Dwight L. Aarons This is Me

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1. 1. www.abanet.org

   www.abanet.org/abanet/media/re - [Cached]

   Published on: 4/21/2007   Last Visited: 4/21/2007

   Dwight L. Aarons, chair, is an associate professor of law at the University of Tennessee College of Law, teaching courses on criminal law, advanced criminal law and the death penalty.

2. 2. The City Paper - Smart, Fast, Free

   www.nashvillecitypaper.com/ind - [Cached]

   Published on: 6/12/2006   Last Visited: 6/12/2006

   Dwight Aarons, an associate professor at the University of Tennessee College of Law, said March will likely file a motion to "prohibit any reference from or allusion to the prior trial and/or conviction."
   ...
   "I don't know how a judge would rule on that," said Aarons, who specializes in criminal law.

3. 3. The City Paper - Smart, Fast, Free

   www.nashvillecitypaper.com/ind - [Cached]

   Published on: 6/27/2006   Last Visited: 6/27/2006

   "It's crunch time, for sure," said Dwight Aarons, a professor of criminal law and death penalty law specialist at the University of Tennessee College of Law. "Both sides are definitely in a stage where they're raising every argument they can think of."
   
   Thus far, Reid's defense team has focused its energy on getting any one of a number of Tennessee courts to accept their argument that Reid lacks the mental capacity to be put to death, and that therefore he should be granted a stay of execution.
   
   Reid's attorneys have argued that his decision to stop appealing his death sentence proves his incompetence.
   ...
   According to Aarons, the Tennessee Supreme Court recently used the Reid case as a way to clarify the issue of who has standing as a next friend.
   
   And that decision hurt Reid, Aarons explained.
   
   "They basically narrowed the standard and now you have to have some rather close connection, and not from a biological point of view," he said. "And you have to demonstrate that the person is incapable of participating in the appeal. You have to have a medical affidavit signed by a doctor explaining tests or conversations that the doctor had with the person and then, in light of that mental incompetency, a next of friend can file a petition on behalf of the inmate."
   
   Monday the State Supreme Court reaffirmed the unofficial but working standard for questioning post-conviction competency, effectively raising the bar for Reid, said a source close to the Court but who requested anonymity.
   
   The ruling also remanded the post-conviction competency case back to the trial court, something Aarons said could either help or hurt Reid, depending on how the trial judge deals with it.
   
   "It could go both ways," Aarons said.