Search Results for: ineffective assistance counsel

It is hard to imagine a man much more marginalized than Willie Pye, who Georgia plans to execute on Mar. 20. Undeniably, the 1993 murder that landed him on death row was heinous. But as his death march nears, it bears considering whether the converging histories of poverty and abuse that defined his youth, paired [...]

As a criminal defense attorney practicing post-conviction law for nearly twenty years, I’ve watched the Supreme Court whittle away convicted defendants’ right to contest their wrongful state convictions. The most recent example is the Supreme Court’s opinion in Shinn v. Martinez Ramirez, which prevents prisoners from entering federal court to litigate claims that were forfeited [...]

The US Supreme Court Tuesday ruled in a 5-4 decision that federal courts may not order states to transport inmates to find new evidence without first deciding of any resulting evidence would be admissible in court. In 1993 Raymond Twyford was convicted of aggravated murder and sentenced to death by an Ohio jury. Twyford was [...]

The US Supreme Court Monday ruled 6-3 in Shinn v. Ramirez that “a federal habeas court may not conduct an evidentiary hearing or otherwise consider evidence beyond the state-court record based on the ineffective assistance of state postconviction counsel.” In Shinn, two prisoners filed for federal habeas relief under 28 USC §2254. The Sixth Amendment [...]

The US Supreme Court Wednesday heard oral arguments in cases concerning state funding for religious private schools and proceedings for incarcerated people challenging their convictions due to incompetent counsel. In Carson v. Makin, the court will determine whether Maine’s scheme of outsourcing public education to secular private schools by compensating parents for the cost of [...]

As the political conversation in the United States increasingly scrutinizes the problems with policing and the inequities within America’s criminal justice system, many books have been published on the topic. From Michelle Alexander’s The New Jim Crow, to Bryan Stevenson’s Just Mercy, to Ibram X. Kendi’s How to be An Anti-Racist, these books paint a [...]

In a per curiam opinion on Monday, the US Supreme Court ruled that the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit erred in overturning the death sentence of inmate George Kayer, who robbed and murdered his companion on a gambling trip in Laughlin, Nevada, in 1994. Kayer shot Delbert Haas in the head during [...]

The UN Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI) published a report Tuesday that raises concerns over fair trial standards in Iraq Islamic State (IS) prosecution cases. Among chief concerns were allegations of Iraq providing ineffective defense counsel, limiting the defense from challenging evidence, relying upon confessions for conviction and using torture or ill-treatment to procure such [...]

The US Supreme Court heard oral arguments Wednesday in cases concerning the statute of limitations in § 1113(2) of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) and Rule 59(e) of Civil Procedure for a motion to alter or amend a judgment. Intel Corp. Investment Policy Committee v. Sulyma asks the court to determine whether the [...]

The US Supreme Court on Wednesday denied both applications for a stay of execution for Georgia death row in mate Ray Jefferson Cromartie. He was set to be executed by lethal injection at 7:00 PM on Wendesday but was delayed while the applications were considered; he was executed at 10:59 PM. Cromartie consistently maintained his [...]