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Thread: Corey Ross Maples - Alabama

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    Corey Ross Maples - Alabama




    Corey Ross Maples


    Summary of Offense:

    Sentenced to death in 2000 for the 1995 murders of Stacy Alan Terry and Barry Dewayne Robinson II.

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    January 8, 2010

    Lawyers for Cory Maples, who shot two friends, miss appeal court deadline

    A death row prisoner in Alabama has had a final plea against execution turned down by the federal appeals court on the grounds that his lawyers failed to meet a 42-day deadline to file legal paperwork.

    Cory Maples, 35, may go to his death as a result of a procedural mistake by his lawyers of which he had no knowledge or he had no control.

    The case has highlighted inconsistencies in the application of the death penalty across America: critics say the system is so skewed that issues of justice and fairness are frequently lost in a myopic focus on bureaucratic rule-keeping.

    "We have created an incredibly complex procedural maze, with the result that we are risking executing people who should not have been given a death sentence in the first place," said Bryan Stevenson, director of the Alabama-based Equal Justice Initiative, EJI.

    The case of Maples began on 7 July 1995 when two friends, Stacy Terry and Barry Robinson, went round to his house. Later, as the men were leaving in their car, Maples shot them both twice in the head with his father's gun. He confessed to the murders, telling police he had drunk about eight pints of beer.

    At his trial, Maples was found guilty by 10 votes to two and the jury recommended death. Just one fewer vote against him would have spared him under Alabama law.

    After Maples was sent to death row in 2000 he took on another team of lawyers for post-conviction appeals. They found that his original lawyer had made basic and serious mistakes.

    He had failed to present the jury with evidence that Maples had been drunk, or that he had a history of mental illness, suicide attempts and drug addiction, to such an extent that he was mentally incapable of carrying out a premeditated murder and was thus unfit to face the death penalty.

    His new lawyers, at a large international firm called Sullivan & Cromwell, went before the Alabama courts to argue that Maples's trial lawyer had mishandled his defence, but in 2003 a judge rejected the petition. They then had 42 days to file a further appeal.

    Paperwork was mailed from Alabama to their New York offices, addressed to two lawyers who had left the company. The letter was returned unopened to the Alabama courts and the deadline missed.

    Sullivan & Cromwell said it could not comment as the case, which it continues to work on, is still active. After prolonged legal wrangling, the federal appeals court has ruled that because the deadline was missed, Maples has lost the right to a final appeal against being put to death. "Any and all fault here lies with Maples for not filing a timely notice of appeal," the ruling says.

    One judge, Rosemary Barkett, dissented from the ruling, saying "the interests of justice require that Maples be permitted review of his claims. This court is allowing him to be put to death because of the negligence" of his lawyers.

    Death row campaigners say the Maples case highlights the brutal, legalistic approach to execution adopted in Alabama and a handful of other states. Alabama has 200 death row prisoners, and holds the record in the country for the number of people sentenced to death each year in recent times.

    Yet it is the only state in America that has no public defender programme, which means that people charged with offences that could lead to the death penalty have no right to choose a lawyer for themselves. Instead, they are handed a lawyer by Alabama state, some of whom, according to EJI, have fallen asleep or been drunk during trials.

    At the time Maples went on trial there was a limit on out-of-court preparation costs for the state-appointed lawyer, who was given just $1,000 (£625) to prepare for the case. "When you pay someone this kind of money you have every reason to think the lawyer is not going to do effective work," Stevenson said.

    The result, he added, was that the burden of responsibility was placed on death row prisoners themselves – many of whom are poorly educated or mentally ill – to negotiate the legal maze.

    "The crazy situation is that we execute someone according to whether documents were filed on a Thursday or Friday, or if the Ts were cross and the Is dotted," he said.

    http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010...appeal-mistake

    Note: the Eleventh Circuit's denial of October 26, 2009 is here:

    http://www.ca11.uscourts.gov/opinions/ops/200715187.pdf

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    August 2, 2010

    A Mailroom Mix-Up That Could Cost a Life

    Sullivan & Cromwell is a law firm with glittering offices in a dozen cities around the world, and some of its partners charge more than $1,000 an hour. The firm’s paying clients, at least, demand impeccable work.

