With last week's "smackdown" of the Ninth Circuit in McDaniel v. Brown, and this week's ruling in Wellons v. Hall, CJLF is starting to wonder, will the Supreme Court's 2009 Term be a term of summary AEDPA reversals? If this trend continues, it just may well be.
A summary reversal occurs when the Supreme Court reverses the lower court decision on the certiorari petition alone, without merits briefs or oral argument. (Brown is an unusual variation where the Court took briefing on the merits and scheduled an argument but then cancelled the argument and reversed without it.) Such a reversal usually indicates that the Court believes there is something wrong with the lower court decision, and does not feel the need to create any new law in striking it down. These don't happen often. A quick search of the Court decisions from the 2006, 2007 and 2008 terms, found there were only seven summary reversals over a three year period, and only two of them were habeas cases. A quick search of to-date 2009 opinions finds that seven summary reversals were issued by the Supreme Court, and six of them were habeas cases.
The startling number of summary reversals in habeas cases in 2009 raises some interesting questions. How is it that lower courts are reaching conclusions that the Supreme Court finds so fundamentally wrong? Is AEDPA really that confusing? Or is something else at work here?
A summary reversal occurs when the Supreme Court reverses the lower court decision on the certiorari petition alone, without merits briefs or oral argument. (Brown is an unusual variation where the Court took briefing on the merits and scheduled an argument but then cancelled the argument and reversed without it.) Such a reversal usually indicates that the Court believes there is something wrong with the lower court decision, and does not feel the need to create any new law in striking it down. These don't happen often. A quick search of the Court decisions from the 2006, 2007 and 2008 terms, found there were only seven summary reversals over a three year period, and only two of them were habeas cases. A quick search of to-date 2009 opinions finds that seven summary reversals were issued by the Supreme Court, and six of them were habeas cases.
The startling number of summary reversals in habeas cases in 2009 raises some interesting questions. How is it that lower courts are reaching conclusions that the Supreme Court finds so fundamentally wrong? Is AEDPA really that confusing? Or is something else at work here?
With McDaniel v. Brown the error in the Ninth Circuit's was obvious from the start. As Kent commented back in May 2009, the Ninth Circuit opinion relied on evidence not presented at trial, and then reweighed the evidence to reach a conclusion contrary to that of the jury. This was clear error under Jackson v. Virginia. The party that won in the Court of Appeals then abandoned the theory of that decision in his brief on the merits, and then the Supreme Court removed the case from its oral arguments calendar. With such a crazy lead-up, it wasn't that surprising that the Supreme Court handed down its summary reversal on January 11, 2010.
Wong v. Belmontes, Porter v. McCollum and Bobby v. Van Hook were a little different. Each case addressed whether the lower court had erred in finding defense counsel ineffective at the mitigation stage of trial, and granting habeas relief. But, just Brown, the Court did not need oral argument to determine that lower court had been wrong to declare counsel ineffective. To borrow words from the Supreme Court's opinion in Van Hook, in each case it was "clear that [the] attorneys met the constitutional minimum of competence under the correct standard." So why had the lower courts found otherwise?
Wellons v. Hall and Corcoran v. Levenhagen raised more serious issues of whether the process through which the defendant was tried and sentenced was fair. In Corcoran, the district court accepted Corcoran's claim that his sentence violated the Sixth Amendment, and granted relief on this ground alone. The Seventh Circuit reversed, directed the district court to deny the writ, and prohibited the district court from reviewing Corcoran's other claims. The Supreme Court vacated the Seventh Circuit's decision, explaining that the Seventh Circuit should have permitted the district court to consider Corcoran's unresolved challenges on remand. Wellons involved a defendant's claim that he had been denied discovery of whether there had been improper communication between the trial judge and the jury. The Eleventh Circuit had found Wellons' claim to be procedurally barred, and denied habeas relief. The Supreme Court disagreed. Finding parts of the Eleventh Circuit's opinion "ambiguous," and an error under Cone v. Bell, the Supreme Court vacated the judgment and remanded the case to the Eleventh Circuit. It told the Eleventh Circuit to examine more closely the trial in which Marcus Wellons received the death penalty for the rape and murder of 15-year-old India Roberts in suburban Atlanta in 1989.
After four months, the Court has managed to summarily reverse six lower court decisions granting/denying habeas review. Hopefully, lower courts will get the hint, and the next five months won't see so many summary "smackdowns" of lower court decisions creating new (and in the Supreme Court's view fundamentally wrong) ways to grant the defendant habeas relief.
Wong v. Belmontes, Porter v. McCollum and Bobby v. Van Hook were a little different. Each case addressed whether the lower court had erred in finding defense counsel ineffective at the mitigation stage of trial, and granting habeas relief. But, just Brown, the Court did not need oral argument to determine that lower court had been wrong to declare counsel ineffective. To borrow words from the Supreme Court's opinion in Van Hook, in each case it was "clear that [the] attorneys met the constitutional minimum of competence under the correct standard." So why had the lower courts found otherwise?
Wellons v. Hall and Corcoran v. Levenhagen raised more serious issues of whether the process through which the defendant was tried and sentenced was fair. In Corcoran, the district court accepted Corcoran's claim that his sentence violated the Sixth Amendment, and granted relief on this ground alone. The Seventh Circuit reversed, directed the district court to deny the writ, and prohibited the district court from reviewing Corcoran's other claims. The Supreme Court vacated the Seventh Circuit's decision, explaining that the Seventh Circuit should have permitted the district court to consider Corcoran's unresolved challenges on remand. Wellons involved a defendant's claim that he had been denied discovery of whether there had been improper communication between the trial judge and the jury. The Eleventh Circuit had found Wellons' claim to be procedurally barred, and denied habeas relief. The Supreme Court disagreed. Finding parts of the Eleventh Circuit's opinion "ambiguous," and an error under Cone v. Bell, the Supreme Court vacated the judgment and remanded the case to the Eleventh Circuit. It told the Eleventh Circuit to examine more closely the trial in which Marcus Wellons received the death penalty for the rape and murder of 15-year-old India Roberts in suburban Atlanta in 1989.
After four months, the Court has managed to summarily reverse six lower court decisions granting/denying habeas review. Hopefully, lower courts will get the hint, and the next five months won't see so many summary "smackdowns" of lower court decisions creating new (and in the Supreme Court's view fundamentally wrong) ways to grant the defendant habeas relief.
Leave a comment