By Lyndsey Kelly
Impunity Watch Reporter, North America
WASHINGTON, D.C., United States of America – On Tuesday, 20 January 2015 the United States Supreme Court threw out an appeals court ruling that went against a Missouri death row inmate, effectively putting off the imminent threat of execution. The Supreme Court had previously made a ruling on this case, blocking the 28 October execution, allowing the inmate a chance to file new court papers. Now, inmate Mark Christeson will be given the chance to argue that his court-appointed attorneys were ineffective due to their failure to file an appeal in federal court back in 2005.
Christeson currently faces a death sentence for killing Susan Brouk, 36, and her children in 1998. Christenson and his cousin Jesse Carter, at the time 18 and 17 years old, broke into Brouk’s home in order to steal her vehicle as part of their plan to run away from the home they were living in. Both men were armed with shotguns, when they kidnapped Brouk and her children, subsequently killing them and throwing the bodies into a nearby pond.
A group of attorneys argues that Christenson’s court-appointed attorneys, Phil Horwitz and Eric Butts, should be replaced from the current appeal due to a conflict of interest because they have refused to admit their own ineffective assistance. Horwitz and Butts missed a 2005 deadline t file a federal appeals petition. The groups of new attorneys have argued that substituting lawyers would give Christenson a fair chance to win a federal review.
In an unsigned petition, the Supreme Court said that the lower courts should have acknowledged that Horwitz and Butts faced a conflict of interest. Thus, making it nearly impossible to make a legal argument that would threaten their professional reputation. However, the opinion of the court was not unanimous as Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas dissented, stating that they would not have reversed the appeals court’s decision without a full briefing from both parties.
Christenson would have been the 11th man executed in Missouri last year, had the Supreme Court not put his execution on hold while it considered his appeal.
For more information, please see the following:
BOSTON HERALD- Supreme Court: Death Row Inmate Deserves Hearing – 20 Jan. 2015.
REUTERS- Supreme Court Gives Missouri Death Row Inmate Another Chance – 20 Jan. 2015.
STAR TRIBUNE- Supreme Court Says Missouri Death Row Inmate Deserves New Hearing – 20 Jan. 2015.
WALL STREET JOURNAL – Supreme Court Gives Second Chance To Condemned Missouri Inmate -20 Jan. 2015.
