“Anthony Tyson is a death row prisoner in Alabama who like many death row prisoners in Alabama could not find a lawyer for state court litigation before his federal statute of limitations was about to expire,” said Director of Equal Justice Initiative for Alabama Bryan Stevenson to the United States Senate Judiciary Committee in 2005, as read from Senate transcripts. “The state court judge did nothing for eleven months.” This month the Supreme Court will hear the case of 200 Alabama death row inmates.

The inmates claim that the rights guaranteed to them by both the Sixth and 14th Amendments to the Constitution, the right to due process and equal protection of the law, are being infringed upon.

Alabama, unlike any other state in the United States, refuses to provide indigent death row inmates with lawyers.

This push for national requirements of lawyers for death row inmates is only the latest in a series of moves for nationalized criminal policy.

“Criminal constitutional rights are moving from decentralized in the states to national courts,” said Assistant Professor of Political Science Kyle Dell, teacher of a constitutional law course. “It really depends on how far you want to go on nationalizing criminal proceedings. What the court is struggling with is the degree that they want to continue this.”

The forthcoming case is not the first time cases related to criminal proceedings have come before the Supreme Court.

In 1963, Clarence Earl Gideon, accused of burglary of a Florida pool hall, came before the court regarding the denial of legal counsel to him.

Ruling in his favor, the court stated that indigent criminal defendants had the right to free legal counsel for their trials and first series of appeals.

However, this ruling does not apply to anyone continuing to appeal or issuing a habeas petition challenging an unjust sentencing.

The 1989 Supreme Court case of Murray v. Giarratano ruled that the appointment of lawyers to the cases of indigent death row inmates was not constitutionally required.

This case is “widely understood to require only that inmates have access to prison law libraries,” according to The New York Times.

“This is a court decision, so only the bare minimum is mandated, and states have the choice of going beyond it,” said Dell.

The 49 other states have chosen to go beyond it, but Alabama, the state with the fastest-growing death row population, maintains strict laws on inmates’ habeas petitions.

From the time of conviction, inmates are given one year to complete an appeal.

To complete a successful habeas petition one must master legal jargon, conduct a thorough investigation, review trial transcripts, interview witnesses, and prepare and file a flawless plea.

These requests are meticulously pored over by the office of the attorney general, and, if accepted, inmates face even more regulations.

“My state does nothing to provide death row prisoners, or any other incarcerated person, counsel for postconviction review,” said Stevenson. “If a condemned prisoner can get a petition timely filed within the statute of limitations, the court has the discretion to appoint a lawyer but the lawyer’s compensation is limited to $1,000 for the entire case.”

In only allowing a $1,000 salary, lawyers who must labor for hundreds of hours per petition are not even paid minimum wage.

The Alabama state government maintains that the cut in pay does not deter the best volunteers and allows inmates access to the best legal counsel.

“The overwhelming majority of Alabama death row inmates enjoy the assistance of qualified counsel in collaterally attacking their convictions and sentences,” said Alabama’s lawyers in appeals court to The New York Times.

Stevenson insists that this policy is not in the inmates’ best interest.

“Underfunded indigent defense has predictably caused flawed representation in many cases with corresponding doubts about the reliability and fairness of the verdict and sentence,” said Stevenson. “Even in capital cases, indigent accused facing execution have been represented by sleeping attorneys; drunk attorneys; attorneys almost completely unfamiliar with trial advocacy, criminal defense generally, or the death penalty law and procedure in particular.”

The forthcoming case has already passed through the United States Court of Appeals for the 11th Court and was met only with utopian notions.

“If we lived in a perfect world, which we do not, we would like to see the inmates obtain the relief they seek,” said Judge Joel F. Dubina to The New York Times.

Only with an affirmative ruling from the Supreme Court will Alabama death row inmates be able to obtain legal assistance that could save their lives.