Opinions of the Court

Parker v. Matthews, No. 11 – 845, 132 S.Ct. 2148

Cert. Granted and Decided: June 11, 2012 (Per curiam)

The Court reversed the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, which had grant­ed relief on two grounds: 1. The Supreme Court held that the Kentucky Supreme Court rea­son­ably found the evi­dence suf­fi­cient to sup­port the jury’s find­ing that Matthews had not killed while ​“under the influ­ence of extreme emo­tion­al dis­tur­bance.” The Sixth Circuit had ​“over­stepped the prop­er lim­its of its author­i­ty” in grant­i­ng relief. 2. Prosecutorial mis­con­duct. The pros­e­cu­tion had sug­gest­ed that Matthews and his lawyer had col­lud­ed with the defense psy­chi­a­trist to man­u­fac­ture his extreme emo­tion­al dis­tur­bance defense. Applying the def­er­ence required by the Anti-ter­ror­ism and Effective Death Penalty Act, the U.S. Supreme Court held it would have been rea­son­able for the Kentucky Supreme Court to find this claim ​“insup­port­able” because, after sug­gest­ing col­lu­sion, the pros­e­cu­tor told the jury he was not sug­gest­ing col­lu­sion. (See RECAP, Calif. Appellate Proj., Aug. 1, 2012). There was no dissenting opinion.

MARTEL, WARDEN V. CLAIR, No. 10 – 1265

Cert. grant­ed June 27, 2011
Argued Dec. 6, 2011
Decided March 5, 2012

On March 5, the U.S. Supreme Court unan­i­mous­ly ruled that California inmate Kenneth Clair can­not have his con­vic­tion over­turned because he dis­agreed with the defense strat­e­gy used by his attor­neys. Clair was rep­re­sent­ed by court-appoint­ed attor­neys because he could not afford to hire his own. The dis­pute arose after Clair com­plained his attor­neys were ignor­ing evi­dence found by the pros­e­cu­tion that might prove his inno­cence. In 2005, he filed a peti­tion to change fed­er­al pub­lic defend­ers. A fed­er­al judge denied his request but the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit over­turned the judge’s deci­sion. The U.S. Supreme Court, how­ev­er, unan­i­mous­ly ruled that the Court of Appeals was incor­rect. Justice Elena Kagan, who wrote the opin­ion, said that Clair wait­ed too long to change attor­neys. Justice Kagan wrote, ​“The case was all over but the decid­ing; coun­sel, whether old or new, could do noth­ing more in the tri­al court pro­ceed­ings. At that point and in that forum, Clair’s con­flict with his lawyers no longer mattered.”

(T. Ramstack, AHN News, March 5, 2012; Martel v. Clair, No. 10 – 1265).

The California Attorney General’s cer­tio­rari peti­tion phrased the ques­tion pre­sent­ed as follows: 

“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.”

The 9th Circuit’s opin­ion had concluded:

[W]e vacate the dis­trict court’s denial of Clair’s request for new coun­sel, as well as the sub­se­quent denial of his peti­tion for writ of habeas cor­pus. The dis­trict court’s fail­ure to exer­cise its dis­cre­tion fore­closed the pos­si­bil­i­ty that dif­fer­ent coun­sel, upon prop­er con­sul­ta­tion with Clair, would have tak­en addi­tion­al nec­es­sary action with respect to pros­e­cut­ing Clair’s habeas peti­tion, includ­ing the appro­pri­ate steps — such as seek­ing an evi­den­tiary hear­ing or seek­ing a stay to pur­sue prop­er relief in state court — to ensure that the alleged­ly new­ly dis­cov­ered phys­i­cal evi­dence was giv­en due con­sid­er­a­tion and, if appro­pri­ate, incor­po­rat­ed into Clair’s habeas petition.

(Clair v. Ayers, Nos. 05 – 99005 and 08 – 75135 (Nov. 17, 2010), at p.6 (foot­note omitted)).

