Case Law Update: 2011-2014 Cumulative Edition

Holding: Claim of ineffective assistance for failure to interview Defendant’s sister and brother-in-law who saw Defendant after the murder was sufficiently plausible, such that remand was required to determine whether this defaulted claim, which was not raised by state postconviction counsel, could be raised in federal habeas under Martinez v. Ryan.
Larsen v. Soto, 2013 WL 5066813 (9^th Cir. 2013):

Holding: Petitioner’s petition showed “actual innocence” enough to overcome procedural bar, where it alleged that 5 different witnesses saw a different person throw a knife (in possession of deadly weapon case) thus undercutting the reliability of proof of guilt, even though this did not affirmatively prove innocence.
Sossa v. Diaz, 93 Crim. L. Rep. 746, 2013 WL 4792941 (9^th Cir. 9/10/13):

Holding: Petitioner was entitled to equitable tolling of habeas deadline for filing pro se petition, where habeas court affirmatively misled petitioner by granting him extensions of time to file his petition, and petitioner relied on those extensions.
Dow v. Virga, 2013 WL 4750062 (9^th Cir. 2013):

Holding: State court unreasonably applied federal law in applying test of whether it was reasonably probable that a result more favorable to the defense would have occurred absent prosecutor’s knowing presentation of false evidence; rather than correct test of whether there is any reasonable likelihood that the false evidence could have affected the judgment of the jury.
Dubrin v. California, 93 Crim. L. Rep. 448, 2013 WL 3215521 (9^th Cir. 6/20/13):

Holding: Even though federal courts are generally barred from hearing challenges to expired prior convictions, when a defendant cannot be faulted for failing to obtain timely review of a constitutional challenge to an expired prior conviction, and that conviction is used to enhance his sentence for a later offense, he may challenge the enhanced sentence under 28 USC 2254 on the ground that the prior conviction was unconstitutionally obtained.
Jamerson v. Runnels, 93 Crim. L. Rep. 179 (9^th Cir. 4/24/13):

Holding: Even though federal habeas courts generally cannot hear evidence that wasn’t presented in state court, this did not prohibit federal court in reviewing Batson claim from considering evidence of veniremembers’ races that was not part of the state court record.
Mike v. Ryan, 92 Crim. L. Rep. 750 (9^th Cir. 3/14/13):

Holding: State court unreasonably applied federal law and unreasonably determined the facts in light of the evidence presented in the state court proceedings where State failed to disclose impeachment evidence concerning a key Officer-witness.
Henderson v. Johnson, 710 F.3d 872 (9^th Cir. 2013):

Holding: Court improperly dismissed mixed habeas petition without giving petitioner an opportunity to amend it to delete unexhausted claims.
Cannedy v. Adams, 92 Crim. L. Rep. 537 (9^th Cir. 2/7/13):

Holding: Harrington v. Richter (U.S. 2011) does not require federal courts faced with a state appellate court’s summary denial of a constitutional claim to consider all possible reasonable bases for the decision when there is a lower state court that addressed specific arguments.
Cudjo v. Ayers, 2012 WL 4490751 (9^th Cir. 2012):

Holding: State court ruling that exclusion of trustworthy exculpatory evidence from Defendant’s trial did not violate any clearly established federal law was contrary to U.S. Supreme Court precedent regarding due process and Defendant’s 6^th Amendment right to present a defense.
Dickens v. Ryan, 2012 WL 3140348 (9^th Cir. 2012):

Holding: Where state postconviction counsel failed to raise a claim of ineffective trial counsel, remand of the federal habeas case was required to determine if petitioner’s defaulted habeas claim can be raised under Martinez v. Ryan.
Mackey v. Hoffman, 2012 WL 2369301 (9^th Cir. 2012):

Holding: Where an attorney’s abandonment causes a notice of appeal not to be filed, district court may grant relief under the “catch-all” clause of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure.
Noble v. Adams, 2012 WL 1353564 (9^th Cir. 2012):

