Summary
U. S. Supreme Court order refusing to reconsider a federal court ruling upholding the death sentence of Virginia cop killer Edward Bell. In 2001, Bell, an illegal immigrant and drug dealer, was convicted on strong evidence of murdering a police sergeant by shooting him in the face. On appeal, Bell claimed that his attorneys did not adequately represent him at his sentencing hearing. After the Virginia Supreme Court rejected this claim, Bell added additional evidence to support his claim to his petition for review on federal habeas corpus. A federal District Court rejected the claim, and later the federal Court of Appeals affirmed the judgment. Earlier this year, the high court agreed to review Bell’s appeal based upon his false claim that the Virginia Supreme Court had refused to consider the evidence he added to his federal petition. CJLF had joined the case to argue that Bell had never presented the new evidence to the Virginia Court and that the federal courts reviewing his new evidence ruled that it did not support his allegation of lawyer incompetence. When the Supreme Court learned the truth, it dropped Bell’s case. Bell was executed on February 19, 2009. [CJLF brief in PDF.]
