Results matching “thomas”

More dallying in death penalty review, and more potential for game-playing, are likely to be the results of today's per curiam Supreme Court opinion, as reported by the Heritage Foundation:

In ordinary civil litigation, if a plaintiff fails to file a complaint on time, the plaintiff cannot do so later; he loses. In habeas corpus cases, however, the filing period can be tolled for equitable reasons. In this case, the original lawyers for Christeson, a condemned state prisoner, did not file a habeas petition on his behalf before the filing time had elapsed. Different lawyers later sought to be substituted as counsel for Christeson so that they could argue that his earlier lawyers had abandoned him, a claim that Christeson's original lawyers could not advance without damaging their own professional interests. The district court refused to allow the new lawyers to become Christeson's counsel, however, and the Eighth Circuit dismissed the appeal for lack of jurisdiction, apparently reasoning that Christeson's new counsel were not authorized to file an appeal on his behalf. In a per curiam opinion for seven Justices, the Supreme Court reversed and held that only new lawyers could adequately raise the claim that there was a conflict of interest between Christeson and his original counsel, a claim that, if accepted, would excuse Christeson from not having filed his habeas petition on time. Alito filed a dissenting opinion, joined by Thomas, concluding that the Court ought not to have decided the case without full briefing and oral argument.  

Twenty-five years ago, in Tucson, Arizona, Eric Mann conceived a cold-blooded plan to cheat another man in a drug deal and then kill him to cover it up.  When the customer brought someone else to the transaction, Mann killed them both according to his plan.

After Mann's claims against his death sentence were heard and rejected by the Arizona Supreme Court, the trial court on collateral review, the Arizona Supreme Court again, and the federal district court, Mann appealed to the Ninth Circuit.  The panel assigned was Judges Sidney Thomas, now Chief Judge, Stephen Reinhardt, and Alex Kozinski.  Knowing nothing about the legal issues but only from the composition of the panel, can you guess the outcome?

Usually, the way to have a lower court's decision reviewed by a higher court is to appeal.  In the U.S. Supreme Court, an actual "appeal" in the technical sense is usually not available, and a petition for writ of certiorari is used instead.

Sometimes, though, neither of these procedures is available, and the aggrieved party must resort to an "extraordinary writ," a petition for a writ of prohibition or mandate.  In form, this is a new suit by the petitioner against the lower court itself, designated the "respondent."  In practice, the opposing party in the lower court is designated the "real party in interest," and that party defends the lower court's action.  That avoids the need for a court to appear as a party, generally regarded as unseemly.

And now, for something completely different....

In re Ryan, U.S. Supreme Court No. 14-375, is a petition by Arizona's prison chief against the Ninth Circuit for sitting on a case after it should be over.  As usual, the opposing party in the court below, the Arizona Federal Defender on behalf of murderer Graham Henry, filed an opposition.  But yesterday, the Supreme Court asked the Ninth Circuit itself to file a response.

Most claims of ineffective assistance of counsel are baloney.  They're simply a way to deflect attention from the client's behavior to that of his supposedly all-important lawyer.  What gets lost in the hubbub is that what wins and loses cases is seldom the lawyer.  It's the evidence.

"In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right ... to be confronted with the witnesses against him ...."  So says the Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution, as do the bills of rights of many state constitutions.  But what does that mean?

From at least 1980, when the U.S. Supreme Court decided Ohio v. Roberts, until 2004, when it decided Crawford v. Washington, the Confrontation Clause was pretty much a constitutionalization of the hearsay rule.  If the prosecution wanted A to testify as to what B said, the defendant had a right to confront and cross-examine B, subject to all the "firmly rooted hearsay exception[s]," and there are a lot of them.  The main consideration was deciding whether the particular form of hearsay was reliable.

