USA | Court Overturns Ohio Death Sentence After Defense Expert Testifies that One Quarter of Urban Black Men Should be Locked Up or Thrown Away
A federal appeals court in Ohio has overturned the death sentence imposed on an African American defendant whose defense lawyer presented testimony from a clinical psychologist that one quarter of urban Black men were sociopaths who should be locked up or thrown away. In a unanimous ruling on August 22, 2022, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit held that the “racialized testimony” offered by a defense expert at the trial of Malik Allah-U-Akbar “offends the Constitution on its face” and that Akbar’s defense counsel was ineffective in presenting it to the jury. The court, which referred to Akbar by his prior name, Odraye Jones, ordered that Akbar be granted a new sentencing trial. (Akbar legally changed his name while his federal habeas corpus proceedings were pending.) Akbar was convicted and sentenced to death for the November 1997 murder of an Ashtabula police officer who was attempting to serve an arrest warrant. He was represented by a court-appoin...