Story at McCall. Excerpts:
The U.S. Supreme Court wants an attorney who filed an appeal on mass murderer Michael Eric Ballard's behalf to explain why he apparently did so without his client's knowledge.
In a two-sentence order Monday, the justices dismissed a petition that sought to challenge the death sentence Ballard received for massacring four people in a Northampton home in 2010. But in a rare move, the court also ordered Philadelphia lawyer Marc Bookman to address Ballard's allegation that the appeal was made against his wishes, with Bookman given 40 days to do so.
In the letter and another that he sent to The Morning Call, Ballard said he does not intend to continue to fight his execution, a decision that — if he sticks to it — could set the stage for him to be the first Pennsylvania inmate put to death since three men abandoned their appeals in the 1990s.
"I never authorized anyone to file anything on my behalf," Ballard wrote the court. "I am not appealing this sentence any further than it has been."
The filing, Ballard said, was done by attorneys who are "acting against my own wishes to waive my appeals."