Word: appealing
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...comedy-club circuit. Hip-hop mogul Russell Simmons was impressed with Lawrence's "natural charm and presence" and hired him as host of Def Comedy Jam. Lawrence also landed scene-stealing minor roles in movies like Spike Lee's Do the Right Thing. "To attain universal appeal, the conventional wisdom is that you should dilute, homogenize black comedy," says filmmaker Warrington Hudlin, who cast Lawrence in House Party and Boomerang. "His approach is just the opposite." In January Lawrence will release a comedy concert film...
Before this year, such new evidence of "probable innocence" would have got Schlup a new hearing. No longer. Three recent Supreme Court decisions have narrowed the window of appeal considerably. In 1991 the high court ruled that "attorney error" could not be used as a basis for an appeal. "In plain English," says O'Brien, "if your court-appointed lawyer screws up, too bad." Then, in 1992, the court issued a ruling that struck down the "probable innocence" standard and raised one in which lawyers had to prove that "no reasonable juror would have found the ((prisoner)) eligible...
...Brien, who has been turned down on technical grounds with each attempted appeal, is angry and frustrated. "They're saying we shouldn't be looking toward the judicial process, but the political one. If that's how we're going to decide death-penalty cases, we may as well take the condemned man out to a football stadium and let the crowd decide thumbs up or thumbs down...
...that I may be giving false hope," says Sean O'Brien, remembering a client he lost, a mentally retarded man who had found God in prison and expected redemption. O'Brien remembers calling the prisoner after the Supreme Court refused a stay. "Ricky asked, 'Where's our next appeal go to?' I said, 'Ricky, there isn't any appeal from the Supreme Court.' 'Well,' he asked, 'what are you going to do next?' I said, 'Ricky, it's over.' He asked what was going to happen. I said, 'Ricky, you're going to be executed in about an hour...
...spokesperson in the Justice Department indicated the government would appeal the ruling...