In Crawford, the Supreme Court tossed the Roberts rule and its reliability focus overboard and went with a historical analysis instead.  The purpose of the Confrontation Clause is to prevent abuses of the kind that happened in the trial of Sir Walter Raleigh (the founder of Anglo-America) and other old English cases where testimony is introduced in the form of affidavits or examinations of a witness conducted ex parte, i.e., when the defendant is not present and can't cross-examine.  In circumstances like these, the examinee is the "witness" and the statement is "testimonial."  The Confrontation Clause forbids introduction, and there are no exceptions.  In other cases of garden-variety hearsay, A is the "witness," and admissibility of B's statement is a matter for state hearsay rules, not the U.S. Constitution.  In a state case, reliability of the hearsay is an issue for state rulemakers and courts to ponder, not the federal courts.

Okay, but what statements are sufficiently like the forbidden historical practices to make B's statement "testimonial" and make B and not A the "witness" for this purpose.  The Crawford Court left that largely for future decisions, a recipe for chaos.

How about an injured preschooler's response to a teacher's question, "Who did this? What happened to you?"  That is the question before the Supreme Court in Ohio v. Clark, No. 13-1352.

Bill previously posted a link to the Criminal Law Practice Group's panel at the National Lawyer's Convention of the Federalist Society.  Another panel relevant to the topic of this blog was the Civil Rights Practice Group's panel on sexual assault on campus.  The speakers and video links for both panels follow the break.

The full schedule with links to all the videos is here.

Rocco Parascandola and Thomas Tracy have this story in the New York Daily News:

Arrests for minor crimes across the city have skyrocketed over the last three decades, a report conducted by John Jay College of Criminal Justice shows.

"Crime is down to historic lows," John Jay President Jeremy Travis said about the study. "Felony arrests have dropped in half, yet the rate of misdemeanor arrests has tripled."

Yet?  Would anyone say, "Major house fires have dropped sharply in newly constructed housing, yet building codes now require sprinkler systems."

It's speculated that many of the arrests are a product of the broken windows theory to policing, which was first mentioned in 1982.

That wins the Well, Duh! Award for the day.  Speculated?

Thomas Reppetto, a NYPD historian, said "broken windows" was "designed for a different era," when drug dealers controlled neighborhoods and violent crime was rampant.

It is indeed a different era, and "broken windows" policing is a major part of why.

Question:  When can a judge ethically be an advocate for a party in his court?

If a jury convicts a defendant on some charges but not others, it has found that the facts supporting the acquitted charge were not proved beyond a reasonable doubt.  That does not mean those allegations are not true or have not been proved by a preponderance of evidence or even clear and convincing evidence.

Generally, a judge deciding on a sentence within the legally allowed range can consider any facts he finds proved by a preponderance of evidence.  Should a fact be excluded from that consideration because a jury has found it not proved beyond a reasonable doubt?  There is no logical reason why it should, yet the practice remains controversial.

Today the U.S. Supreme Court decided not to take up the case of Jones v. United States, No. 13-10026.  Justice Scalia, joined by Justices Thomas and Ginsburg (a line-up you don't see every day) dissented.

Justice Scalia's theory is that if the facts in question are needed to prevent the sentence from being "substantively unreasonable" then it becomes an effective "element of a crime."  Unlike mere sentencing facts, elements must be found by juries beyond a reasonable doubt.  What is "substantively unreasonable" you might well ask?  Well, the Supreme Court has made a complete mess of guidelines sentencing in the wake of its awful, confused, confusing decision in the Booker case.  "Substantively unreasonable" is a concept in the review of sentencing decisions by appellate courts.

I think that is stretching "elements" way too far.  The underlying problem, though, is that Congress needs to overhaul federal sentencing to deal with Booker, and it hasn't done it.

Returning to mandatory guidelines, with simpler essential facts found by juries, is the way to go, in my opinion.

P.S.: Looks like Bill and I were writing on this at the same time.  I'll leave them both up, so readers get two perspectives on the case.

