competent PC defense vital

JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — For more than a decade, Robert Ryan has been at the center of debate over perceived inadequacies of the Mississippi Office of Capital Post-Conviction Counsel.

The office represents indigent death-row inmates in state post-conviction proceedings. It was created in 2000 to lift the burden off counties to pay for continuing death row appeals.
Complaints about the office date back at least to 2005.

In 2010, 15 death row inmates sued the state, arguing the office — and Ryan — failed to provide competent counsel during their appeals.

Glen Swartzfager, director of the Office of Capital Post Conviction Counsel since 2008, has acknowledged in court papers that some inmates’ appeals weren’t adequately represented during previous administrations.

In a post-conviction petition, an inmate argues about new evidence — or a possible constitutional issue — that could persuade a court to order a new trial.

In 2011, the Mississippi Supreme Court rejected the lawsuit from the 15 inmates on procedural grounds. The court said it would consider the individual post-conviction complaints if the inmates filed them.

The state has contended that there is no right to the effective assistance of post-conviction counsel.

In the recent appeal of death row inmate Blayde Grayson, the Mississippi Supreme Court made clear that death row inmates have a right to an effective post-conviction defense.

Grayson, now 37, was convicted in George County in 1997. He was found guilty of the 1996 slaying of 78-year-old Minnie Smith during a house burglary. Authorities said Smith sustained more than 30 stab wounds on the night she died in her rural home at the edge of the Pascagoula River flats.