OPINIONS OF THE COURT

BELL v. THOMPSON, No. 04 – 514

Decided: June 27, 2005

By a vote of 5 – 4, the Supreme Court ruled that the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit was wrong to reverse itself, in spite of the fact that the Sixth Circuit announced that its ini­tial denial of Thompson’s appeal was mis­tak­en. Last year a three-judge pan­el of the Sixth Circuit issued a split deci­sion deny­ing Thompson’s Sixth Amendment inef­fec­tive assis­tance of coun­sel claim in a 2 – 1 vote and three sep­a­rate opin­ions. The same three judges lat­er unan­i­mous­ly announced their deci­sion to con­sid­er whether this pri­or rul­ing was mis­tak­en in light of avail­able evi­dence that Thompson was suf­fer­ing from schiz­o­phre­nia at the time of the offense. After recon­sid­er­ing the case and expand­ing the record on appeal, the Sixth Circuit cor­rect­ed its ear­li­er deci­sion, and remand­ed the case to the dis­trict court for fur­ther pro­ceed­ings. A five Justice major­i­ty of the Supreme Court held that the Sixth Circuit had abused its dis­cre­tion by with­draw­ing its first opin­ion and issu­ing a sec­ond opin­ion rea­son­ing that the Sixth Circuit did not release its amend­ed opin­ion for more than five months after the Supreme Court denied rehear­ing, and failed to give notice to the par­ties that it was recon­sid­er­ing its ear­li­er opin­ion. In dis­sent, Justice Breyer said:

When we tell the Court of Appeals that it can­not exer­cise its dis­cre­tion to cor­rect the seri­ous error it dis­cov­ered here, we tell courts they are not to act to cure seri­ous injus­tice in sim­i­lar cas­es. The con­se­quence is to divorce the rule-based result from the just result. The American judi­cial sys­tem has long sought to avoid that divorce. Today’s deci­sion takes an unfor­tu­nate step in the wrong direction.

See also Representation.

ROMPILLA v. BEARD, No. 04 – 5462 (Formerly Rompilla v. Horn)

Decided: June 20, 2005

The Court grant­ed habeas relief and ordered a new sen­tenc­ing tri­al for Pennsylvania death row inmate Ronald Rompilla after find­ing that his tri­al coun­sel failed to meet the stan­dard of rea­son­able com­pe­tence under Strickland v. Washington. The Court held that the state court’s res­o­lu­tion of Rompilla’s inef­fec­tive-assis­tance of coun­sel claim result­ed in a deci­sion that ​“involved an unrea­son­able appli­ca­tion of clear­ly estab­lished Federal law.”

The 5 – 4 rul­ing not­ed that Rompilla’s tri­al attor­ney failed to inves­ti­gate records show­ing pos­si­ble mit­i­gat­ing evi­dence of men­tal retar­da­tion and a trau­mat­ic upbring­ing, even after pros­e­cu­tors gave warn­ing they planned to use the same doc­u­ments against Rompilla. The Court ruled that even when a cap­i­tal defen­dan­t’s fam­i­ly mem­bers and the defen­dant him­self have sug­gest­ed that no mit­i­gat­ing evi­dence is avail­able, his lawyer is bound to make rea­son­able efforts to obtain and review mate­r­i­al that coun­sel knows the pros­e­cu­tion will prob­a­bly rely on as evi­dence of aggra­va­tion at the sen­tenc­ing phase of tri­al. The Court stat­ed that the undis­cov­ered mit­i­gat­ing evi­dence, tak­en as a whole, ​“might well have influ­enced the jury’s appraisal.” Read the full opin­ion. (Associated Press, June 20, 2005). See Representation.

