Missouri man is going to trial for dealing meth when he tries to fire his (second) lawyer and defend himself pro se. District court: That's "not a very good decision." Even if you were a lawyer, "pro se is a bad decision." Defendant: Whatever. Court: OK, fine. Defendant is then convicted, receiving 25 years in the slammer. Defendant: Insufficient warning to constitute valid waiver. Gov't: Word.
The Utah Supreme Court unanimously ruled Thursday that "serious" constitutional violations during the jury trial and resentencing for death row inmate Douglas Stewart Carter merit a new trial. See The Salt Lake Tribune article.
Carter, 69, was convicted in 1985 and has spent almost 40 years on death row. Now, he will get another trial.
Yesterday, the Supreme Court granted certiorari in Fernandez v. United States, No. 24-556 (May 27, 2025) (cert. granted), to decide “whether a combination of ‘extraordinary and compelling reasons’ that may warrant a discretionary sentence reduction under 18 U.S.C. § 3582(c)(1)(a) can include reasons that may also be alleged as grounds for vacatur of a sentence under 28 U.S.C. § 2255.”
A Schrödinger’s motion that has vexed habeas practitioners: How long must a case gather dust in state court before I can seek federal habeas? Well, an Indiana man convicted of murder files a petition for post-conviction relief in state court, which proceeds to do absolutely nothing with the case for six years. Yikes! Indiana: Apologize for case languishing? No. It was the man's fault! And it was the pandemic! And it was a complicated case!
Today, commonsense won the argument in Parrish v. United States, No. 24-275 (June 12, 2025), holding that a civil litigant who files a notice of appeal after the original appeal deadline but before the court grants reopening need not file a second notice after reopening. The original notice relates forward to the date reopening is granted.
Since AEDPA was passed in 1996, it’s become harder and harder for habeas petitioners to win even the most glaring of constitutional violations. See Stephen R. Reinhardt, The Demise of Habeas Corpus and the Rise of Qualified Immunity: The Court's Ever Increasing Limitations on the Development and Enforcement of Constitutional Rights and Some Particularly Unfortunate Consequences, 113 Mich. L. Rev. 1219 (2015), available at: https://repository.law.umich.edu/mlr/vol113/iss7/3.
Today, the Supreme Court by a 5 to 4 vote held that District Courts may apply more lenient law at First Step Act re-sentencings. Hewitt v. United States, No. 23-1002 (June 26, 2025) (opinion).
Dentist writes two hefty morphine scripts after an eight-hour dental procedure; the patient tragically ODs and her blood test comes back triple the fatal amount. The jury finds that the dentist knowingly issued an illegal prescription; he's convicted and gets a 20-year sentence. Dentist appeals, arguing that the jury wrongfully heard testimony—over the defense’s objection—about an earlier forged-prescription and a profanity-laced firing.
Buckle up for a Fourth Circuit judge-on-judge benchslap! It stems from a man's guilty plea for robbing a gas station and the appellate waiver in his plea agreement waiving his right to appeal the sentence.
In Egbert v. Boule, No. 21-147, the Court held that the authority of a court to imply a cause of action under Bivens does not extend to Robert Boule’s Fourth Amendment excessive-force claim or his First Amendment retaliation claim.