On June 14, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of Albert Holland, who lost his right to file a fed­er­al appeal of his death sen­tence when his lawyer missed the 1‑year dead­line estab­lished under the Anti-ter­ror­ism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (AEDPA). The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit ruled that Holland’s attor­ney’s con­duct in miss­ing the dead­line was not egre­gious enough to war­rant set­ting aside the imposed dead­line. The appeals court said that the attor­ney would have had to act with ​“bad faith, dis­hon­esty, divid­ed loy­al­ty, or men­tal impair­ment” to be excused from the imposed dead­line, and that gross neg­li­gence was not enough of a rea­son. The U.S. Supreme Court reversed the appeals court’s deci­sion, say­ing that its stan­dard was too rigid. The Court said, ​“We have pre­vi­ous­ly held that a gar­den vari­ety claim of excus­able neglect, such as sim­ple mis­cal­cu­la­tion that leads a lawyer to miss a fil­ing dead­line, does not war­rant [an exemp­tion from the dead­line]. But this case before us does not involve, and we are not con­sid­er­ing, a gar­den vari­ety claim of attor­ney neg­li­gence. Rather, the facts of this case present far more seri­ous instances of attor­ney mis­con­duct.” Holland’s lawyer failed to com­mu­ni­cate with him for sev­er­al years, despite let­ters from Holland ask­ing infor­ma­tion regard­ing his appeals. Holland also con­tact­ed state courts and the Florida Bar Association in an effort to have the lawyer removed from the case. 

The Court held that equi­table tolling may apply to AEDPA’s statute of lim­i­ta­tions. The case was reversed and remand­ed back to the 11th Circuit for con­sid­er­a­tion of an exten­sion of time for Holland’s fil­ing a fed­er­al appeal in light of the Supreme Court’s stan­dards con­tained in its opin­ion. Justice BREYER deliv­ered the opin­ion of the Court, in which Chief Justice ROBERTS and Justices STEVENS, KENNEDY, GINSBURG, and SOTOMAYOR joined. Justice ALITO filed an opin­ion con­cur­ring in part and con­cur­ring in the judg­ment. Justice SCALIA filed a dis­sent­ing opin­ion, in which Justice THOMAS joined in part.

(W. Richey, ​“Supreme Court gives hope to some death-row inmates,” Christian Science Monitor, June 14, 2010; Holland v. Florida, No. 09 – 5327 (June 14, 2010)). Read the Supreme Court opin­ion here. See also U.S. Supreme Court.

Citation Guide