WETZEL V. LAMBERT, No. 11 – 38

Cert. grant­ed Feb. 21, 2012
Decided Feb. 21, 2012

On February 21 the U.S. Supreme Court reversed a U.S. Court of Appeals deci­sion grant­i­ng a retri­al to James Lambert, who had been con­vict­ed and sen­tenced to death in 1984 in Pennsylvania. Lambert appealed his con­vic­tion, claim­ing that pros­e­cu­tors nev­er dis­closed evi­dence iden­ti­fy­ing an addi­tion­al co-defen­dant, in vio­la­tion of Brady v. Maryland. Lambert claimed this new evi­dence would have impeached the tes­ti­mo­ny that led to his con­vic­tion. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit ruled in favor of Lambert, order­ing him to be released or retried in four months. The Supreme Court held that ​“the var­i­ous nota­tions and state­ments which [Lambert] claims the com­mon­wealth should have dis­closed are en­tirely ambigu­ous.” The Court also not­ed, ​“Any retri­al here would take place three decades after the crime, pos­ing the most daunt­ing dif­fi­cul­ties for the prose­cution.… That bur­den should not be imposed unless each ground sup­port­ing the state court’s deci­sion had been exam­ined and found to be unrea­son­able under AEDPA [the Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act].” The dis­sent, writ­ten by Justice Stephen Breyer and joined by Justices Ginsburg and Kagan, said the nota­tion about the co-defen­dant was not ambigu­ous, and not­ed, ​“if the Commonwealth was wrong, an inno­cent man has spent almost 30 years in prison under sen­tence of death for a crime he did not commit.”

(B. Leonard, Courthouse News Service, February 21, 2012; Wetzel v. Lambert, No. 11 – 38).

MAPLES V. THOMAS, No. 10 – 63

Cert. grant­ed Mar. 21, 2011
Oral argu­ment Oct. 4, 2011
Decided Jan. 18, 2012

DECISION: On January 18, the U.S. Supreme Court (7 – 2) ordered a new hear­ing in fed­er­al court for Cory Maples, an Alabama death row inmate whose state and fed­er­al appeals had been reject­ed by low­er courts because his lawyers quit and missed a crit­i­cal fil­ing dead­line. Copies of an Alabama court rul­ing in Maples’s case were sent to a vol­un­teer New York law firm han­dling his appeals but were unopened by the mail­room and returned to the state court because the attor­neys rep­re­sent­ing Maples had left the firm. Justice Samuel Alito, con­cur­ring in the Court’s opin­ion, wrote that the cir­cum­stances sur­round­ing this case cre­at­ed a ​“ver­i­ta­ble per­fect storm of mis­for­tune.” On behalf of the major­i­ty, Justice Ruth Ginsburg wrote, ​“Maples was dis­armed by extra­or­di­nary cir­cum­stances quite beyond his con­trol. He has shown ample cause, we hold, to excuse the pro­ce­dur­al default into which he was trapped when coun­sel of record aban­doned him with­out a word of warning.”

Because Maples missed the fil­ing dead­line to appeal in state court, his fed­er­al habeas cor­pus peti­tion was also default­ed, there­by end­ing his appeals and open­ing the door to his exe­cu­tion. Federal courts allow an excep­tion for such default if the defen­dant can show there was good cause for the default, and that not being able to appeal prej­u­diced his case. Generally, a mis­take by one’s appel­late attor­ney dur­ing this phase of the appeals is not con­sid­ered good cause. However, in this instance the Supreme Court held that the appel­late lawyers at the New York firm had done more than make a mis­take – they com­plete­ly aban­doned Maples at a crit­i­cal time in the process. Since Maples had no effec­tive rep­re­sen­ta­tion at a time in which he was rely­ing on his lawyers to file his appeal, there was good cause for the default. Justice Ginsburg wrote,“In these cir­cum­stances, no just sys­tem would lay the default at Maples’ death-cell door.” The Supreme Court sent the case back to fed­er­al court to deter­mine if his case was hurt by not being able to appeal his con­vic­tion or sentencing.

One of the issues that Maples was try­ing to appeal was the qual­i­ty of the rep­re­sen­ta­tion he received at tri­al. Justice Ginsburg described the tri­al attor­neys appoint­ed by Alabama as ​“min­i­mal­ly paid and with scant expe­ri­ence in capital cases.”

Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas dis­sent­ed, main­tain­ing that Maples did have some form of rep­re­sen­ta­tion from the N.Y. firm and from a local Alabama attor­ney retained sole­ly for procedural reasons.

(R. Barnes, ​“Supreme Court: Alabama death-row inmate Cory Maples should get new hear­ing,” Washington Post, January 18, 2012). Read full U.S. Supreme Court opin­ion (Maples v. Thomas, No. 10 – 63).

In 2006, the Supreme Court con­sid­ered how thor­ough the gov­ern­ment must be in ensur­ing that notice of a pend­ing action with severe con­se­quences was actu­al­ly received by the par­ty affect­ed. The case, Jones v. Flowers, con­sid­ered the sale of a home for unpaid tax­es. According to the court rul­ing, if a let­ter is returned unopened, offi­cials must try hard­er to reach the own­er. Writing for the major­i­ty, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr wrote, ​“This is espe­cial­ly true when, as here, the sub­ject mat­ter of the let­ter con­cerns such an impor­tant and irre­versible prospect as the loss of a house.” Maples is facing execution.

