Opinion ID: 1113311
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Supreme Court Policies Regarding Cases Arising From Judgments of Death

Text: As the majority opinion recognizes, this court promulgated the Supreme Court Policies Regarding Cases Arising From Judgments of Death, policy 3 (hereafter Supreme Court Policies), to facilitate and standardize the filing of petitions for writs of habeas corpus in capital cases. These Supreme Court Policies, announced in 1989 and since amended, established, inter alia, timeliness requirements for habeas corpus petitions related to death penalty cases. As originally adopted, standard 1-1 stated: Appellate counsel in capital cases shall have a duty to investigate factual and legal grounds for filing a petition for a writ of habeas corpus.... (Supreme Court Policies, supra, policy 3, former std. 1-1.) Today's opinion clarifies the intended scope of that duty, making clear it arises only if counsel has become aware of triggering information that would lead a reasonable attorney to initiate an investigation. In order to avoid confusion, we have also simultaneously modified standard 1-1 to reflect that clarification. A hypothetical may prove helpful in illustrating the kind of information that would trigger the duty to investigate. For example, when, on review of the appellate record, counsel becomes aware that trial counsel presented no evidence in mitigation, this constitutes information that indicates a factual basis for a claim of ineffective trial counsel, and which triggers a duty to investigate (and, it follows, to discover facts concerning whether trial counsel was ineffective in that regard). The standard does not allow counsel to stand by until he or she happens to discover facts confirming that trial counsel conducted no penalty phase investigation, or until counsel happens to discover actual mitigating evidence that might have been presented at trial; instead, the standard requires that counsel act on triggering information. As originally adopted, standard 1-1.2 measured delay in raising a claim from the time petitioner or counsel  became aware of information indicating a factual basis for the claim and became aware, or should have become aware, of the legal basis for the claim. (Supreme Court Policies, supra, policy 3, former std. 1-1.2, italics added.) The italicized phrase was designed to make clear that delay is measured from the time counsel became aware of information, i.e., triggering facts, that would support investigation and eventual development of a claim. Today's opinion, which measures delay in presentation of a claim from the time petitioner or counsel should have known of the facts supporting a claim, again merely clarifies the prior formulation. (One who became aware of information that would support investigation and eventual development of a claim should have known of the facts supporting that claim.) Accordingly, in order to avoid any confusion, we have further clarified standard 1-1.2 by adopting explicitly the should have known formulation employed in today's opinion.