    Cory R. Maples, a death row inmate in Alabama, must have been grateful when lawyers from the firm agreed to represent him without charge. But the assistance he got may turn out to be lethal.

    When an Alabama court sent two copies of a ruling in Mr. Maples’s case to the firm in New York, its mailroom sent them back unopened.

    One envelope had “Return to Sender — Left Firm” written across the front along with a stamp that said “Return to Sender — Attempted Not Known.” The other was stamped with slightly different language: “Return to Sender — Attempted Unknown.”

    Two associates handling Mr. Maples’s case had indeed left the firm, but it seems that no one bothered to tell the court or the mailroom that new lawyers there had stepped in. By the time Mr. Maples’s mother called, her son’s time to appeal had run out.

    The firm’s name did not appear on the papers it had submitted in Alabama. The reason for that is not clear, but it may have been to avoid offending corporate clients. It certainly added to the confusion in the mailroom.

    Sullivan & Cromwell has worked hard to undo the damage, but it has so far failed to persuade the courts to waive the deadline for filing an appeal. After losing in the federal appeals court in Atlanta, the firm persuaded a former United States solicitor general, Gregory G. Garre, to represent Mr. Maples in the Supreme Court.

    Last month, Mr. Garre asked the justices to hear the case. The core of his argument — one that might convince a schoolchild if not a federal judge — is that Mr. Maples should not be blamed for a mistake he did not commit.

    Variations on Mr. Garre’s argument arrive at the Supreme Court all the time. For the most part, they are rejected, on a theory that is as casually accepted in criminal justice as it is offensive to principles of moral philosophy.

    Mr. Maples’s case “is a textbook illustration of why the doctrine of imputing responsibility to the client for a lawyer’s mistake is so out of touch with reality,” said Deborah L. Rhode, an authority on indigent defense and legal ethics at Stanford.

    There is substantial evidence that Mr. Maples murdered two companions after a night of drinking. It is less clear that the crime warranted the death penalty, which is said to be reserved for the worst of the worst.

    Mr. Maples’s court-appointed trial lawyers were novices at presenting evidence about the appropriate penalty, conceding to the jury that they “may appear to be stumbling around in the dark.” Even so, the jury vote in favor of recommending the death penalty was the bare minimum under Alabama law, 10 to 2.

    Alabama is the only state that does not provide all poor death row inmates with lawyers to challenge their convictions and sentences. In an appeals court brief in 2006, the state explained that it relied on fancy firms like Sullivan & Cromwell to handle such cases.

    “The overwhelming majority of Alabama death row inmates enjoy the assistance of qualified (and often über-qualified) counsel in collaterally attacking their convictions and sentences,” the state’s lawyers wrote, which is another way of saying that lawyers from prominent firms donate their services to fill the gap left by the state.

    In the Maples case, Judge Glenn E. Thompson, of the Circuit Court in Morgan County, Alabama, was not willing to cut the pro bono lawyers before him any slack. He said deadlines were deadlines and ruled that a court clerk was not required to do anything to follow up when life-or-death rulings came back from Sullivan & Cromwell unopened.

    “How can a circuit court clerk in Decatur, Ala., know what is going on in a law firm in New York, N.Y.?” Judge Thompson asked.

    An Alabama lawyer, John G. Butler Jr., also represented Mr. Maples, and there is no dispute that he received a copy of the crucial ruling.

    But Mr. Butler said in a sworn statement that he was Mr. Maples’s lawyer in name only, serving as local counsel because the New York lawyers were not licensed to practice in Alabama. He said he had not passed the ruling along to his co-counsel or to his client.

    Nor did the court clerk think to inform the man whose life was at stake. A federal appeals court last year said that was Mr. Maples’s fault. “Maples never requested the clerk to give him personal notice in addition to his counsel,” an unsigned opinion for a divided three-judge panel of the court said.

    A spokesman for Sullivan & Cromwell declined to comment on the case, citing the pending Supreme Court petition.

    That petition discussed a precedent that might seem instructive.

    In 2006, in Jones v. Flowers, the Supreme Court considered what sort of notice must be given when the government wants to sell a home for unpaid taxes. If a letter is returned unopened, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. wrote for the majority, officials must try harder to reach the owner.

