What took place in both Horace Dunkin's and Michael Lindsey's case was somewhat luckless. Of course, both Dunkin and Lindsey were assigned volunteer lawyers because they didn't have enough money to pay for one of their own. Lindsey's lawyer was said to be "a respected civil attorney from Mobile" (Page 69). He had previously worked on Wayne Ritter's case who convicted and executed a year prior. The case left Bagwell "disillusioned and angry." In a letter, he had written that he vowed: "never to take another death penalty case, even if they disbar me for refusal." The letter also read that Bagwell showed favor towards the death penalty because "mad dogs ought to die" (Page 69). This statement alone goes to show that Ritter didn't care much about Lindsey's case and whether or not he deserved to be executed. As far as Dunkin he suffered from intellectual disabilities, and the trial judge discovered that he had "mental retardation" established on his school records and prior testing. Unfortunately, 13 years after Dunkin was executed, in Atkins vs. Virginia, the Court realized that executing people with intellectual disabilities was "cruel and unusual punishment" and then prohibited the execution as unconstitutional (Page 71). …show more content…
Although, I do believe that there should be some sort of "timeliness" of filing appeals. An average prisoner spends 13 years on death row, with some spending 30 years or more. With that being said I believe that the sort of "timeliness" should be set to 10 years following sentencing that new evidence can be presented. 10 years is more than enough time to find evidence that'll possibly overrule an execution