Private: Georgia’s Dangerous Rush to Execution

by Norman Fletcher, Former Georgia Supreme Court Justice

In 1967, Georgia enacted the Habeas Corpus Act in reaction to serious friction caused by federal habeas corpus review of Georgia criminal judgments. Georgia had grave systemic problems in its criminal justice system stemming from our most profound historical injustices. Georgia’s 1967 statute is broadly patterned after federal habeas corpus law, with one extremely important exception today: Georgia has never provided a right to counsel in habeas corpus. Over the nearly 50 years of this statute, the Georgia Supreme Court has decided scores of cases raising this very problem. The tragic case of William Sallie demonstrates it is not a theoretical one. If Georgia conducted its death penalty the way that virtually all other capital states do, we could expect that the evidence of a severely biased and untruthful juror tainting his 2001 trial would have been heard, and not procedurally defaulted, and his constitutional violations addressed. Instead, he is scheduled to die on Dec. 6, 2016.

Read Justice Fletcher's full opinion editorial via The New York Times.  

Death Penalty