BRADSHAW v. STUMPF, No. 04 – 637

Decided: June 13, 2005

The Supreme Court unan­i­mous­ly ruled that the vol­un­tari­ness of a guilty plea can be estab­lished if either the defense attor­ney or the defen­dant shows that the attor­ney had explained the ele­ments of the charge to the defen­dant. The Court reversed the Sixth Circuit’s hold­ing that John Stumpf’s guilty plea was void, despite the use of incon­sis­tent the­o­ries about the crime by the state. However, the Court found that the pros­e­cu­tor’s actions may have influ­enced the sen­tenc­ing pan­el’s con­clu­sion about Stumpfâ’s role in the crime, thus affect­ing the sen­tenc­ing deter­mi­na­tion. The Sixth Circuit, the par­ties’ briefs, and the ques­tions on which the Court grant­ed cer­tio­rari large­ly focused on the guilty plea. Therefore, the Court held that a rul­ing on Stumpf’s sen­tenc­ing claim would be pre­ma­ture before giv­ing the Sixth Circuit the oppor­tu­ni­ty to con­sid­er how the pros­e­cu­tor’s con­duct may have affect­ed Stumpf’s death sen­tence. The case was reversed in part, vacat­ed in part, and remand­ed for con­sid­er­a­tion of the sentencing issue.

During the course of a rob­bery, Mary Jane Stout was shot and killed. John Stumpf plead­ed guilty to the rob­bery and aggra­vat­ed mur­der but argued that the fatal shots were fired by a co-defen­dant, Wesley. At a hear­ing at the time of his guilty plea, Stumpf and his attor­neys argued that although Stumpf par­tic­i­pat­ed in the rob­bery, he did not shoot the vic­tim and was not present when the vic­tim was shot. In response, the state argued that Stumpf was the shoot­er, and the three-judge pan­el that heard the case agreed with this asser­tion and sen­tenced him to death. Later, at the tri­al of the co-defen­dant, the state pre­sent­ed the tes­ti­mo­ny of a jail­house infor­mant to estab­lish that Wesley was the shoot­er. Stumpf tried to with­draw his guilty plea on the basis of Wesley’s con­vic­tion. However, the state then argued that its own infor­man­t’s tes­ti­mo­ny, which estab­lished Wesley as the shoot­er, was unreliable.

Read the com­plete deci­sion.

MILLER-EL v. DRETKE, No. 03 – 9659

Decided: June 13, 2005

In a 6 – 3 deci­sion, the Supreme Court ruled that Thomas Miller-El, a Texas death row inmate, is enti­tled to a new tri­al in light of strong evi­dence of racial bias dur­ing jury selec­tion at his orig­i­nal tri­al. In choos­ing a jury to try Miller-El, a black defen­dant, pros­e­cu­tors struck 10 of the 11 qual­i­fied black pan­elists. The Supreme Court said the pros­e­cu­tors cho­sen race-neu­tral rea­sons for the strikes do not hold up and are so far at odds with the evi­dence that pre­text is the fair con­clu­sion. The selec­tion process was replete with evi­dence that pros­e­cu­tors were select­ing and reject­ing poten­tial jurors because of race. And the pros­e­cu­tors took their cues from a man­u­al on jury selec­tion with an empha­sis on race. (See Syllabus of the Opinion.)

Justice Souter, writ­ing for the major­i­ty, set out the evi­dence that race gov­erned who was allowed on the jury, includ­ing: dis­parate ques­tion­ing of white and black jurors, jury shuf­fling, a cul­ture of bias with­in the pros­e­cu­tor’s office, and the fact that the pros­e­cu­tor’s race-neu­tral expla­na­tions for the strikes were so far at odds with the evi­dence that the expla­na­tions them­selves indi­cate discriminatory intent.

In 2002, Miller-El had pre­vi­ous­ly peti­tioned the fed­er­al courts to enforce the rule of Batson v. Kentucky, which pro­hibits racial dis­crim­i­na­tion in the exer­cise of peremp­to­ry chal­lenges in jury selec­tion. The fed­er­al District Court denied him habeas relief and the Fifth Circuit ruled that there were no appeal­able issues, and denied a cer­tifi­cate of appealability.

In 2003, the Supreme Court reversed, find­ing that rea­son­able jurists could dif­fer on whether Miller-El had appeal­able issues and ordered that the Fifth Circuit to grant a cer­tifi­cate of appeal­a­bil­i­ty to fur­ther review the case (Miller-El v. Cockrell, 537 U. S. 322 (2003)). The Court, in an 8 – 1 opin­ion, crit­i­cized the Fifth Circuit’s ​“dis­mis­sive and strained inter­pre­ta­tion” of crit­i­cal facts and ruled that the low­er court’s refusal to con­sid­er Miller-El’s Batson claim was based upon a stan­dard of review that was too demand­ing. On remand, the Fifth Circuit held that Miller-El failed to show by clear and con­vinc­ing evi­dence that the state court’s find­ing of no dis­crim­i­na­tion was wrong, whether his evi­dence was viewed col­lec­tive­ly or separately.