(A. Liptak, ​“Court to Hear Case Stalled by Mistake in Mailroom,” New York Times, March 21, 2011).

From Scotusblog​.com:

Issue(s): Whether the Eleventh Circuit prop­er­ly held that there was no ​“cause” to excuse any pro­ce­dur­al default where peti­tion­er was blame­less for the default, the state’s own con­duct con­tributed to the default, and peti­tion­er’s attor­neys of record were no longer func­tion­ing as his agents at the time of any default.

Certiorari stage doc­u­ments for Maples:

MARTINEZ V. RYAN, No. 10 – 1001 (non-capital)

Argued: Oct. 4, 2011
Decided: Mar. 20, 2012

Argued the same day as Maples v. Thomas (above). In an opin­ion by Justice Kennedy, the Court (7 – 2) reversed the deci­sion of the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and remand­ed the case for fur­ther pro­ceed­ings con­sis­tent with its opin­ion. The Court held that where, under state law, inef­fec­tive-assis­tance-of-tri­al-coun­sel claims must be raised in an ini­tial-review col­lat­er­al pro­ceed­ing, a pro­ce­dur­al default will not bar a fed­er­al habeas court from hear­ing those claims if, in the ini­tial-review col­lat­er­al pro­ceed­ing, there was no coun­sel or coun­sel in that pro­ceed­ing was inef­fec­tive. Justice Scalia filed a dis­sent­ing opin­ion, which was joined by Justice Thomas. Read the deci­sion. Summary from the American Bar Association, Criminal Justice Group.

The issue pre­sent­ed in this non-cap­i­tal case from Arizona was:

Whether a defen­dant in a state crim­i­nal case who is pro­hib­it­ed by state law from rais­ing on direct appeal any claim of inef­fec­tive assis­tance of tri­al coun­sel, but who has a state-law right to raise such a claim in a first post-con­vic­tion pro­ceed­ing, has a fed­er­al con­sti­tu­tion­al right to effec­tive assis­tance of first post-con­vic­tion coun­sel specif­i­cal­ly with respect to his ineffective-assistance-of-trial-counsel claim.

The fol­low­ing peti­tions were grant­ed on March 26, 2012, and the cas­es (all of which are cap­i­tal cas­es) were sum­mar­i­ly remand­ed for recon­sid­er­a­tion in light of Martinez v. Ryan:

  • 10 – 8629 Smith v. Colson, 6th Circuit (Tennessee case; pri­or opin­ion 381 Fed.Appx. 547)
  • 10 – 11031 Cantu v. Thaler, 5th Circuit (Texas case; pri­or opin­ion 632 F.3d 157)
  • 11 – 5067 Middlebrooks v. Colson, 6th Circuit (Tennessee case; pri­or opin­ion 619 F.3d 526)
  • 11 – 6969 Newbury v. Thaler, 5th Circuit (Texas case; pri­or opin­ion 437 Fed.Appx. 290)
  • 11 – 7978 Woods v. Holbrook, 9th Circuit (Washington case; pri­or opin­ion 655 F.3d 886)

-from California Appellate Project, RECAP #280.

SMITH V. CAIN, No. 10 – 8145

Cert. grant­ed June 13, 2011
Argument Nov. 8, 2011
Decided Jan. 10, 2012 (8 – 1 over­turn­ing Smith’s con­vic­tion)- Read the decision.

This peti­tion by a Louisiana death row inmate aris­es from his col­lat­er­al attack on a non-cap­i­tal con­vic­tion used as an aggra­vat­ing fac­tor in his cap­i­tal tri­al. Questions presented:

I. Is there a rea­son­able prob­a­bil­i­ty that, giv­en the cumu­la­tive effect of the Brady and Napue/​Giglio vio­la­tions in Smith’s case, the out­come of the tri­al would have been different?
II. Did the Louisiana state courts ignore fun­da­men­tal prin­ci­ples of due process in reject­ing Smith’s Brady and Napue/​Giglio claims?

The case alleges Brady vio­la­tions and oth­er pros­e­cu­to­r­i­al mis­con­duct by the Orleans Parish District Attorney’s Office, the same pros­e­cu­tion agency whose mis­con­duct gave rise to Kyles v. Whitley, 514 U.S. 419 (1995), and Connick v. Thompson, 131 S.Ct. 1350 (2011) (See Calif. Appellate Prooject, RECAP 270, May 2011). See M. Kirkland, ​“Just How Fair Does Justice Have To Be?,” UPI, Aug. 28, 2011. See briefs at Scotusblog.