    “This is especially true,” he wrote, “when, as here, the subject matter of the letter concerns such an important and irreversible prospect as the loss of a house.”

    http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/03/us/03bar.html

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    Supreme Court to decide whether man can be executed after lawyer missed paperwork deadline

    The Supreme Court will decide whether a Alabama man can be executed after his lawyers missed a paperwork deadline.

    The court on Monday agreed to hear an appeal from Cory Maples. He is on death row on a murder conviction after his trial lawyers allegedly made mistakes presenting his case.

    Maples' appellate lawyers neglected to file an appeal of a judge's ruling that his first lawyers were not ineffective. When the mistake was discovered, the Alabama courts refused to hear the appeal from Maples.

    The 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals also said that because his lawyer missed the 42-day deadline, Maples lost his chance to appeal his execution.

    The court will hear the case later this year.

    The case is Maples v. Allen, 10-63.

    http://www.therepublic.com/view/stor...Death-Penalty/

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    US Supreme Court to hear Alabama man's mail error Death Row case

    WASHINGTON -- One of the first cases the U.S. Supreme Court will hear when it returns this fall is that of an Alabama Death Row inmate who missed an appeal deadline because of a mailroom mistake and undelivered paperwork.

    The Cory Maples case will determine whether he gets another chance to avoid the death sentence, but it also will highlight Alabama's weak system for guiding the already-convicted and imprisoned through their appeals.

    Maples, now 37, was found guilty of murdering two people in 1995 in Morgan County, and a jury voted 10-2 for the death penalty. The evidence included a videotaped confession.

    A subsequent appeal was denied and notice was sent by the Alabama court clerk to his attorneys in New York, who took the case pro bono but had since left the firm. The envelopes were returned to the clerk's office, unopened. By the time Maples had learned of the denial, the deadline to file his next appeal had passed.

    Maples argues the missed deadline was not his fault, and it shouldn't be held against him. His new lawyers, in written arguments ahead of the fall hearing before the justices, cited a 2006 case about the state's responsibilities to make a reasonable effort to contact a property owner about an adverse action regarding his house.

    "Due process requires no less when a life is at stake," wrote Gregory Garre, a Washington lawyer representing Maples in Washington. "Yet here, the court clerk did nothing when the notices to both Maples' out-of-state pro bono attorneys of record were returned unopened and unclaimed, except to stick the notices in a file drawer."

    A third notice, sent to an Alabama attorney also on Maples' team, was received, which is part of the reason the Alabama Attorney General's Office is arguing the state is not responsible for Maples' missed deadline. Therefore, Maples should not be excused for the mistake, lawyers in Luther Strange's office wrote.

    "On the face of it, it is hard not to feel a little sorry for a petitioner like Cory Maples, who loses his chance to assert claims in federal court because of his lawyers' errors," state lawyers wrote. "But other equitable considerations take precedence in circumstances like these."

    Backing Alabama's position is a group of 20 other states, which filed their own brief in Washington arguing that a ruling in Maples' favor would expand the number of cases appealed and settled at the state level that also must get federal review.

    "Granting Maples relief would inject uncertainty into an area of law where this court and the courts of appeals are already clear -- no cause exists to excuse procedural default when a petitioner's state habeas counsel errs," the states argue. They said a number of other defendants already are trying to reopen their cases based on what they call "Maples issues."

    Maples is drawing support from civil rights advocates, criminal defense attorneys and a group of former appellate judges and state bar presidents from Alabama. Part of their argument is that Maples' Alabama attorney was there only as required by a rule that out-of-state counsel partner with an in-state attorney, and that his in-state attorney was not involved in the details of the case.

    Maples' supporters also said he was deprived of appeal rights because of factors beyond his control, and that situation is a product of Alabama's relatively meager system of ensuring prisoners have lawyers.

    "Alabama stands alone in failing to provide counsel or any legal assistance for indigent death-sentenced inmates in postconviction proceedings. As a result, those who are fortunate enough to have attorneys must rely on pro bono counsel, most of whom practice far from Alabama," a brief filed by former Alabama appellate judges and state bar presidents states. "Although (there have been) numerous efforts to reform the system, it remains a labyrinth in which many a hapless inmate has become hopelessly lost, sometimes through no fault of his own."