The Supreme Court reversed again. Because this was a habeas cor­pus pro­ceed­ing, the Court need­ed to find that the state court’s inter­pre­ta­tion of the facts was unrea­son­able under the Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996. The Court stat­ed that the Texas courts find­ing of no dis­crim­i­na­tion ​“blinks real­i­ty,” and was both unrea­son­able and erro­neous, revers­ing the Fifth Circuit, and grant­i­ng Miller-El habeas relief and a new tri­al. (See Associated Press, June 13, 2005).

In a relat­ed case, Johnson v. California, No. 04 – 6964, decid­ed the same day, the Court struck down California’s stan­dard for review­ing Batson v. Kentucky chal­lenges as too demand­ing. California required a defen­dant to present not mere­ly enough evi­dence to per­mit an infer­ence that dis­crim­i­na­tion has occurred, but suf­fi­cient­ly strong evi­dence to estab­lish that the chal­lenges, if not explained, were more like­ly than not based on race.

MEDELLIN v. DRETKE, No. 04 – 5928

Dismissed: May 23, 2005, as improvidently granted

On December 10, 2004, the Supreme Court grant­ed cer­tio­rari in the case of Jose Medellin to deter­mine what effect U.S. courts should give to a recent rul­ing by the United Nations’ high­est tri­bunal, the International Court of Justice at the Hague (ICJ). On May 23, 2005, the Court dis­missed its writ of cer­tio­rari as improv­i­dent­ly grant­ed pri­mar­i­ly because President Bush inter­vened and ordered state courts to abide by the ICJ rul­ing. In an unsigned deci­sion, the Court not­ed that once this mat­ter is reviewed in Texas state courts, the Supreme Court ​“would in all like­li­hood have an oppor­tu­ni­ty to review the Texas courts’ treat­ment of the President’s mem­o­ran­dum and [the] Case Concerning Avena and oth­er Mexican Nationals.…” (foot­note 1).

The ICJ had deter­mined that the U.S. gov­ern­ment had failed to com­ply with the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations’ require­ment of con­sular access for for­eign­ers arrest­ed in the United States, and it direct­ed that U.S. courts con­sid­er the claims of almost all of the Mexican nation­als on U.S. death rows who had not been afford­ed this pro­tec­tion. The United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit acknowl­edged the rul­ing of the ICJ, but held that it was pre­clud­ed from giv­ing effect to the judg­ment by pri­or U.S. Supreme Court prece­dent in Breard v. Greene. (In Breard, the Supreme Court said that the Vienna Convention does not pre­vent the United States from apply­ing its pro­ce­dur­al default rules to bar con­sid­er­a­tion of a Vienna Convention claim.) The Fifth Circuit fur­ther stat­ed that the treaty does not con­fer rights upon individuals.

After the Supreme Court agreed to hear the case but before oral argu­ment, President Bush issued an Executive Order direct­ing the state courts to abide by the ICJ rul­ing and review the cas­es of Medellin and the oth­er Mexicans. Attorneys for Medellin had asked the Court stay the case until after Medellin had his hear­ing in state court. Attorneys for Texas argued that Medellin’s fed­er­al claim was barred on pro­ce­dur­al grounds and that President Bush does not have the con­sti­tu­tion­al author­i­ty to order Texas courts to com­ply with the inter­na­tion­al court’s judg­ment. In today’s dis­missal, the Court cit­ed the President’s Executive Order as a chief rea­son for not review­ing the case, and reserved the right to hear a future appeal once the case had run its course in state court.

