Ledell Lee (July 31, 1965 – April 20, 2017) was an American man convicted and executed for the 1993 murder of his neighbor, Debra Reese. He was convicted in 1995 and the Arkansas Supreme Court affirmed the conviction in 1997, but numerous questions have been raised about the justice of his trial and post-conviction representation. Issues have included conflict of interest for the judge, inebriation of counsel, and ineffective defense counsel. A request to postpone the execution in order to test DNA on the murder weapon was denied by a circuit judge. After Lee’s execution, it was proven that the DNA on the murder weapon belonged to another person, an unknown male.
Controversy over judge’s conflict of interest
Additionally, Lee was tried by a judge who concealed his own conflict of interest: an affair with the assistant prosecutor, to whom the judge was later married. Mr. Lee’s first state post-conviction counsel introduced the evidence of the affair by calling the judge’s ex-wife, who testified about the affair after opposing the subpoena. That lawyer, however, was so intoxicated at the hearing that the state moved for him to be drug tested after he slurred, stumbled, and made incoherent arguments. The inebriated lawyer also represented Lee briefly in federal court, where he raised the important claim that Lee was ineligible for execution because of intellectual disability. Lee won new proceedings because of the lawyer’s drunkenness, though his representation did not improve afterward. His next lawyers failed to introduce evidence of the affair, giving up one of many of Lee’s important arguments, and never pursued his innocence or intellectual disability claims.
“This is a story of the judicial process gone totally wrong,” Lee’s lawyer said. “The kinds of attorney failures here: an affair with the presiding judge by the prosecutor, gross intoxication by defense counsel, and wild incompetence undermine our profession as a whole. Mr. Lee has never had the opportunity to have his case truly investigated, despite serious questions about guilt, and his intellectual disability.”[11][5]
Throughout the legal challenges, the family of Debra Reese hoped that the execution would go through as scheduled.
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