A ruling against a death row inmate claiming huge mistakes by his lawyers may launch another round of the back-and-forth litigation between the U.S. Supreme Court and Atlanta’s federal appeals court.
Last week, a panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit rejected the claims by Alabama death row prisoner Ronald Bert Smith. He had argued that he shouldn’t be held responsible for missing a key deadline because one of his lawyers was a drug addict and the other didn’t file the paperwork allowing him to appear in an Alabama court.