Justice Ginsburg would have grant­ed Medellin’s request for a stay but con­curred in the dis­missal of the case. Four oth­er Justices (O’Connor, Stevens, Souter and Breyer) dis­sent­ed from the Court’s dis­missal of the case and would have decid­ed whether the Fifth Circuit was cor­rect in hold­ing that there were no debat­able issues for appeal. Justice O’Connor wrote in dissent:

In this coun­try, the indi­vid­ual States’ (often con­fessed) non­com­pli­ance with the treaty has been a vex­ing prob­lem. It has three times been the sub­ject of pro­ceed­ings in the International Court of Justice (ICJ). The prob­lem may have con­sid­er­able ram­i­fi­ca­tions, because for­eign nation­als are reg­u­lar­ly sub­ject to state crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tems. For exam­ple, in 2003, over 56,000 nonci­t­i­zens were held in state pris­ons. Noncitizens account­ed for over 10% of the prison pop­u­la­tions in California, New York, and Arizona.
Noncompliance with our treaty oblig­a­tions is espe­cial­ly wor­ri­some in cap­i­tal cas­es. As of February 2005, 119 nonci­t­i­zens from 31 nations were on state death row. In Avena, the ICJ deter­mined that the United States had breached its oblig­a­tion to inform 51 Mexican nation­als, all sen­tenced to death in this coun­try, of their right to con­sular< noti­fi­ca­tion. Medelli­n is just one of them. His case thus presents, and the Court in turn avoids, ques­tions that will inevitably recur (inter­nal citations omitted).

DECK v. MISSOURI, No. 04 – 5293

Decided: May 23, 2005

The Supreme Court ruled (7 – 2) that it is uncon­sti­tu­tion­al to vis­i­bly shack­le and hand­cuff a defen­dant in a sen­tenc­ing pro­ceed­ing that could lead to the death penal­ty unless the shack­ling is jus­ti­fied by an ​“essen­tial state inter­est” such as court­room secu­ri­ty spe­cif­ic to the defen­dant on tri­al. The law has long for­bid­den rou­tine use of vis­i­ble shack­les dur­ing a cap­i­tal tri­al’s guilt phase, per­mit­ting shack­ling only in the pres­ence of a spe­cial need. The Court not­ed that vis­i­ble shack­les at the penal­ty phase raise con­cerns sim­i­lar to those moti­vat­ing the guilt phase rule (pre­sump­tion of inno­cence, secur­ing a mean­ing­ful defense, and main­tain­ing dig­ni­fied pro­ceed­ings). The Court rea­soned that the need for accu­ra­cy in mak­ing a deci­sion between life and death is as crit­i­cal as in the guilt phase deter­mi­na­tion, and that the appear­ance of shack­les under­mines the jury’s abil­i­ty to accu­rate­ly weigh all rel­e­vant con­sid­er­a­tions there­by adverse­ly influ­enc­ing the jury’s per­cep­tion of whether the defen­dant deserves death.

The rule announced by the Court is not absolute. Security con­cerns allow for shack­ling in order to pro­tect the court­room and its occu­pants, when the tri­al judge deter­mines in his dis­cre­tion that shack­ling is jus­ti­fied by the spe­cial cir­cum­stances in a par­tic­u­lar case. However, where a court, with­out ade­quate jus­ti­fi­ca­tion, orders the defen­dant to wear shack­les vis­i­ble to the jury, the State must prove ​“beyond a rea­son­able doubt that the [shack­ling] did not con­tribute to the ver­dict obtained.” (quotes from the the majority opinion).

RHINES v. WEBER, No. 03 – 9046

Decided: March 30, 2005

South Dakota death row inmate Charles Rhines filed a peti­tion for writ of habeas cor­pus in fed­er­al dis­trict court with­in the one-year statute of lim­i­ta­tions. His peti­tion was a ​“mixed” peti­tion: it includ­ed some ​“exhaust­ed” claims (claims that had been pre­vi­ous­ly denied by state courts), and some ​“unex­haust­ed” claims (claims that had not yet been raised and ruled upon in state courts). Although the Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act requires that habeas claims be ​“exhaust­ed” in order to be con­sid­ered by a fed­er­al court, the U.S. Supreme Court held that the dis­trict court had the dis­cre­tion to stay the peti­tion to allow Rhines to present his unex­haust­ed claims to the state court and then return to fed­er­al court for review. The Supreme Court ruled if a peti­tion­er has good cause for his fail­ure to exhaust claims, the unex­haust­ed claims are poten­tial­ly mer­i­to­ri­ous, and there is no indi­ca­tion that the peti­tion­er delib­er­ate­ly delayed the case, a peti­tion­er’s inter­est in obtain­ing fed­er­al review of his claims out­weighs the com­pet­ing inter­ests in final­i­ty and speedy res­o­lu­tion of fed­er­al habeas peti­tions. Therefore, in such cas­es only, the dis­trict court has dis­cre­tion to stay the peti­tion and impose rea­son­able time lim­its for the peti­tion­er to exhaust claims in state court, or per­mit the peti­tion­er to delete the unex­haust­ed claims and pro­ceed with the exhausted claims.

