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Attorneys for a mentally challenged man sentenced to death for killing a sheriff deputy argue that he received poor defense from his previous lawyer, who was intoxicated throughout his trial.

Robert Wayne Holsey is scheduled to die via lethal injection at 7 p.m. Tuesday, the Huffington Post reports. A jury convicted Holsey of fatally shooting Baldwin County deputy Will Robinson in 1995 after the cop pulled him over because his vehicle matched a description given by a store clerk who had just been robbed. His charges included malice murder, felony murder and armed robbery.

However, Holsey’s current legal team says he should be spared because Andrew Prince, a lawyer who drank heavily each night during the proceedings, represented him.

Prince eventually lost his license and went to prison for stealing from clients. Prior to his 2011 death, he testified that he didn’t give Holsey sufficient defense, according to Brian Krammer, who is working on Holsey’s appeal.

“He admitted that he had no business representing anybody, certainly not in a capital case,” Krammer claims. He added that although Holsey is mentally-ill, Pearce failed to raise that as a possible factor during the trial.

Should the execution go off as planned, Holsey will be the 34th person executed this year in the U.S. That number is the lowest in the nation since 1994, when 31 inmates were put to death, per information from the Death Penalty Information Center, which oversees capital punishment.

Holsey had appealed for a new trial to several courts through the last 16 years, with all of his requests denied.

 

Lawyers: Mentally Ill Death Row Inmate Received Poor Representation From Drunken, Former Lawyer  was originally published on newsone.com