Source: https://habeascorpusblog.typepad.com/habeas_corpus_blog/cert-grants/page/2/
Timestamp: 2019-04-21 10:14:36+00:00

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Just in time for today's conference, I am going to link to SCOTUSblog's recent relist post discussing the cases that were relisted after last week's long conference. And consistent with the overall theme of this Court's term, it is very habeas heavy.
A couple of the relists were cases that were on that site's Petitions to watch: Bobby v. Dixon and Cash v. Maxwell.
Another relisted case is Buck v. Thaler. That's the capital case in which the Court recently granted a stay. I have previously stated that I can't see the Court granting cert. in that case. I'd be happy to be wrong about that.
Then there are Adams v. Thaler and Rocha v. Thaler, both of which seem to concern the independent and adequate state law ground doctrine. I guess there still is a little bit left there for the Supreme Court to chip away at.
Then there are two habeas grants, Ryan v. Doody and Harvey v. Cross, where the State was arguing that the Circuit Courts weren't deferential enough to the state courts. It supports my prior claim that "it's safe to say that there are certain members of the Court who think that any habeas grant under the AEDPA . . . is questionable."
In a prior post, I had previously covered the petitions to watch for the long conference. One petition that was relisted, but not mentioned in the SCOTUSblog post was Cavazos v. Smith. That one's been relisted many, many times (nine to be exact). So I am guessing it was just an oversight. It's still on their petitions to watch page.
And a GVR was granted in one of the cases, Allison v. Diaz, in light of Richter. That's obviously bad news for the habeas petitioner.
I must have misread the SCOTUSblog petitions to watch page and thought that every petition that they were watching was going to be submitted to the long conference. That turns out not to have been the case. But unlike before, that page of petitions is now broken up into conferences. Which means that many of the cases I mentioned before actually are going to different conferences.
For today's conference, in addition to the relisted cases mentioned above, these petitions to watch will be considered: Harrison v. Gillespie and Wetzel v. Abu-Jamal.
1) Does an appellate court have the authority to raise sua sponte a 28 U.S.C. §2244(d) statute of limitations defense? 2) Does the State’s declaration before the district court that it “will not challenge, but [is] not conceding, the timeliness of Wood’s habeas petition,” amount to a deliberate waiver of any statute of limitations defense the State may have had?
It will be added to the Supreme Court page shortly.
Seems kind of like a sleight of hand to me. It still allows the non-testifying expert's testimony into evidence without the ability to confront the expert. But, in Bullcoming, Sotomayor seemed to suggest that this may not represent a Confrontation Clause violation. She stated, "We would face a different question if asked to determine the constitutionality of allowing an expert witness to discuss others’ testimonial statements if the testimonial statements were not themselves admitted as evidence." I guess now they are facing it.
I will, eventually, update the Supreme Court Cases page. That's going to take some time. I hope to get to it before the end of the summer.
Supreme Court issued an order list today and granted cert. in a habeas case. The case is called Martel v. Clair.
Whether a condemned state prisoner in federal habeas corpus proceedings is entitled to replace his court-appointed counsel with another court-appointed lawyer just because he expresses dissatisfaction and alleges that his counsel was failing to pursue potentially important evidence.
It appears to be more of a federal procedure-type question, rather than a pure habeas issue. Reading the lower court's decision, the question is not whether the habeas petitioner is entitled to counsel or even the effective assistance of counsel. Since it is a capital case, petitioner has a statutory right to counsel and the Supreme Court has held that counsel must be effective in that situation.
It really is more about a petitioner's right to counsel of his choosing. This appears to be a novel question. As the lower court indicated, habeas courts have discretion to replace appointed counsel in a non-capital case. In other words, federal courts have the power to appoint counsel in non-capital habeas cases where the petitioner has shown that the petition has "likely merit." The statute that grants that authority also grants the court discretion to replace the appointed counsel where justice requires.
Given the importance that it placed on “quality legal representation” for capital habeas defendants, Congress must have intended to provide such petitioners with at least as much opportunity to replace counsel with whom they are dissatisfied as it provides noncapital habeas petitioners who have no statutory entitlement to counsel. Accordingly, when faced with Clair’s request for new counsel, the district court was required at a minimum to ascertain whether the interests of justice required that the request be granted.
So it really is a three-part question here: (1) does a federal court have the power to substite assigned counsel in capital cases (I would guess yes, but who knows with this Supreme Court); and (2) what is the standard; and (3) was that standard applied correctly here.
Just to note, this case will have no relevance to New York as there aren't any capital habeas petitioners.
Earlier this week, I mentioned the cert. grant in the habeas case of Gonzalez v. Thaler. Next term is shaping up to be pretty interesting, and potentially scary for habeas petitioners.
1) Whether there is a reasonable probability that the outcome of Smith’s trial would have been different but for Brady and Giglio/Napue errors; 2) whether the state courts violated the Due Process Clause by rejecting Smith’s Brady and Giglio/Napue claims.
As that blog notes, there is a long and ugly of history of Brady violations coming out of Orleans Parish in Louisiana. The Court recently looked at those violations, in the context of a 1983 claim, in Connick v. Thompson, which was the really horrible decision in which the Court found prosecutors immune from liability despite serious bad faith. Although the Court refused to hold the prosecutors responsible in Thompson, there is room for the Court to act in Smith. Maybe the Court decided to take Smith to say, while a civil suit is not the way to stop the Brady violations, upsetting the criminal conviction may be. We shall see.