BROWN v. PAYTON, No. 03 – 1039 (Formerly Goughnour v. Payton)

Decided: March 22, 2005

The Supreme Court reversed the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit, decid­ing by a 5 – 3 vote (the Chief Justice not par­tic­i­pat­ing) that the Anti-ter­ror­ism and Effective Death Penalty Act (AEDPA) required the 9th Circuit to uphold Payton’s death sen­tence. The California Supreme Court had ear­li­er ruled that the jury decid­ing upon a pos­si­ble death sen­tence need not be told explic­it­ly that it must con­sid­er favor­able post-crime evi­dence as a mit­i­gat­ing fac­tor. Defense attor­neys had argued that Payton’s reli­gious con­ver­sion in prison should be con­sid­ered as a mit­i­gat­ing cir­cum­stance, and that the judge’s instruc­tions to the jurors pre­clud­ed that argu­ment. The 9th Circuit had set aside Payton’s death sen­tence on the basis of the judge’s instruc­tions, hold­ing that the California Supreme Court’s rul­ing to the con­trary was an unrea­son­able appli­ca­tion of estab­lished law. However, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that California’s rul­ing was not an unrea­son­able appli­ca­tion of estab­lished law and there­fore the AEDPA dic­tat­ed that it’s deci­sion must stand.

ROPER v. SIMMONS, No. 03 – 0633

Decided: March 1, 2005

By a vote of 5 – 4, the U.S. Supreme Court on March 1, 2005 declared the exe­cu­tion of juve­nile offend­ers to be uncon­sti­tu­tion­al. This his­toric rul­ing held that the prac­tice vio­lates the Eighth Amendment’s ban on cru­el and unusu­al pun­ish­ments. The deci­sion will result in a new sen­tence for Christopher Simmons and the oth­er 71 oth­er juve­nile offend­ers cur­rent­ly on state death rows across the coun­try. Simmons’ posi­tion was joined by many pro­fes­sion­al orga­ni­za­tions includ­ing the American Medical Association, the American Psychiatric Association, and the American Bar Association, and by numer­ous coun­tries from around the world. Prior to this rul­ing, 19 states (includ­ing Missouri) with the death penal­ty pro­hib­it­ed the exe­cu­tion of juve­nile offend­ers. Twenty-two inmates have been exe­cut­ed for crimes com­mit­ted when they were under the age of 18 since the death penal­ty was rein­stat­ed in 1976. (Associated Press, March 1, 2005).

BELL v. CONE, No. 04 – 394

Decided: March 1, 2005

The Supreme Court had pre­vi­ous­ly reversed the Sixth Circuit in Cone’s case, when it upheld Cone’s death sen­tence in 2002, despite the fact that his lawyer pre­sent­ed no mit­i­gat­ing evi­dence on Cone’s behalf and passed up an oppor­tu­ni­ty to argue for his life. The attor­ney was report­ed­ly suf­fer­ing from men­tal ill­ness and lat­er com­mit­ted sui­cide. In the 2002 case, the Court ruled 8 – 1 that the attor­ney’s inac­tion did not amount to a com­plete absence of rep­re­sen­ta­tion, and that the state court did not act unrea­son­ably when it held that the attor­ney might have been mak­ing a tac­ti­cal deci­sion in not presenting evidence.