DECISION: On January 10, the U.S. Supreme Court reversed (8 – 1) the mur­der con­vic­tion of Juan Smith because the New Orleans District Attorney’s Office had with­held crit­i­cal evi­dence that would have been favor­able to Smith at his tri­al. Smith had been con­vict­ed of mur­der in the course of an armed rob­bery based on the sole eye­wit­ness tes­ti­mo­ny of Larry Boatner. There was no DNA, fin­ger­prints, or oth­er phys­i­cal evi­dence that linked Smith to the 1995 crime. Appellate attor­neys lat­er learned that pros­e­cu­tors failed to dis­close reports of ini­tial inter­views with Boatner in which he said he could not describe the intrud­ers and had not seen their faces. Relying on Brady v. Maryland, which requires a state to dis­close evi­dence that is favor­able to the defense and mate­r­i­al to the defendant’s guilt or pun­ish­ment, the Court over­turned Smith’s con­vic­tion, stat­ing, ​“Boatner’s tes­ti­mo­ny was the only evi­dence link­ing Smith to the crime. And Boatner’s undis­closed state­ments direct­ly con­tra­dict his tes­ti­mo­ny .…Boatner’s undis­closed state­ments were plain­ly mate­r­i­al.” The deci­sion in favor of Smith was the lat­est in a series of Supreme Court deci­sions reveal­ing a pat­tern of pros­e­cu­to­r­i­al mis­con­duct in the Orleans Parish District Attorney’s Office. According to the Orleans Public Defender’s Office, 28 con­vic­tions obtained by the dis­trict attorney’s office were lat­er ruled to have been taint­ed by Brady vio­la­tions. (Smith is on death row in Louisiana because the con­vic­tion in the above case (now over­turned) was used to help obtain a death sen­tence against him in anoth­er mur­der. This deci­sion will like­ly assist him in chal­leng­ing his death sentence.)

Justice Clarence Thomas dis­sent­ed, say­ing it was unlike­ly the with­held evi­dence would have made a dif­fer­ence in the jury’s delib­er­a­tions about Smith’s guilt (i.e., the evi­dence was not mate­r­i­al under the Brady test).

(A. Liptak, ​“High Court Reverses Conviction in Killings,” New York Times, January 10, 2012; Read the U.S. Supreme Court opin­ion (Smith v. Cain, No. 10 – 8145).

UPDATE: Smith’s death sen­tence was over­turned by the tri­al court based on the U.S. Supreme Court’s deci­sion revers­ing the con­vic­tion above. The con­vic­tion had been a sig­nif­i­cant aggra­vat­ing fac­tor pre­sent­ed in Smith’s cap­i­tal tri­al. The pros­e­cu­tion may retry the case that was over­turned by the Supreme Court. (Times-Picayune, June 12, 2012).

BOBBY V. DIXON, No. 10 – 1540

Cert. grant­ed and decid­ed, Nov. 7, 2011

PER CURIAM.

Under the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act, a state pris­on­er seek­ing a writ of habeas cor­pus from a fed­er­al court ​“must show that the state court’s rul­ing on the claim being pre­sent­ed in fed­er­al court was so lack­ing in jus­ti­fi­ca­tion that there was an error well under­stood and com­pre­hend­ed in exist­ing law beyond any pos­si­bil­i­ty for fairmind­ed dis­agree­ment.” Harrington v. Richter, 562 U. S. _​_​_​, _​_​_​(2011) (slip op., at 13). The Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit pur­port­ed to iden­ti­fy three such griev­ous errors in the Ohio Supreme Court’s affir­mance of respon­dent Archie Dixon’s mur­der con­vic­tion. Because it is not clear that the Ohio Supreme Court erred at all, much less erred so trans­par­ent­ly that no fairmind­ed jurist could agree with that court’s deci­sion, the Sixth Circuit’s judg­ment must be reversed.

Orders of the Court and Related Matters

MILLER V. ALABAMA, No.10 – 9646

JACKSON V. HOBBS, No. 10 – 9647

On Nov. 7, 2011, the Court agreed to hear two cas­es regard­ing the con­sti­tu­tion­al­i­ty of life with­out parole sen­tences for 14-year-olds con­vict­ed of mur­der, though the defen­dants were not the actu­al killers. Argued on Mar. 20, 2012. 