    The defense attorneys group said reimbursement for court-appointed lawyers after a conviction is capped at $1,000.

    "As a result, Alabama Death Row prisoners rely primarily on volunteer counsel to vindicate their federal constitutional rights," it said.

    The U.S. Supreme Court is scheduled to hear oral argument on Maples' case Oct. 4.

    http://blog.al.com/sweethome/2011/08...ear_alaba.html

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    Birmingham lawyer trying to get death ruling overturned

    A Birmingham lawyer is taking the case of an Alabama death row inmate to the U.S. Supreme Court.

    The attorney says a death row appeal is needed because the lawyers appealing the inmate's conviction never got some important pieces of mail.

    Cory Maples was sent to death row, convicted of murdering two people in Morgan County in 1995.

    Birmingham lawyer Wayne Morse filed a brief with the U.S. Supreme Court to get the inmate's conviction overturned.

    Morse says during Maples' trial, his attorney didn't mention that Maples was highly intoxicated.

    A fact Morse believes would have spared maples the death penalty.

    Morse said, "If his condition and conscious ability to comprehend was altered that needed to be brought before the jury."

    Morse says Maples had two New York attorneys appealing his case, but they quit their jobs and never informed the Alabama court system. Because of that, letters sent to the attorneys regarding the appeals process went unread and Maples' appeal time expired.

    Morse said, "We believe that no person should be put to execution or subjected to death because of the errors of others."

    Troy King was Alabama's Attorney General during Maples' conviction. FOX6 spoke to him over the phone. King has no sympathy for Maples. King says he earned his sentence and he has to face his punishment.

    King said, "I believe the death penalty is an effective deterrent but only if we let it work. It's this inmate's fault that there is an appeal in the first place. If he hadn't killed people he wouldn't have been convicted. And there would not be a need for an appeal. When are we ever going to expect people to take responsibility for what they do."

    But Morse says Maples wasn't given the due process he's entitled to and was abandoned by his appeal lawyers.

    The U.S. Supreme Court will hear the arguments in the case on October 4th.

    http://www.myfoxal.com/story/1558377...ing-overturned

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    US Supreme Court Capital Punishment Case

    The tale of returned mail and a missed deadline might seem comical if it did not involve a man trying to stave off execution. Supreme Court justices had harsh words Tuesday for lawyers who abandon their clients and a state legal system that does not seem overly concerned.

    At the end of a lively hour of arguments, it appeared the court would order a new hearing for Alabama death row inmate Cory Maples, who had lost the chance to appeal his death sentence because of a mailroom mix-up at the New York law firm Sullivan and Cromwell and the diffidence of a local court clerk.

    Two Sullivan and Cromwell lawyers had been pressing Maples’ claim that his earlier legal representation was so bad that it violated the Constitution — until they both left the firm without telling him or the Alabama courts.

    Deadlines usually matter a lot at the Supreme Court, where a few years back a defendant who was late to file an appeal because the judge gave his lawyer the wrong date still lost his case. Another principle the court often holds dear is that it’s tough luck for defendants whose lawyers make mistakes. But Tuesday’s case, perhaps because it involves the death penalty, was the rare instance when the court seemed prepared to grant some leeway on both counts.

    Justice Samuel Alito is a former federal prosecutor who often votes for the government in criminal cases. But he said he didn’t understand why Alabama fought so hard to deny Maples the right to appeal when the deadline passed “though no fault of his own, through a series of very unusual and unfortunate circumstances.”

    Maples’ case had its origins in the execution-style killings of two men in Morgan County in northern Alabama, in 1995. A jury convicted Maples of the crimes and sentenced him to death by a 10-2 vote. One of Maples’ lawyers told jurors the defense team “may appear to be stumbling around in the dark.”

    Whatever the shortcomings of Maples’ trial lawyers, he appeared to “win the lottery” when the Sullivan and Cromwell lawyers agreed to represent him for free in his appeals, said Gregory Garre, who argued for Maples at the Supreme Court. The New York-based firm has 800 lawyers.

    From December 2001 until May 2003 not much happened in the case. But then an Alabama court rejected Maples’ claims that were prepared and filed by the firm’s lawyers. The court sent a notice to the lawyers, as well as a local attorney in Alabama, starting a 42-day clock for appealing the order.

