South Dakota’s lone death row inmate mounts another legal attempt in federal court to save his life.
A federal judge heard the issues of the case that remain after 25 years.
Prosecutors say Briley Piper and two other men kidnapped, tortured and murdered Chester Allen Poage in 2000. Piper was sentenced to the death penalty in state court and exhausted all appeals at the state level.
Now, Piper’s attorneys are challenging a federal act used to end a previous legal bid to enter new evidence in the case. It’s called the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act.
In a Sioux Falls federal court Friday, his lawyers questioned the constitutionality of the act – claiming it gives state courts too much power over federal courts.
Attorneys called the argument “a very young issue…and it’s still developing.”
Attorney General Marty Jackley disagreed, arguing a recent Supreme Court decision that expanded the federal court’s powers by allowing them to interpret ambiguous federal agency laws should be the precedent.
“The lower courts are actually created by Congress. So, Congress has the ability to determine to what degree those courts have jurisdiction,” Jackley said.
Jackley closed his arguments saying he “would urge this court not to be the first to accept a petitioners petition” for the death penalty act.
He also said decades of dragging this case through courts takes a toll on Poage’s family – including Chester’s mother, Dottie.
“That is long enough. I’ve taken the position as attorney general that I believe due process has occurred for Briley Piper, and that’s why I have requested that his claims of ineffective assistance of his trial counsel and appellate counsel be dismissed, and that the jury’s verdict move forward and be carried out,” Jackley said.
The state closed its arguments saying “This case has been in the federal system for five years. That doesn’t change the fact that [Chester Allen Poage’s mother] here has been looking at five years in the federal system. Briley Piper didn’t give her son five hours to live.”
A decision on the case is expected to be out by the end of March. Jackley said if the state prevails, he anticipates it going to the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals.
