HABEAS CORPUS
Courts of appeals, like district courts, have the authority, although not the obligation, to raise a forfeited timeliness defense on their own initiative in exceptional cases. U.S. Supreme Court. Wood...
View ArticleHABEAS CORPUS
Does the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act provide an actual-innocence exception to the requirement that a petitioner must show an extraordinary circumstance that “prevented timely filing”...
View ArticleHABEAS CORPUS
Federal law does not require the suspension of a state prisoner’s federal habeas corpus proceedings upon an adjudication of incompetence. U.S. Supreme Court. Ryan v. Gonzales, Nos. 10-930 and 11-218....
View ArticleCan state retroactively abolish defense?
Was a state court’s retroactive application of a rule abolishing the diminished-capacity defense so unexpected that it violated a defendant’s due process rights? The U.S. Supreme Court has taken up the...
View ArticleCRIMINAL LAW
Could a state trial court retroactively apply a ruling from its supreme court that abolished the diminished-capacity defense? See “Can state retroactively abolish diminished-capacity defense?”...
View ArticleCourt to reexamine right to counsel in plea bargaining
The U.S. Supreme Court will decide whether a murder defendant was denied the effective assistance of counsel when her second attorney advised her to withdraw from a favorable plea agreement negotiated...
View ArticleCourt asks when procedural defaults bar ineffective assistance claims
WASHINGTON – Less than a year after creating a narrow right to make a federal ineffective assistance of counsel claim in a post-conviction proceeding despite a procedural default in state court, the...
View ArticleHABEAS CORPUS
A defendant convicted after representing himself wasn’t entitled habeas relief based on a state court’s refusal to appoint a lawyer to assist him in filing a motion for a new trial. U.S. Supreme Court....
View ArticleJustices won’t let Mich. defendant reargue diminished capacity
The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that a Michigan murder defendant’s due process rights were not violated when a change in state law following his 1994 conviction prevented him from reasserting a...
View ArticleHABEAS CORPUS
A Michigan murder defendant’s due process rights were not violated when a change in state law following his 1994 conviction prevented him from reasserting a diminished capacity defense when he later...
View Article