Among the cases to which cert was denied today was a very big sentencing case, Jones v. US, No. 13-10026.  The basic issue was whether a sentencing judge could take account of "acquitted conduct."  The DC Circuit, in conformity with others, said yes, and the Supremes allowed its judgment to stand.

Curt Hulse reports at NYT's First Draft:

The White House is moving more quickly than anticipated to select a new attorney general and is poised to announce President Obama's choice before the Nov. 4 election, with Labor Secretary Thomas E. Perez emerging as a leading candidate.

Many on Capitol Hill expected the president to wait until after the election to avoid making the nominee a campaign issue for embattled Democratic Senate candidates. But people familiar with the administration's planning now say an announcement could come in the next few weeks.

No final decision has been made, they said, but Mr. Perez, 53, a former Justice Department civil rights official and the son of Dominican immigrants, is at the top of the list. His nomination would be applauded by many Hispanic leaders. And he has a compelling personal story, having worked as a trash collector to help put himself through Brown University.

*                                     *                               *

Mr. Perez was opposed for the labor post by Republicans, who branded him an ideologue who selectively enforced civil rights laws. But Democrats could push the nomination through in a lame-duck session on a simple majority vote.

Well, maybe we need trash collection experience given all the garbage we have gotten from Mr. Holder, but I seriously doubt Mr. Perez is the man for the job.  For those who thought the next AG would have to be an improvement, maybe not.

My first job after high school was shoveling sand into sandbags at the White Sands Missile Range.  Maybe I should apply, given all the sandbagging Mr. Holder has done in response to congressional investigations.

Brent Kendall reports in the WSJ on developments in voter ID cases.

Voter identification laws suffered setbacks in two states on Thursday, with the U.S. Supreme Court blocking Wisconsin from imposing its voter-identification measure during the midterm elections and a federal judge in Texas striking down that state's ID law.

The Supreme Court's action in Wisconsin marked its third recent intervention in a high-profile election case, and the first before the high court in which advocates for minority voters prevailed.

The justices in the two other cases allowed Ohio to cut back on early voting and cleared North Carolina to impose new, tighter voting rules.

The high court in each case effectively put the brakes on lower court rulings that would have prompted late changes in election procedures in the run-up to the Nov. 4 day.

Meanwhile, a U.S. District Judge in Texas said that state's voter ID law amounted to an "unconstitutional poll tax," an outcome the state said it would immediately appeal.

The unfortunate thing about this "avoid late changes" approach is that the timing of an order rather than its merit may determine whether it is in effect for the election.  If the Fifth Circuit follows the same pattern, it will stay the District Court's order.  It won't matter that much in Texas, where the most important races aren't close.  But the Wisconsin governor's race is a tossup, and if the final tally is close enough, the deceased vote could tip the balance.

Update:  Text of the order and dissent follows the break.

One gripe we hear all the time is that defendants with money invariably get away with their crimes or at least get off easy.  It's not true.  R. Scott Moxley at O.C. Weekly reports on the background of the murder conviction reinstated by the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday and noted in this post.  It turns out that defendant Marvin Smith was a multimillionaire. 

The rich and famous Phil Spector is also a permanent guest of California taxpayers.  In Delaware, big time political mover and shaker Thomas Capano was sentenced to death.  He got off death row the same way thousands of others have -- the Supreme Court changed the rules after the trial was over.

What about O.J. Simpson?  His acquittal was mainly the result of racial dynamics in the wake of the Rodney King riots.  The dream team wasn't all that dreamy.  The prosecution proved his guilt sufficiently to convince an unbiased jury beyond a reasonable doubt; the problem was the jury.

That is not to say that a better lawyer will never make the difference in a close case.  But most cases are not close.  The difference is at the margins.

The Constitution of the United States guarantees a right to remain silent, right?  Guess again.  What the Fifth Amendment actually says is, "No person ... shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself ...."  That is not exactly the same thing.