Holding: A state prisoner’s four and a half month delay in filing his state habeas petition in an appellate court after its denial by a lower court may have been reasonable if his explanation for the delay was adequate such that his first petition remained “pending” for the purpose of tolling.
Wentzell v. Neven, 2012 WL 1071638 (9^th Cir. 2012):

Holding: A state prisoner’s habeas petition was not second or successive due to an intervening amended judgment of conviction.
U.S. v. Gonzalez, 2012 WL 206266 (9^th Cir. 2012):

Holding: Defendants’ filing of motion to vacate does not unilaterally waive joint defense privilege.
Johnson v. Finn, 2011 WL 6091310 (9^th Cir. 2011):

Holding: District court deprived habeas petitioners of due process by failing to conduct evidentiary hearing on Batson issue following a magistrate judge’s proposed finding regarding prosecutor’s lack of credibility.



Gonzalez v. Wong, 2011 WL 6061514 (9^th Cir. 2011):

Holding: Remand to district court was warranted, with instructions to stay habeas petition to allow state court to consider Brady claim, as the claim was colorable in light of psychological reports, but the reports could not be considered by federal courts until they were made a part of the state court record.
Bills v. Clark, 88 Crim. L. Rep. 340 (9^th Cir. 12/18/10):

Holding: Petitioner may be able to obtain equitable tolling of AEDPA’s filing deadline if he can show his mental impairment prevented him from filing and he made some diligent effort to pursue his claims to the extent he could understand them.
Gonzalez v. Wong, 90 Crim. L. Rep. 349 (9th Cir. 12/7/11):

Holding: Habeas petitioners can use "stay and abey" procedure to make record in state court to overcome bar by Cullen v. Pinholster, ___ U.S. ___ (U.S. 2011).
Doe v. Busby, 90 Crim. L. Rep. 165 (9^th Cir. 10/24/11):

Holding: Even though Petitioner’s retained habeas counsel had apparently done nothing to file a habeas petition for a long time, Petitioner was still entitled to equitable tolling of the statute of limitations because a lay person isn’t in a position to know that his attorney’s explanations for the delays aren’t valid.
Trigueros v. Adams, 89 Crim. L. Rep. 857, 2011 WL 4060503 (9^th Cir. 9/14/11):

Holding: Where Calif. Supreme Court summarily denied postconviction petition after requesting informal briefing on the merits, this was a ruling that the petition was timely for purposes of the federal limitations period.
Lee v. Lampert, 89 Crim. L. Rep. 720, 2011 WL 3275947 (9^th Cir. 8/2/11):

Holding: An “actual innocence” exception applies to one-year federal statute of limitations for filing federal habeas petition.
Williams v. Cavazos, 89 Crim. L. Rep. 372 (9^th Cir. 5/23/11):

Holding: Deference-triggering presumption of Harrington v. Richter does not apply to claims that were presented to state court on appeal but not mentioned in the state court’s opinion when it denied other claims.
Wilson v. Knowles, 88 Crim. L. Rep. 565 (9^th Cir. 2/8/11):

Holding: Apprendi does not allow state judge to find disputed evidentiary type facts about a prior conviction (such as severity of injury to victim and whether victim was an accomplice) to apply the 3-strikes law, and AEDPA does not required deference to the state judge’s ruling in violation of Apprendi.
LeBere v. Abbott, 94 Crim. L Rep. 176 (10^th Cir. 10/18/13):
Holding: Even though Colorado state courts used a successive bar to deny Petitioner’s new Brady claim, this did not prevent the federal courts from hearing this claim because no state court had actually heard and ruled on the Brady claim.
In re Weathersby, 2013 WL 1960578 (10^th Cir. 2013):

Holding: Defendant’s habeas petition was not successive or second where the basis for his claim did not exist at the time his prior motion was filed.
In re Pickard, 681 F.3d 1201 (10^th Cir. 2012):

