Richard Allan Moran v. Salvador Godinez, Warden

Richard Moran was convicted and sentenced to death by a Nevada state court for three counts of capital murder. After exhausting his state remedies, Moran filed a petition in federal district court for a writ of habeas corpus. The district court denied Moran’s petition, and Moran appeals. For the reasons set forth below, we reverse.

I.

Richard Moran was still recovering from a suicide attempt in which he had slashed his wrists and shot himself in the abdomen when he appeared before a Nevada state court in November 1984 charged with three counts of capital murder. At that time, he discharged his counsel, changed his pleas to guilty, refused the court’s offer of standby counsel, and announced that he wanted no mitigating evidence presented on his behalf. Moran expressed extreme remorse over shooting and killing two people at the Red Pearl Saloon and then shooting and killing his ex-wife Linda Vander-voort at her home several days later.

On the day that Richard Moran discharged his counsel and changed his pleas, he was taking four different kinds of drugs. When the state judge asked Moran if he was taking drugs, he replied that he was on medication. The state judge inquired no…