In any event, I really need to update the Supreme Court Cases page.
And the Court relisted for the first time in two capital cases: Russell v. California, 10-10201, on direct review from the Supreme Court of California, raises constitutional challenges to the exclusion of mitigating evidence from the penalty phase of a capital trial under a state’s hearsay rule. The Court also relisted in Spencer v. Alabama, 10-9085, a capital case from the Alabama state courts, which involves a claim that the trial court erred by not instructing the jury that it could find the defendant guilty of a crime other than capital murder, and an Apprendi challenge to the state’s sentencing system.
Earlier today, the Supreme Court granted cert. in the habeas case entitled, Gonzalez v. Thaler. I never got around to putting up a post focusing on the relist cases from last week's conference. But in that post, the writer at SCOTUSblog predicted that this case was headed for a grant. He was right on with the prediction.
2. Was the application for a writ of habeas corpus out of time under 28 U.S.C. §2244(d)(1) due to “the date on which the judgment became final by the conclusion of direct review or the expiration of the time for seeking such review”?
Honestly, I am not sure what those mean.
3) whether “expiration of the time for seeking [direct] review” under AEDPA includes the ninety-day period for filing a petition for a writ of certiorari with the Supreme Court even when the petitioner forewent discretionary review in the state's highest court.
Slightly more insight, but I was still not sure what's going on here.
So I looked at the lower court's decision, and it really is all about question 2 in SCOTUSblog's statement of issue. If the finality date is the issuance of the mandate, the petition is timely. If the finality date is the date upon which time to seek discretionary review ended, it is untimely. There is a split in the circuits on that issue.
[W]e granted a certificate of appealability (COA) on the question of "whether [one of the court's prior decisions] has been overruled by Lawrence [v. Florida, 549 U.S. 327, 331-35 (2007)] and, if so, whether [Gonzalez’s] habeas application was timely filed.
When the district court denies a habeas petition on procedural grounds without reaching the prisoner's underlying constitutional claim, a COA should issue when the prisoner shows, at least, that jurists of reason would find it debatable whether the petition states a valid claim of the denial of a constitutional right and that jurists of reason would find it debatable whether the district court was correct in its procedural ruling.
So I don't know what question (1) is all about. Is the Court going to overrule its prior precedent in Slack? I would typically say no, but last term shows that the Court is shifting the playing field to the right in habeas cases. If the State is going to be seeking that Slack be overruled, then this case will be elevated to a critically important habeas case next term.
We shall know more from the briefs . . .
That's an interesting issue with potentially a huge impact on the criminal justice system. In an earlier post, I discussed a different petition that the Supreme Court was considering raising the same issue: Cook v. Arizona. From that case, we know that the real underlying question is whether a defendant has the right to actually have an attorney represent him at this type of collateral proceeding. If the answer is yes, the ripple effect will be huge.
In its order list yesterday, the Supreme Court issued a GVR in a habeas case, Ryan v. Detrich, pursuant to Cullen v. Pinholster.
I looked up the lower court's decision in Detrich, and there is no surprise as to why it happened. In that case, the Ninth Circuit considered evidence in support of an IAC claim -- a psychological report establishing a mitigating factor relevant to whether the death penalty should be imposed -- that the state court refused to consider, even though petitioner had diligently presented it to the state courts.
Last week, I covered the problems with this, namely giving the state courts preclusive authority to determine the facts that can be considered in analyzing a constitutional claim. As I said last week, this current gap in the AEDPA renders the system completely unfair. To steal the language from the other nightmarish habeas opinion from this term, Richter, all fairminded people would agree that this gap in the habeas statute is inequitable. This gap needs to be addressed.
Supreme Court issued orders today. There was a grant in a capital habeas case. But it was more of the summary-reversal variety.
The case has the great name of Bobby v. Mitts. Sounds like the title of a Brady Bunch episode (of course, Marcia v. Football would have been much better).
And, although it's a habeas loss, it's pretty interesting. It's a case out of Ohio. Ohio uses a certain instruction at its capital sentencing phase that was upheld last year in Smith v. Spisak. In Smith, Justice Stevens concurred, arguing that the instruction was unconstitutional under a Supreme Court decision in Beck.
In response to the decision in Spisak, and obviously heeding the call of Justice Stevens, the Sixth Circuit concluded that the instruction was unconstitutional under Beck.
In today's summary reversal, the Court rejected the Sixth Circuit's conclusion. The Court pointed out that Beck concerned an instruction at the guilt phase of a death penalty case and that the Court had previously held that the logic of Beck is not directly applicable to the sentencing phase. The Court also stated that it had already all but decided this question in Spisak itself. Although Beck was not mentioned, the Court rejected a claim that was essentially the same as the Beck claim, finding that there was no clearly established law on the issue.
It all seems so straightforward, but today's decision does show, in stark relief, the difference a post-Stevens court looks like in habeasland. Last year, at least Stevens was willing to express concern over these charges. Now there is a unanimous summary reversal, rejecting on all fours Stevens' concern over these charges. I have been meaning to write more about this, but there is no doubt that the Court has shifted pretty dramatically rightward in habeas cases this year (I am looking directly at you, Richter and Pinholster). I know you may be asking yourself whether that was even possible. I wouldn't have believed it either, but it certainly has happened.

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