On January 24, 2005 in the Tennessee death penal­ty case of Gary Cone, the Supreme Court simul­ta­ne­ous­ly grant­ed cer­tio­rari and reversed the deci­sion of the Sixth Circuit that had ruled Cone’s death sen­tence uncon­sti­tu­tion­al. In Tennessee, when deter­min­ing whether a par­tic­u­lar crime war­rants the death penal­ty, a jury may con­sid­er as an aggra­vat­ing fac­tor whether the mur­der was ​“espe­cial­ly heinous, atro­cious and cru­el.” The Sixth Circuit found that the terms ​“espe­cial­ly heinous, atro­cious or cru­el” were so vague that they pro­vid­ed no guid­ance for the sen­tenc­ing jury to fair­ly apply this aggra­vat­ing cir­cum­stance. The Tennessee Supreme Court had set out a nar­row­er def­i­n­i­tion of the aggra­vat­ing cir­cum­stance in an ear­li­er death penal­ty case, in order to pro­vide the con­sti­tu­tion­al­ly required guid­ance for sen­tenc­ing juries. However, Cone’s jury was not giv­en the nar­row­er def­i­n­i­tion. The Sixth Circuit found that when the Tennessee Supreme Court reviewed the jury’s deci­sion on appeal in this case, it applied the uncon­sti­tu­tion­al­ly vague terms with­out con­sid­er­a­tion of the nar­rowed def­i­n­i­tion. For this rea­son, the Sixth Circuit found the ​“espe­cial­ly heinous, atro­cious or cru­el” aggra­vat­ing cir­cum­stance, as applied in this case, allowed for a sen­tenc­ing process that was arbi­trary and capri­cious in vio­la­tion of the Eighth Amendment. The Supreme Court dis­agreed with the Sixth Circuit, and ruled that the state court had applied a con­sti­tu­tion­al inter­pre­ta­tion of the aggra­vat­ing cir­cum­stance. The Supreme Court ruled that even if the jury received an uncon­sti­tu­tion­al­ly vague def­i­n­i­tion, and although the state court did not explic­it­ly cite the nar­row­er def­i­n­i­tion, the state court cured the con­sti­tu­tion­al defect by apply­ing the nar­row­er def­i­n­i­tion on appeal. The Court ruled that because the Tennessee Supreme Court’s review of the jury’s deci­sion was not con­trary to clear­ly estab­lished fed­er­al law, the Sixth Circuit was with­out pow­er to grant its writ of habeas corpus.

HOWELL v. MISSISSIPPI, No. 03 – 9560

Dismissed: January 24, 2005, as improvidently granted

In this death penal­ty case, the Supreme Court grant­ed cer­tio­rari to deter­mine whether either the Eighth or Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution require that juries be instruct­ed on at least one less­er includ­ed offense when the less­er includ­ed offense is rec­og­nized in state law and sup­port­ed by the evi­dence. The Court asked the par­ties to sub­mit argu­ments regard­ing whether the under­ly­ing issue had been prop­er­ly raised before the Mississippi Supreme Court for pur­pos­es of the U.S. Supreme Court’s juris­dic­tion under 28 USC 1257, the fed­er­al statute that sets out which judg­ments of state courts may be reviewed by the Supreme Court by writ of cer­tio­rari. On January 24, 2005, upon review of these briefs, the Court deter­mined that it would not yet con­sid­er the under­ly­ing con­sti­tu­tion­al issue con­cern­ing less­er includ­ed offens­es, because the claim had not been raised in the state court. The Court dis­missed the writ as ​“improv­i­dent­ly granted.”

FLORIDA v. NIXON, No 03 – 931

Decided: December 13, 2004

The U. S. Supreme Court ruled that the effec­tive­ness of defense coun­sel’s per­for­mance must be judged by stan­dards pre­vi­ous­ly set out by the Court in Strickland v. Washington. In Florida v. Nixon, Joe Nixon’s attor­ney told the jury his client was guilty with­out his clien­t’s express con­sent. After the jury sen­tenced Nixon to death, the Florida Supreme Court over­turned Nixon’s con­vic­tion, hold­ing that coun­sel’s con­ces­sion of guilt auto­mat­i­cal­ly fell below an objec­tive stan­dard of rea­son­able per­for­mance, neces­si­tat­ing a new tri­al. The court ruled that coun­sel’s per­for­mance was defi­cient and that the defi­cient per­for­mance was pre­sump­tive­ly prej­u­di­cial to Nixon. The U.S. Supreme Court over­ruled the Florida court, hold­ing that a con­ces­sion of guilt by coun­sel made with­out the express con­sent of the defen­dant does not auto­mat­i­cal­ly con­sti­tute inef­fec­tive assis­tance of coun­sel, but must be judged by Strickland’s two-pronged test: sub-par rep­re­sen­ta­tion AND a like­ly effect on the out­come of the case. The case is Florida v. Nixon, No 03 – 931, 543 U.S. _​(2004). (Associated Press, December 13, 2004) See Representation.

