Death penalty foes rip Coakley for signing brief

Coakley, along with 18 other attorneys general, signed a friend-of-the-court brief in September asking that the nation’s highest court maintain restrictions on intervention by federal courts. Death penalty opponents, who are watching the case closely, say if Coakley’s arguments prevail it could be more difficult for federal courts to overturn death sentences, as well as other criminal punishments, handed down in state courts.

The case, which comes as Coakley is battling for votes in the Democratic Senate primary, involves a convicted murderer from Alabama who has appealed his case to the Supreme Court, on the grounds that his state-assigned lawyer failed to introduce crucial evidence that he is mentally retarded.

“There’s no way this kid should be killed,’’ said Stephen B. Bright, president and senior counsel at the Southern Center for Human Rights, an organization that opposes the death penalty. “It’s old-fashioned Southern states’ rights. I was shocked to see that she and the state of Massachusetts had joined that brief.’’

Many of the other attorneys general who signed the brief were from more conservative states in the South and Midwest. All but three states that signed it - Iowa, Massachusetts, and New Mexico - allow the death penalty.

“At the end of the day, if the state of Alabama wins, this kid with an IQ in the 60s will be executed,’’ said Bright, who teaches at Yale and Georgetown law schools.

Coakley and her aides argue that her signing the brief had nothing to do with the death penalty and that they were purely concerned with the legal implications of allowing federal courts more discretion in reviewing decisions that state courts have already made, which Coakley asserts would take additional time, money, and resources.

Coakley said that the brief she signed, though it is attached to a death penalty case, is limited in scope and is designed to address only the question of what role federal courts should have in reviewing state court decisions. The brief makes no mention of capital punishment.

“This, from our point of view, is unrelated to a death penalty or any of the issues around that,’’ Coakley said. “A real concern was that we get a clear determination from the Supreme Court on what is the standard of review of a federal court looking at a state court decision.’’

The case illustrates the tension between Coakley’s role as the state’s top law enforcement official and her political ambition. Her involvement in the case could have political implications in a highly charged Senate race in which her past support for the death penalty has already come under fire.

“I have positions that I’ve presented during the campaign, but I’m still the attorney general and I have to do the job as attorney general that I was elected to,’’ Coakley said. “If I did otherwise would I not be criticized for doing something political?’’

Coakley previously favored the death penalty in two instances, including for those convicted of killing police officers, but about seven or eight years ago shifted her position over concerns about wrongful convictions. “For many reasons, the death penalty is a mistake,’’ Coakley told reporters last month. “I do not believe in it, and I do not have any exceptions to it.’’

US Representative Michael E. Capuano, a rival in the Senate race, made an issue of Coakley’s stance on the death penalty at the time, trying to highlight her change in position.

The Alabama case involves a man, Holly Wood, who was convicted in 1994 of brutally killing Ruby Lois Gosha, his former girlfriend. A jury recommended, by a 10-to-2 vote, to sentence him to the death penalty.

After losing state appeals, Wood filed a federal habeas petition to take his case to federal court, arguing that his lawyers failed to present evidence of Wood’s limited mental capacity.

A US District Court overturned the decision, concluding that Wood’s court-appointed lawyers had failed him. The Atlanta-based US Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit then overturned the district court’s decision in 2006. This year the Supreme Court agreed to hear the case; oral arguments were presented Wednesday.

“It’s definitely a death penalty case,’’ said Kerry Scanlon, the attorney for Woods. “I was surprised to see that Massachusetts had signed onto this brief.’’

At issue is the interpretation of the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996, which in most instances bars federal reconsideration of legal and factual issues on which state courts have already ruled. A Supreme Court ruling in Alabama’s favor could result in federal courts having to defer to state judgments in many instances. Death penalty cases from the states are among those frequently challenged in federal court.

“If you’re concerned about the death penalty, then you have to be concerned about people being able to have their case reviewed in federal court,’’ said Bryan Stevenson, executive director of the Equal Justice Initiative of Alabama, which opposes capital punishment. “The error rate, in my judgment, is shockingly high, so high that you want federal courts to be able to review these cases without a lot of restrictions.’’

In this case, Stevenson added, “Mr. Wood will be executed in a matter of weeks . . . It is not theoretical in Alabama.’’

In their brief, Coakley, and other states that signed onto it argued that the decisions already made by state courts should not be overridden.

“States have an obligation to protect the finality of the judgments entered by their courts - an obligation that is even more compelling when it involves criminal judgments,’’ their brief reads. “Undoing finality in habeas corpus litigation in the federal courts can undermine the states’ interests in ensuring safety, deterring crime, and rehabilitating criminal offenders.’’

Otherwise, Massachusetts and every other state would have to go to federal court and defend what it did in state courts, the attorneys general argue.

Over the past year, there were about 100 new federal cases challenging state criminal convictions in Massachusetts, according to the attorney general’s office.

Coakley said those numbers would probably rise if the Supreme Court rules against the states.

Tracey Maclin, a law professor at Boston University, said it “makes perfect sense’’ for Coakley to weigh in on this case.

“I’m against the death penalty, but it would be bordering on incompetence for an attorney general not to sign this case,’’ he said. “If the Supreme Court makes it harder, that’s more work that they would have to do. Unless she wants to make more work for her office, she has a vested interest.’’