When do trial lapses void a death sentence?

It took Delma Banks and his lawyers 19 years to discover the truth.

State prosecutors at his 1980 murder trial allowed two key witnesses to lie to the jury that sentenced Mr. Banks to death.

But even after the deception was uncovered, a federal appeals court said it didn't matter.

On March 12, 2003, Texas corrections officers strapped Banks to a gurney and prepared a lethal injection. Then, with 10 minutes to go, word of a stay came from the US Supreme Court.

Monday, the justices take up the Banks case to determine whether the misconduct of prosecutors and the ineffectiveness of Banks's own lawyer were so significant as to require the invalidation of his death sentence. The case arises at a time of heightened national debate over the propriety of capital punishment, with 111 death-row inmates having successfully overturned their death sentences since 1973.

The Banks case is only the most recent capital-punishment case to attract the attention of the nation's highest court. Several justices have spoken out about what they view as shoddy procedures used in state death-penalty cases, and a series of rulings in recent years have set higher standards of conduct not only for prosecutors but for defense counsel as well.

At the same time, the court has upheld congressional efforts to speed up the death-penalty process by sharply restricting the use of multiple habeas corpus appeals by death-row inmates.

The Banks case is not about the constitutionality of capital punishment. Rather, the issue before the court is whether Banks's trial was conducted in accord with constitutional standards of fundamental fairness. "I don't think anyone who is fair-minded can look at the trial he got and say that is the way we want trials to be conducted in this country," says Miriam Gohara of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, which is representing Banks in his appeal.

Lawyers with the Texas Attorney General's office disagree. They say that even if the jury had heard all the information withheld by prosecutors and state witnesses, it would have still returned a guilty verdict and a death sentence.

In addition, they say Banks's appeals lawyers made a major mistake by going to federal court rather than first litigating the issues in state court. "This case is about federalism," says Gena Bunn, Texas' top capital-punishment appeals lawyer, in her brief to the court. "The state courts were never afforded a fair opportunity to adjudicate [Banks's] claims based on the evidence later presented in federal court."

The Fifth US Circuit Court of Appeals rejected Banks's appeal last year, citing those same federalism grounds. The court also ruled that the deceptive statements by prosecutors and witnesses at Banks's trial, and the alleged ineffectiveness of Banks's counsel, did not rise to a level necessary to invalidate the death sentence.

Banks was convicted of the 1980 murder of Richard Whitehead, who was found shot dead in a park near Nash, Texas.

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