Frazier v. Jenkins

Following the 2004 murder of Mary Stevenson, an Ohio state-court jury convicted Frazier, of aggravated murder (with two death-penalty specifications), aggravated burglary, and aggravated robbery, and recommended the death penalty. The judge sentenced him to die by lethal injection. After exhausting his state appeals, Frazier unsuccessfully sought federal habeas corpus relief, arguing that he was ineligible for the death penalty under Atkins v. Virginia (2002), due to his intellectual disability; that his trial counsel provided ineffective assistance; and that Ohio’s lethal-injection regime is unconstitutional. The Sixth Circuit affirmed, finding that the state courts’ decisions were not contrary to, nor an objectively unreasonable application of, clearly established federal law as defined by the United States Supreme Court. Frazier’s substantive Atkins claim remains procedurally defaulted because he did not show by clear and convincing evidence that he is mentally retarded. Under applicable law, the Ohio courts were not objectively unreasonable in rejecting his ineffective-assistance claims, and Frazier’s constitutional challenge to Ohio’s lethal-injection protocol requires the accumulation of evidence in another court. View "Frazier v. Jenkins" on Justia Law