Garcia v. Mississippi
Annotate this CaseAlberto Garcia confessed to savagely raping a five-year-old girl and leaving her lifeless body, hanged by the neck, in a filthy trailer. He pled guilty to capital murder. And he waived his right to appeal his conviction. He also waived his right to jury sentencing. The trial judge sentenced him to death. Garcia appealed his sentence, and the Mississippi Supreme Court affirmed. Garcia filed two separate petitions for post-conviction relief (PCR): one with the trial court seeking to set aside his guilty plea; the other with the Supreme Court seeking to set aside his death sentence. The trial court denied Garcia's petition aimed at his guilty plea. The appeal before the Supreme Court here was the trial court's denial of his guilty-plea PCR. In his petition, Garcia contended his mental-health issues—in particular his new- claimed suffering from autism—rendered him incompetent and unable to plead guilty voluntarily. He also suggested his trial counsel was ineffective for not ensuring his psychological expert was sufficiently independent and for encouraging him to plead guilty. Following a hearing, the trial court issued a lengthy order explaining why Garcia had failed to sufficiently show he was entitled to post-conviction relief. Finding no reversible error in that judgment, the Supreme Court affirmed the denial of relief.
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