Since 1996, 16 death row inmates have been executed after their appeals didn’t meet a federally mandated deadline. Under the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996, prisoners’ lawyers have exactly one year after a state appeal to file petitions for their clients. If the deadline is missed, prisoners often cannot “argue in federal court that the conviction or sentence they received in a state court violates federal law,” reports the Washington Post. One inmate's appeal missed the deadline by a day because his lawyer used regular mail rather than an overnight courier. Another's petition for appeal was denied because a court's after-hours filing system was broken. The one-year deadline was meant to cut the delays in carrying out executions, but such delays have only increased since the law was passed.
Read it at Washington PostArchive
16 Inmates Have Died on Missed Deadlines
LETHAL DELAYS