SMITH v. TEXAS, No. 04 – 5323

Decided: November 15, 2004

The Court over­turned the sen­tence of Texas death row inmate LaRoyce Lathair Smith, who was sen­tenced to death for the 1991 mur­der of a for­mer co-work­er. In a 7 – 2 vote (Justices Scalia and Thomas dis­sent­ing), the Court reversed the death sen­tence based upon pre­vi­ous court prece­dents requir­ing judges to include in their jury instruc­tions that prop­er and mean­ing­ful con­sid­er­a­tion be giv­en to all mit­i­gat­ing evi­dence. (Associated Press, November 15, 2004).

ORDERS OF THE COURT

The Court stayed the rul­ing of the 6th Circuit that grant­ed Kenneth Richey of Ohio a new tri­al because of inef­fec­tive­ness of coun­sel, pend­ing con­sid­er­a­tion of the state’s peti­tion for cert. Thus, Ohio will not have to re-try Richey until the Supreme Court decides whether to review the case. (Lima (OH) News, July 28, 2005).

LOVITT V. TRUE, No. 05 – 5044 

The Court grant­ed a stay of exe­cu­tion to Robin Lovitt from Virginia on July 11, 2005, pend­ing con­sid­er­a­tion of his peti­tion for cert. Update: See 2005-06 Orders.

BELL, WARDEN v. ABDUR’RAHMAN, ABU-ALI, No. 04 – 1247 

Ordered on June 28, 2005: Cert. grant­ed, judg­ment vacat­ed, case remand­ed. The Supreme Court again grant­ed cer­tio­rari in this case (see 2002-03 term below), vacat­ed the judg­ment of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, and remand­ed the case for fur­ther con­sid­er­a­tion in light of its deci­sion in Gonzalez v. Crosby, 545 U.S. _​_​_​(2005). In Gonzalez, the Court held that when no ​“claim” is pre­sent­ed (i.e., the motion does not sub­stan­tive­ly address fed­er­al grounds for set­ting aside the defen­dan­t’s con­vic­tion), there is no basis for con­tend­ing that a Rule 60(b) motion for rehear­ing (which pro­vides that in some instances an appli­cant may file a motion to recon­sid­er a pre­vi­ous rul­ing of the court) should be treat­ed like a habeas peti­tion. Because allow­ing the 60(b) motion to pro­ceed cre­ates no incon­sis­ten­cy with the habeas statute, the motion need not be dis­missed as a suc­ces­sive habeas peti­tion. In Gonzalez, the Court ruled that because the peti­tion­er’s Rule 60(b) motion chal­lenged only the District Court’s pre­vi­ous rul­ing on the statute of lim­i­ta­tions, it is not the equiv­a­lent of a suc­ces­sive habeas peti­tion and can be ruled upon by the District Court. The Court’s rul­ing remands Abdur’Rahman’s case to the Sixth Circuit so that it can apply the Court’s hold­ing in Gonzalez to reeval­u­ate whether Abdur’Rahman’s Rule 60(b) motion should ruled upon by the District Court.

BROWN v. BELMONTES, No. 03 – 1503 

Ordered on March 28, 2005: Cert. grant­ed, judg­ment vacat­ed, case remand­ed. The Supreme Court grant­ed California’s peti­tion for a writ of cer­tio­rari after the Ninth Circuit’s rul­ing that the jury instruc­tions improp­er­ly pre­clud­ed the jury from con­sid­er­ing post-crime mit­i­gat­ing evi­dence. Last week, in Brown v. Payton (anoth­er California case), the Supreme Court ruled that the same jury instruc­tion would not have pre­vent­ed jurors from con­sid­er­ing the evi­dence pre­sent­ed to them. The Supreme Court vacat­ed the judg­ment of the Ninth Circuit, and remand­ed Belmontes’ case for fur­ther con­sid­er­a­tion in light of the deci­sion in Brown v. Payton, No. 03 – 1039.

ABDUL-KABIR v. DRETKE, No. 04 – 5867

The writ of cer­tio­rari was grant­ed, the judg­ment vacat­ed, and the case remand­ed back to the 5th Circuit in light of Tennard v. Dretke.