Judge’s Bias, Misconduct Are Grounds for Death Penalty Relief

A death-row defendant is entitled to federal relief from his sentence because his sentencing judge was biased and didn’t follow applicable resentencing procedures, the Sixth Circuit said.

This case is the “epitome” of “extreme judicial malfunction,” said Judge Richard Allen Griffin of the US Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit Tuesday. Nathaniel Jackson’s sentencing proceeding was “blatantly unconstitutional at its core,” Griffin said.

After conducting a totality-of-the-circumstances review, Griffin said that the judge’s bias against Jackson was too high to be “constitutionally tolerable.” The sentencing judge “failed to act as a fair tribunal, denying Jackson his Fourteenth Amendment right ...