Death sentence for Texas defendant represented by sleeping...

Death sentence for Texas defendant represented by sleeping lawyer.The United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit reversed a federal judge's ruling that death row inmate Calvin Burdine should receive a new trial because his attorney, Joseph Cannon, slept during portions of his death penalty trial. In a 2-1 split, the majority held that it should not be presumed that Cannon's sleeping actually hurt Burdine's case, and noted that in the past, verdicts had been upheld when trial attorneys had been drunk or otherwise impaired. While the justices stated they were not "condoning sleeping by defense counsel during a capital murder trial," they held it was "impossible to determine - instead, only to speculate - that counsel's sleeping" made his representation ineffective. In his dissenting opinion, Judge Benavides stated, "In my opinion, it shocks the conscience that a defendant could be sentenced to death under the circumstances surrounding counsel's representation of Burdine." Burdine's appellate attorney Robert L. McGlasson announced he would seek a rehearing by the full panel of 5th Circuit judges.