    What neither the court nor Maples knew was that during the previous summer both lawyers left Sullivan and Cromwell, one for a job in Europe and the other to clerk for a federal judge. “They never told the court, and they never told Maples,” Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said Tuesday.

    The notices sent to the firm were not passed to other lawyers but were returned to Alabama. The local lawyer did nothing, thinking the New Yorkers were on the case.

    The court clerk likewise did nothing when the notices came back indicating the lawyers were no longer at the firm, even though the lawyers’ personal telephone numbers and home addresses were in the court’s file on Maples. Justice Elena Kagan asked Alabama Solicitor General John Neiman what he would have done if an important notice in a capital case had been returned to him. “Huh, should I do anything now?” Kagan said.

    At one point, Neiman pointed out that the local lawyer for Maples did receive the notice, which is enough under Alabama’s court rules.

    But Chief Justice John Roberts, who also often rules against defendants, pressed Neiman to tell the high court whether the lawyer did anything on Maples’ behalf, other than make it possible for the New York lawyers to represent Maples in Alabama courts.

    “You still haven’t told me one more thing,” an irritated Roberts told Neiman.

    Garre, who served as the top Supreme Court lawyer for President George W. Bush, said the clerk’s inaction in a capital case was among several “extraordinary and shocking events“ that should lead the justices to rule for Maples.

    The state had only one justice on its side in the questioning, Antonin Scalia. In repeated and forceful comments, Scalia said he did not see a reason to grant Maples an exception from the rules.

    Only after the deadline passed did Maples find out what happened — or rather, didn’t happen — on his behalf. Other lawyers at Sullivan and Cromwell tried to continue the appeal. The firm did not respond to requests for comment from The Associated Press.

    Both state and federal courts ruled that Maples was out of luck.

    Garre said Maples just wants the chance to get his claims heard by a judge, who could rule against him and leave the death sentence in place. “Mr. Maples is not asking to be released from prison,” he said.

    It was not clear Tuesday how far the court might go on Maples’ behalf. The justices could order a lower court to hear his claims that his lawyers were inadequate. But the court also could more narrowly lay out rules for when deadlines may be waived and allow a lower court to decide whether Maples’ case qualifies.

    In either event, Maples seems likely to get a new hearing before he might have to face execution.

    Support for Maples has come from former Alabama judges, the NAACP, the American Civil Liberties Union and other civil rights groups. Twenty states and a nonprofit group that backs the death penalty are supporting Alabama’s call for the high court to uphold the death sentence. A decision is expected by spring. The case is Maples v. Thomas, 10-63.

    http://trivalleycentral.com/articles...c424806748.txt

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    MAPLES v. THOMAS, COMMISSIONER, ALABAMA DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS

    U.S. Supreme Court rules in favor of Alabama Death Row inmate Cory Maples

    The U.S. Supreme Court today said Alabama Death Row inmate Cory Maples should not be blamed because of a paperwork error that led to him missing a deadline to appeal his death sentence.

    "Abandoned by counsel, Maples was left unrepresented at a critical time for his state postconviction petition, and he lacked a clue of any need to protect himself pro se. In these circumstances, no just system would lay the default at Maples' death-cell door. Satisfied that the requisite cause has been shown, we reverse the Eleventh Circuit's judgment," according to the Justices' opinion released this morning.

    The case is now sent back for further proceedings. Maples wants a federal court to consider whether errors during his 1995 trial and sentencing might have kept the jury from voting 10-2 for the death penalty. Maples was convicted in the 1995 shooting deaths of two acquaintances as they sat in a car in his driveway late at night after he had been drinking.

    The court's opinion was delivered by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and joined by six others. Justice Antonin Scalia filed a dissenting opinion, which was joined by Justice Clarence Thomas.

    http://blog.al.com/sweethome/2012/01...s_in_favo.html

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    On September 14, 2015, Maples' amended habeas petition was DENIED in Federal District Court.

    https://cases.justia.com/federal/dis...?ts=1442296941

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    On October 15, 2015, Maples filed an appeal before the US Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit.

    https://dockets.justia.com/docket/ci.../ca11/15-14586

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