Mara Leveritt has written an interesting article for her blog on a subject she’s covered previously for the Arkansas Times, the battle by Death Row inmate Tim Howard for exoneration in a double murder case. He’s made progress, including a state Supreme Court ruling for a review by a lower court because of apparent prosecutorial misconduct.
But Howard wants to add a private attorney to his defense team. He fears his federal defenders are willing to strike a deal for a life without parole sentence and he objects to their use of mental retardation as a defense. He argues that he’s competent and that he wants exoneration, nothing less. The federal public defenders are fighting Howard’s effort to add Patrick Benca to his defense team. They are fighting to the point that they’ve retained a private law frim to fight Benca’s effort to represent Howard.