Holding: Where Prosecutor improperly withheld exculpatory evidence during a first PCR hearing, a second PCR motion to litigate this issue was not successive.
Bryant v. Warden, 94 Crim. L. Rep. 419, 2013 WL 6768086 (11^th Cir. 12/24/13):

Holding: Defendant can challenge a recidivist sentence under ACCA in a second or successive habeas petition under the “savings clause” of 28 USC 2255 and 2241 when intervening U.S. Supreme Court precedent (Begay) has made a predicate offense ineligible.
Spencer v. U.S., 2013 WL 4106367 (11^th Cir. 2013):

Holding: Defendant, who unsuccessfully raised on direct appeal a claim that his prior Florida conviction for third-degree felony child abuse was not “crime of violence,” could raise this issue in motion to vacate sentence because the Begay decision, which validated his arguments, is retroactive.
Zack v. Tucker, 92 Crim. L. Rep. 422, 2013 WL 105166 (11^th Cir. 1/9/13):

Holding: 11^th Circuit adopts “claim by claim” approach to assessing timeliness of federal habeas petition under AEDPA (joining 3d, 6^th and 9^th Circuits).
Figuereo-Sanchez v. U.S., 2012 WL 1499871 (11^th Cir. 2012):

Holding: A federal prisoner’s previously expressed intent to challenge his conviction pro se on a motion to vacate, set aside, or correct his sentence did not absolve a district court of the obligation to issue Castro warnings in the even that it recharacterized the prisoner’s motion for relief from final judgment to ineffective assistance of counsel.
Zack v. Tucker, 2012 WL 34125 (11^th Cir. 2012):

Holding: Timely assertion in habeas petition of one claim made all other claims in the petition timely, barring the district court from reviewing the timeliness of claims on an individual basis.
Aamer v. Obama, 94 Crim. L. Rep. 579 (D.C. Cir. 2/11/14):

Holding: Prisoner can use habeas corpus to challenge extreme, illegal conditions of confinement.
U.S. v. Caso, 93 Crim. L. Rep. 556 (D.C. Cir. 7/19/13):

Holding: Petitioner who had pleaded guilty to honest services fraud before Skilling may move to set aside the conviction under the “actual innocence” exception to procedural default.
U.S. v. McDade, 2012 WL 5457675 (D.C. 2012):

Holding: Where Movant had diligently and timely provided postconviction claims and affidavits from potential witnesses to postconviction counsel, Movant was entitled to equitable tolling of statute of limitations for his motion where his postconviction counsel subsequently failed to file Movant’s motion on time.
Al-Oshan v. Obama, 2010 WL 4873307 (D.D.C. 2010):
Holding: Even though Petitioner was on hunger strike, where his health had deteriorated such that it was difficult to communicate with counsel or participate in habeas proceeding, an order compelling the gov’t to allow an independent doctor or psychiatrist to examine him was warranted.



Stayton v. U.S., 2011 WL 691238 (M.D. Ala. 2011):
Holding: Skilling decision on honest services fraud is retroactive to cases on collateral review.
Harris v. State, 2010 WL 5298902 (S.D. Fla. 2010):

Holding: Where Defendant claimed that one of his three prior convictions did not qualify as a “crime of violence” for sentencing enhancement purposes, Defendant could use “actual innocence” exception to procedural default to excuse failure to raise this earlier; Defendant could be “actually innocent” of having three prior qualifying convictions.
Duguay v. Spencer, 2011 WL 3584495 (D. Mass. 2011):

Holding: Reasonable jurists could consider grounds for ineffective assistance of counsel beyond those in the habeas petition, warranting issuance of a certificate of appealability.
Williams v. Birkett, 2012 WL 4513414 (E.D. Mich. 2012):

Holding: Petitioner was entitled to equitable tolling of the time for filing his habeas petition where he had limited mental abilities and the trial judge in his case gave him confusing and legally erroneous information about when to file a habeas.
Butler v. Walsh, 2012 WL 677973 (E.D. Pa. 2012):

