Charles Ray Crawford v. Burl Cain, Commissioner, Mississippi Department of Corrections, et al.

In Ake v. Oklahoma, 470 U.S. 68 (1985), this Court clearly established that the State must provide indigent criminal defendants whose mental condition is at issue “access to a mental health expert who is sufficiently available to the defense and independent from the prosecution to effectively ‘assist in evaluation, preparation, and presentation of the defense.’” McWilliams v. Dunn, 582 U.S. 183, 186

1. (quoting Ake, 470 U.S. at 83). Petitioner raised an insanity defense at his rape trial, but the trial court violated Ake by refusing to provide petitioner with the assistance of a mental health expert unless and until petitioner could convince both the court and prosecution experts that he was in fact insane. The questions presented are:

2. Whether petitioner’s appellate counsel was ineffective for failing to raise an Ake claim on appeal, where the trial court imposed preconditions on expert assistance that violated Ake and denied petitioner his right to expert assistance.

3. Whether petitioner’s trial counsel was ineffective for failing to continue to pursue expert assistance, to the extent that, as the court of appeals held, the trial court’s imposition of the improper preconditions did not constitute a definitive denial of petitioner’s Ake request.