DECISION: On June 25, 2012, the Court held (5 – 4) that the Eighth Amendment pro­hibits the manda­to­ry impo­si­tion of life with­out parole for a homi­cide (or any oth­er crime) com­mit­ted by a defen­dant under the age of 18. Individualized sen­tenc­ing in such a case is required. Murder cas­es in which it will be ​“appro­pri­ate” to sen­tence a juve­nile to LWOP, more­over, ​“will be uncom­mon.” The Court relied on rea­son­ing from ear­li­er cap­i­tal cas­es. (See RECAP, Calif. Appellate Proj., Aug. 1, 2012).

Valle v. Florida, U.S. No.11 – 6029

Manuel Valle was exe­cut­ed in Florida on Sept. 28, 2011. The Supreme Court delayed the exe­cu­tion for sev­er­al hours, and Justice Breyer dis­sent­ed from the deci­sion to allow it to go for­ward. He said that Valle’s 33 years on death row were a cru­el and unusu­al pun­ish­ment: ​“I have lit­tle doubt about the cru­el­ty of so long a peri­od of incar­cer­a­tion under sen­tence of death.” Ultimately, he indi­cat­ed that the goals of due process and time­ly exe­cu­tions may be irrec­on­cil­able: ​“It might also be argued that it is not so much the State as it is the numer­ous pro­ce­dures that the law demands that pro­duce decades of delay. But this kind of an argu­ment does not auto­mat­i­cal­ly jus­ti­fy exe­cu­tion in this case. Rather, the argu­ment may point instead to a more basic dif­fi­cul­ty, name­ly the dif­fi­cul­ty of rec­on­cil­ing the impo­si­tion of the death penal­ty as cur­rent­ly admin­is­tered with pro­ce­dures nec­es­sary to assure that the wrong per­son is not exe­cut­ed.” (Valle v. Florida, U.S. No.11 – 6029, Sept. 28, 2011).

Foster v. Texas, U.S., No. 11 – 6427

Cleve Foster, who was to be exe­cut­ed on Sept. 20, 2011, in Texas, was grant­ed a last-minute stay of exe­cu­tion by the U.S. Supreme Court. This is the third time this year that Foster has received a stay from the Supreme Court. He has raised issues con­cern­ing effec­tive­ness of coun­sel of his appel­late attor­ney. (Foster v. Texas, U.S., No. 11 – 6427). UPDATE: Foster was exe­cut­ed on Sept. 25, 2012.

Buck v. Thaler, U.S. No. 11 – 6391, No. 11 – 6372 

In Texas, Duane Buck was grant­ed a stay by the U.S. Supreme Court short­ly before he was to be exe­cut­ed on Sept. 15, 2011. (Buck v. Thaler, U.S. No. 11 – 6391 (grant­i­ng stay); No. 11 – 6372 denied). Buck had raised a claim of racial bias based on the state’s use of tes­ti­mo­ny indi­cat­ing blacks as a race were more like­ly to be a future dan­ger to soci­ety than non-black defen­dants. UPDATE: On November 7, 2011, the Court declined to grant review to Texas inmate Duane Buck. Buck sought a new sen­tenc­ing tri­al because of tes­ti­mo­ny sug­gest­ing he posed a greater dan­ger to soci­ety because he is black. During his tri­al, psy­chol­o­gist Dr. Walter Quijano told the court that Buck’s race increased the like­li­hood of his future dan­ger­ous­ness. Three of the Justices on the Court (Alito, Scalia and Breyer), which had grant­ed Buck a stay just before his sched­uled exe­cu­tion on September 15, said his case was dif­fer­ent from oth­er sim­i­lar cas­es where relief was grant­ed because it was Buck’s defense attor­ney who was respon­si­ble for elic­it­ing the offen­sive tes­ti­mo­ny. (there­by rais­ing the issue of inef­fec­tive­ness of coun­sel). Justices Sotomayor and Kagan dis­sent­ed, stat­ing, ​“Today the court denies review of a death sen­tenced marred by racial over­tones.… Buck did not argue that his race made him less dan­ger­ous, and the pros­e­cu­tor had no need to revis­it the issue. But she did, in a ques­tion specif­i­cal­ly designed to per­suade the jury that Buck’s race made him more dan­ger­ous and that, in part on this basis, he should be sen­tenced to death.” Buck v. Thaler, No. 11 – 6391 (Sotomayor, J., dis­sent­ing from denial of cert.); also Denial of Cert. Statement by J. Alito. See also Press release, Attorneys for Duane Buck, ​“More than 60 Civil Rights and Faith Leaders, Elected Officials, Former Prosecutors, and Past ABA Presidents Call On Harris County D.A. To Provide Remedy in Case of Duane Buck,” November 7, 2011.