Holding: The one-year limitations period for a habeas petition under the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act (AEDPA) was equitably tolled because prison officials ran out of habeas forms and prevented the defendant from obtaining the forms from outside the prison.
Ex parte Ward, 2011 WL 2164032 (Ala. 2011):

Holding: Even though postconviction case was brought 17 years after trial, Movant’s postconviction motion should not have been dismissed on grounds that trial counsel failed to exercise reasonable diligence, where Movant alleged that he did not know about the existence of certain scientific test results of the state Department of Forensic Sciences lab, and counsel had no reason to have suspected that any additional forensic test results existed or that any further investigation of the matter would have been anything more than a fishing expedition.
Ex parte Collier, 2010 WL 4910831 (Ala. 2010):

Holding: Habeas was proper way to challenge improper calculation of pretrial jail credit.
Catlin v. Superior Court, 2011 WL 240253 (Cal. 2011):

Holding: Court cannot deny as “untimely” a motion for postconviction discovery of materials to which Defendant would have been entitled at time of trial.
Swafford v. State, 2013 WL 5942382 (Fla. 2013):

Holding: Where State’s case was built on theory that Defendant’s motive in murder was to engage in sexual assault, Defendant was entitled to new trial for newly discovered evidence that no seminal fluid was found inside victim because this gave rise to reasonable doubt as to guilt.
Henry v. Santana, 89 Crim. L. Rep. 193 (Fla. 4/28/11):

Holding: Habeas petition seeking immediate release should not be dismissed on grounds that petitioner failed to exhaust his administrative remedies, where neither party raised this issue.
Hall v. State, 94 Crim. L. Rep. 338, 2013 WL 6225673 (Idaho 12/2/13):
Holding: Statutory right to counsel requires that postconviction counsel be free of conflicts and effective; “This statutory right to counsel would be a hollow right if it did not guarantee the defendant the right to effective assistance of counsel.”
People v. Wrice, 2011 WL 312121 (Ill. 2012):

Holding: Defendant’s successive postconviction petition alleging that his confession was the result of physical coercion by police officers satisfied the prejudice prong of the cause-and-prejudice test for determining whether a defendant may proceed on his successive postconviction relief petition.
People v. Patrick, 2011 WL 6851170 (Ill. 2011):

Holding: Court was required to conduct preliminary inquiry into factual basis of defendant’s pro se post-trial ineffective assistance claims.
People v. Snyder, 2011 WL 5999261 (Ill. 2011):

Holding: Withdrawal of guilty pleas, and not vacatur of restitution, was appropriate remedy for failure to admonish defendant about possibility of restitution order before accepting guilty pleas.
Baker v. State, 2013 WL 2450537 (Kan. 2013):

Holding: Where a direct appeal had resulted in a remand for resentencing, the statute of limitations for filing a state postconviction action began to run on the date for filing a notice of appeal from the new sentence on remand; appellate court rejected State’s claim that time began to run when appellate court issued its original mandate.
Hallum v. Com., 2011 WL 1620593 (Ky. 2011):

Holding: Where state enacted a “mailbox rule” statute for filing postconviction motions, statute would apply retroactively to cases pending on appeal when the statute was enacted.
Com. v. Clarke, 89 Crim. L. Rep. 589 (Mass. 6/17/11):

Holding: Padilla v. Kentucky’s holding that defense counsel has 6^th Amendment duty to advise noncitizens of immigration consequences is retroactive to cases on collateral review.
Haraden v. State, 90 Crim. L. Rep. 301 (Me. 11/17/11):

Holding: Movant has right to be competent during PCR proceedings.
People v. Trakhtenberg, 92 Crim. L. Rep. 355 (Mich. 12/21/12):

Holding: An adverse judgment in a legal malpractice suit does not estop a criminal defendant from later pursuing postconviction relief regarding the same matter.
Smith v. Banks, 2014 WL 338842 (Miss. 2014):

Holding: Habeas corpus was available to challenge denial of pretrial bail.
Jones v. State, 2013 WL 3756564 (Miss. 2013):