Emily Green has this story at NPR on a recent decision by the California Supreme Court on the use of silence as evidence of guilt, People v. Tom, and its predecessor case in the U.S. Supreme Court, Salinas v. Texas (2013).  The story has sound bites from several people, including yours truly, but the issue is more complex than can be covered in a brief story.

Nevada High Court Upholds Death Sentence: The Nevada Supreme Court has ruled in favor of upholding the death penalty for a California man convicted of murdering his wife in a Las Vegas hotel room in 2006.  Sean Whaley of the Las Vegas Review Journal reports that prosecutors allege that John Watson shot his wife before cutting her body up with a band saw.  In letters written from jail, Watson admitted to cooking and eating part of his wife's body, but police have yet to find any remains.  Watson challenged his sentence based on the claim that he suffered from mental illness.

Texas Man Sentenced to Life in Brutal Killing: A Texas man convicted of brutally murdering a woman and her one-year-old son in 2011 has been sentenced to in prison.  Annie Potasznik of CBS Dallas Fort Worth reports that 31-year-old Thomas Olivas brutally stabbed the woman before setting her apartment on fire with her infant son trapped inside.  Police believe the pair had a prior relationship and their was an argument concerning payment of child support.  Prosecutors chose not to seek the death penalty, resulting in an automatic sentence of life without parole.

Convicted Killer Won't be Granted Early Release: The man responsible for the brutal killing of a South Carolina high school student in 1995 will stay behind bars for another year despite an attempt made by the state to release him ahead of schedule.  John Monk of The State reports that 36-year-old Calen Radwell was a juvenile at the time of the killing and was sentenced to spend 20 years after pleading guilty to second-degree murder.  For reasons unknown the state's Corrections Department moved his release date up by almost a year leaving the victim's family outraged.  The judge ruled in favor of the victim's family, ordering that Radwell fulfill his entire sentence and be released in the fall of 2015.

Louisiana Teens Charged with Murder:  Police in New Orleans, have announced that the two 16-year-olds arrested in connection with Monday's murder of a pizza delivery driver were wearing GPS ankle monitoring devices at the time of the killing.  Tania Dall of WWL News reports that the teens are believed to have gunned down the delivery driver in a carjacking attempt Monday evening, police had been alerted that one of the teens had broken his monitoring restrictions and were waiting on an arrest warrant when the driver was killed Monday evening.  The court has yet to file charges, but it is expected that they will charge the teens as adults.

Serial Killer Sentenced to Life in Prison: A California man convicted of murdering three women in the 1980's has been sentenced to three consecutive life terms without the possibility of parole.  CBS Los Angeles reports that 74-year-old Samuel Little was arrested and charged with the killings after DNA collected from the victims linked him to the crimes.  Little was also linked to four other sexual assaults against women in both San Diego and Mississippi. 

Convicted Murderer Sentenced to Death: A Las Vegas man convicted of kidnapping and murdering a 12-year-old girl four years ago has been sentenced to death.  KATC News reports that in 2010, Thomas Sanders went on a road trip with the young girl and her mother to Arizona, as they were returning to Nevada, Sanders pulled the car over and shot the girl's mother in the head and proceeded to drive the girl cross-country to Louisiana.  Evidence at trial revealed that Sanders shot the girl four times before cutting her throat and leaving her in the woods where she was found by a hunter later that year.  

Inmate Population Rising Under Realignment: The number of inmates being sent to California prisons is on the rise despite three years under Governor Brown's Realignment law was enacted to reduce prison overcrowding.  Don Thompson of the Associated Press reports that there has been a record-setting increase in the number of second convictions for serious and violent crimes resulting in more criminals being sentenced  state prison. The state's current prison population is at 133,000, and is expected to increase to 143,000 by 2019.

