U.S. top court rejects hearing for death row inmate

By James Vicini

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A death row inmate who kept his lawyer from presenting positive evidence about him and now claims he was poorly represented cannot challenge his sentence, a divided U.S. Supreme Court ruled on Monday.

By a 5-4 vote, the court's conservative majority ruled that a federal judge had been correct in denying the inmate, Jeffrey Landrigan, a hearing. That judge concluded Landrigan would have been sentenced to death, even if he had presented the evidence.

The justices overturned a U.S. appeals court ruling that Landrigan should get a hearing. At sentencing, Landrigan had opposed his lawyer's efforts to present evidence that might have spared him from a death sentence.

Landrigan was convicted of killing a man in Arizona in 1989 after escaping from an Oklahoma prison, where he was serving a 20-year term for murder.

Landrigan later said his lawyer was ineffective because he had failed to investigate and present helpful evidence at sentencing. He said the lawyer did not contact his birth father, secure a detailed mental health evaluation and develop a family or social history about his upbringing.

But Landrigan had instructed his family members not to cooperate and not to testify at the sentencing hearing. He repeatedly interrupted attempts by his attorney to portray him in a more favorable light.

Landrigan told the judge at sentencing he did not want his lawyer to present any helpful evidence and said, "I think if you want to give me the death penalty, just bring it on. I'm ready for it."

State courts and a federal judge later rejected his claim of ineffective assistance of counsel.

Justice Clarence Thomas wrote for the court majority that a federal judge reasonably concluded that any additional evidence would have made no difference in the sentencing.

The court's four liberals dissented. Justice John Paul Stevens wrote that Landrigan at least deserved a hearing on whether he had waived his right to present the helpful evidence and whether it could have outweighed his violent past.