Holding: Miller’s prohibition against mandatory juvenile LWOP applies retroactively to cases on collateral review.
Grayson v. State, 93 Crim. L. Rep. 157 (Miss. 4/18/13):

Holding: Mississippi recognizes right to effective assistance of counsel in postconviction death penalty cases (but finds was harmless here); “Because this Court has recognized that PCR proceedings are a critical stage of the death-penalty appeal process at the state level, today we make clear that PCR petitioners who are under sentence of death have a right to the effective assistance of PCR counsel”; petitioner had alleged that appointed PCR’s counsel large caseload prohibited him from investigating case.
Nava v. State, 2011 WL 1474794 (Mont. 2011):

Holding: Court should have allowed pro se PCR motion to be amended by counsel.
State v. Nash, 2013 WL 216300 (N.J. 2013):

Holding: Where teacher convicted of sex with special education student found “newly discovered evidence” that student had an aide who was with him at all times so teacher could not have been alone with student, which contradicted testimony at trial that student had no aide, this presented an actual innocence claim that should be heard to prevent fundamental miscarriage of justice.
Com. v. Wright, 88 Crim. L. Rep. 684 (Pa. 2/23/11):

Holding: Even though Defendant’s confession had been held to be voluntary at trial, this did not preclude him from seeking postconviction DNA testing; when a court determines whether a confession is voluntary, it is determining an issue of admissibility at trial, not whether the confession is true.
Campbell v. State, 56 A.3d 448 (R.I. 2012):

Holding: Where postconviction counsel files a “no merit” memo, Movant must be given opportunity to respond to it.
McCoy v. State, 92 Crim. L. Rep. 576 (S.C. 2/6/13):

Holding: Postconviction motion alleging jury misconduct should not be judged under “actual innocence” standard typical for such motions, but should be judged under a standard of whether juror intentionally failed to disclose information and whether such information would have been material to exercise of peremptory challenges.
Whitehead v. State, 2013 WL 1163919 (Tenn. 2013):

Holding: Time for filing postconviction motion was tolled where direct appeal appellate counsel abandoned petitioner by incorrectly calculating the deadline for filing, failing to notify him that the U.S. Supreme Court had denied cert in his case, failing to tell him that their attorney-client relationship had ended, and failing to send petitioner his file until after the deadline passed.
Wlodarz v. State, 2012 WL 581210 (Tenn. 2012):

Holding: A guilty plea proceeding is a “trial” within the meaning of a statute providing that a writ of error coram nobis will lie for subsequently or newly discovered evidence relating to matters which were litigated at the trial if the judge determines that such evidence may have resulted in a different judgment had it been presented at trial.
Keough v. State, 90 Crim. L. Rep. 420 (Tenn. 12/9/11):

Holding: Movant seeking postconviction relief is entitled to testify at postconviction hearing without cross-examination under postconviction rule that states that “under no circumstances shall petitioner be required to testify regarding the facts of the conviction … unless necessary to establish the allegations of the petition.” Court notes whether the privilege against self-incrimination applies to a postconviction case remains an open question, but the state rule was designed to accomplish the same goal; the movant should not be dissuaded from testifying due to fear of self-incrimination.
Gressman v. State, 2013 WL 5674557 (Utah 2013):

Holding: Even though postconviction movant died during pendency of his case, where his petition raised actual innocence, it qualified as an action for “personal injury” under Utah’s survival statute, and thus, his case survives his death and his widow can be substituted for him as the movant.
In re Chandler, 67 A.3d 261 (Vt. 2013):

Holding: Even though Defendant is released prior to his postconvcition case being concluded, this does not moot the postconviction case.
State v. Sinclair, 2012 WL 2052785 (Vt. 2012):

Holding: Common law remedy of coram nobis can be used to challenge criminal conviction where there are no other means available, but cannot be used to supplant a direct appeal or PCR petition.
Montgomery v. Com., 751 S.E.2d 692 (Va. 2013):