FRANK SESNO, CNN ANCHOR: Here in Washington, the Supreme Court heard arguments today in the case of a Virginia man who is appealing his death sentence. CNN's senior Washington correspondent Charles Bierbauer was there. Charles, I hear some noise on the outside as well.</s>CHARLES BIERBAUER, CNN SR. WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: Indeed, Frank, there's been a loud and lengthy protest outside the Supreme Court today, a protest against the death penalty. Most of the people who have come here in dozens have been arrested are in support of Mumia Abu-Jamal, who was a black activist, journalist, who is on Pennsylvania's death row for the killing of a Philadelphia policeman. What they are protesting in this case is the Effective Death Penalty Act, which was passed in 1996 to put strict limitations on the ability of the death row inmates to appeal their sentences. Inside, the court was addressing the same act in the case of a Virginia inmate who was sentenced for the robbery, rape and murder in Virginia. It is not a question of innocence in the case of Michael Wayne William, but whether he has been denied an appeal because of information that might not have been disclosed by prosecutors at his trial. John Blume is William's attorney.</s>JOHN BLUME, MICHAEL WILLIAM'S ATTORNEY: The state of Virginia wouldn't give him an investigator, they wouldn't give him a hearing, they wouldn't give him any discovery. They hid the witnesses out. They wouldn't tell him where they were. They lied about what information they had. And then they got into federal court and said: Yes, we did all that but it's your fault; you can't get a hearing in federal court; you should have developed those facts.</s>BIERBAUER: What the justices have to decide is whether William's, unable to prove his innocence, can still have an appeal that might get him off of death row and into a life sentence. There is, however, no intention on the part of this court, the Supreme Court, to overturn the death penalty, which it has ruled is constitutional. Charles Bierbauer, CNN, live from the Supreme Court.
Supreme Court Hears Death Penalty Appeal