Court Opinion

ID: 9480962
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 08:03:49.320837+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:48:01.257120
License: Public Domain

KING, Circuit Judge, specially
concurring:
I concur in the judgment in this case, albeit reluctantly. The petitioner, Jerry Lynn Young (Young) was convicted, in two separate trials, of armed robbery of the Bank of Mississippi, and of armed robbery of the Union Life and Fire Insurance Company. Young’s conviction for the first crime was admitted into evidence at his second trial.
On habeas review of Young’s first conviction, the district court concluded that his first conviction was constitutionally infirm because it was based, in part, on an improperly suggestive pre-trial identification. In response to this decision, Young filed his first petition in the instant case, claiming that he was denied due process at his second trial because he was forced to testify in order to explain his constitutionally improper conviction for the first offense. The district court denied Young’s petition and Young appealed.
While Young’s first petition in the instant case was on appeal to this court, we reversed the district court decision that had found his first conviction improper. See Young v. Herring, 777 F.2d 198 (5th Cir.1985). Because Young could no longer assert that his first conviction was constitutionally infirm, we dismissed Young’s petition in the instant case. We reasoned:
[T]he underpinning of Young’s due process claim has vanished because this court has recently reversed the grant of habeas relief and remanded his case to the district court for consideration of Young’s remaining claims. Without a void prior conviction, Young’s argument is meritless. (Citation omitted).
Young filed a second petition that was dismissed on his own motion without prejudice until such time as a court of competent jurisdiction could decide whether Young’s first conviction violated due process. Young filed a third petition that was denied because it was successive. He appeals from the dismissal of his third petition.
Young’s third petition is clearly successive. We reached the merits of his appeal from the district court’s denial of his first petition and correctly dismissed his appeal. We based our denial of his petition, however, on our conclusion that his first conviction was valid. We have reconsidered Young’s first conviction and have conclud*873ed once again that his first conviction was constitutionally infirm. See Young v. Herring, 917 F.2d 858. For the reasons stated in my dissent in Young v. Herring, I believe that Young’s first conviction was valid.
Our most recent conclusion in Young v. Herring constitutes an important change in circumstances in the instant case. On Young’s appeal from denial of his first petition, we did not believe that Young validly could claim that his first conviction was void. We therefore did not consider whether admission of an invalid prior conviction violated his due process rights. Because our vacillating positions concerning Young’s first conviction has prevented proper consideration of Young’s due process claim in the instant case, the ends of justice will be better served by , allowing Young’s petition to proceed. I therefore concur in the judgment.