Saturday, July 24, 2010
Associated Press
CINCINNATI
A federal appeals court on Friday ruled against an Ohio death-row inmate who claimed his lawyer was ineffective in defending him against charges he shot and killed his estranged wife and her brother.
The 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati in a 10-4 ruling upheld a lower court ruling that denied Abdul Awkal’s claim of not having a proper defense.
The Cleveland man was sentenced to death after being convicted of two counts of aggravated murder in the 1992 fatal shootings of his wife, Latife Awkal, and her brother, Mahmoud Abdul-Aziz, in a Cuyahoga County courthouse. Court records show Awkal, now 51, shot them at close range with a pistol just before a scheduled family conciliation services meeting.
Awkal testified that his last memory before waking up in a hospital was his brother-in-law’s face turning into a monster’s and walls collapsing.
Awkal appealed his convictions to a U.S. district court in 2000. He argued his counsel was ineffective for calling a psychiatrist who contradicted the defense theory of not guilty by reason of insanity, failing to introduce records of Awkal’s previous involuntary hospitalization and failing to present testimony of competent mental health experts.
The district court ruled against Awkal, but a three-judge panel of the appeals court ruled in his favor in 2009 and said Ohio must give him a new trial or release him. Ohio’s attorney general appealed to the full court.
Judge Ronald Lee Gilman wrote in the majority opinion Friday that in light of overwhelming evidence against him “Awkal had little basis for a realistic hope of a successful insanity defense” and that the court doubted that anyone representing Awkal could have established that he did not know at the time of the killings that his acts were wrong.
Judge Boyce Martin Jr. wrote in the dissenting opinion that one expert defense witness was not a licensed psychologist and not allowed to testify, one contradicted the defense’s insanity theory and a third was not certified in psychiatry.
Attorney Brian Moriarty, who handled Awkal’s appeal, said he will appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.
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