Federal Judge Denies Stay of Execution: A federal judge has denied a motion to stay the execution of a Missouri man convicted of murdering two people more than a decade ago.  Alan Burdziak of the Columbia Daily Tribune reports that attorneys for Earl Ringo challenged his sentence and asked the judge to reopen his case.  The attorneys claim that they were not given enough time to plan a proper defense after his original lawyer was removed from the case.  Ringo is scheduled to be executed on September 10.   

Suspected Cop Killer Recently Released on Parole: The New York man believed to be responsible for Wednesday's fatal shooting of a police officer was released from prison and placed on parole only a few weeks ago.  The Associated Press reports that Thomas Johnson III shot the officer after a brief pursuit in Rochester Wednesday evening.  It was the first time since 1959 that an officer from that department was killed in the line of duty.  Johnson was released from prison in August after serving a year behind bars for a parole violation.

Joseph Epstein has this article in the WSJ, titled What's Missing in Ferguson, Mo., subtitled More than ever, the absence of black leadership, and the contrast with the civil-rights era, is painfully clear.  An excerpt follows the break.

OK, they don't endorse murder, exactly, but they come too close for comfort in a truly idiotic, and dishonest, article in Reason Magazine by Nick Gillespie. Its title is, "Why the Death Penalty Needs to Die."  Here's how it starts:  

Another week, another botched killing under the legal euphemism of capital punishment. After macabre screw-ups in Oklahoma and Ohio, it was Arizona's turn last week, when double-murderer Joseph Rudolph Wood III took about two hours to die. The specific problem this time around was an apparently unreliable "cocktail" of the drugs used in the lethal injection process. 

But let's face it: There's no good way to kill a person, even one as completely unsympathetic as Wood (he killed his ex-girlfriend and her father, shooting them at point-blank range). 

It's been almost twenty years since Justice Stevens, alone, took seriously a claim that a death sentence could be rendered unconstitutional by the length of time taken by the many procedures to review it, all or most of them initiated by the defendant.  That was in Lackey v. Texas, 514 U.S. 1045 (1995).  The full court has turned the claim down every time.  Although denial of certiorari (meaning simply that the high court declines to hear the case) does not form a precedent binding on lower courts, the consistency of rejection of this claim has generally been understood as a signal that the issue was dead.

Prior posts on the high court's rejection of Lackey claims are here, here, here, here, and here.

Justice Thomas noted in Knight v. Florida, 528 U.S. 990 (1999):

I write only to point out that I am unaware of any support in the American constitutional tradition or in this Court's precedent for the proposition that a defendant can avail himself of the panoply of appellate and collateral procedures and then complain when his execution is delayed. Indeed, were there any such support in our own jurisprudence, it would be unnecessary for proponents of the claim to rely on the European Court of Human Rights, the Supreme Court of Zimbabwe, the Supreme Court of India, or the Privy Council.

Now comes a federal district judge in California who accepts the claim based on the particularly extended delays in California.  The order is here.

Judge Carney's thesis, in a nutshell, is that the death penalty lacks a penological basis after such a long delay.  But the retribution interest, at least, is still there.  The defendant still deserves this punishment for the very worst murders, and society has a valid interest in carrying it out, no matter how long it takes.

The problems Judge Carney notes are violations of rights, though -- the rights of the victims' families.  See 18 U.S.C. § 3771(a)(7); Cal. Const., Art. I, § 28(b)(9).  The California Legislature has been derelict in its duty to pass the needed reforms, killing them in committee time after time.  The Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, and ultimately the Governor, have been derelict in their duty to carry out their responsibilities to execute judgments and implement a protocol that will allow them to do so.  The California Supreme Court has been derelict in its duty to resolve state habeas petitions in a reasonable time by referring them to the superior court where they belong.  The federal courts have been derelict in their duty to fully implement the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996, evading it at every turn despite numerous reversals by the Supreme Court.

All of these people need to do their duty and fix the delays -- for the victims, not the perpetrators.

The facts of the particular case follow the break.