U.S. Supreme Court – Page 26 – Marquette University Law School Faculty Blog

Habeas Roundup: SCOTUS (Slightly) Eases Petitioners’ Paths

Post author:Michael M. O'Hear
Post published:June 2, 2013
Post category:Criminal Law & Process Public U.S. Supreme Court

The U.S. Supreme Court has issued a flurry of habeas corpus decisions in the past two weeks. The habeas petitioner won in two of the cases and lost in the third. There are no blockbusters in the group, but habeas fans may find hope in two of the decisions that long-awaited breakthroughs may be in the works.

One that will be welcomed by habeas fans is McQuiggin v. Perkins (No. 12-126). Perkins was convicted of murder in state court, with the judgment becoming final in 1997. More than eleven years later, Perkins filed a federal habeas corpus petition, alleging that he received unreasonably poor representation by his trial counsel. The petition plainly violated the one-year statute of limitations for habeas petitions, but Perkins sought to get around the statute by presenting evidence that he was actually innocent of the crime of which he was convicted. The Supreme Court has long recognized that actual innocence is an exception to the procedural default rule, which normally bars federal courts from considering habeas claims that were not timely raised in state court. Perkins argued that there should also be an actual-innocence exception to the statute of limitations, and the Supreme Court agreed in a 5-4 decision.

Does this new exception threaten to eviscerate the statute of limitations?

The Eighth Amendment and Life Without Parole for Adults

Post author:Michael M. O'Hear
Post published:May 23, 2013
Post category:Criminal Law & Process Legal Scholarship Public U.S. Supreme Court

My new article, “Not Just Kid Stuff? Extending Graham and Miller to Adults,” is now available on SSRN. Here’s the abstract:

The United States Supreme Court has recently recognized new constitutional limitations on the use of life-without-parole (LWOP) sentences for juvenile offenders, but has not clearly indicated whether analogous limitations apply to the sentencing of adults. However, the Court’s treatment of LWOP as a qualitatively different and intrinsically more troubling punishment than any other sentence of incarceration does provide a plausible basis for adults to challenge their LWOP sentences, particularly when they have been imposed for nonviolent offenses or on a mandatory basis. At the same time, the Court’s Eighth Amendment reasoning suggests some reluctance to overturn sentencing practices that are in widespread use or otherwise seem to reflect deliberate, majoritarian decisionmaking. This Essay thus suggests a balancing test of sorts that may help to account for the Court’s varied Eighth Amendment decisions in noncapital cases since 1991. The Essay concludes by considering how this balancing approach might apply to the mandatory LWOP sentence established by 21 U.S.C. §841(b)(1)(A) for repeat drug offenders.

The article will appear in print in a forthcoming symposium issue of the Missouri Law Review devoted to the Supreme Court’s year-old decision in Miller v. Alabama.

SCOTUS Weighs in on Forced Blood Draws in DUI Cases

Post author:Mary Wagner
Post published:April 17, 2013
Post category:Criminal Law & Process Public U.S. Supreme Court Wisconsin Criminal Law & Process

In the wake of today’s decision by the U.S. Supreme Court in Missouri v. McNeely, DUI defense attorneys across the land are doing the “happy dance.” Prosecutors (both state and federal) on the other hand are rending their garments and hair trying to figure out how to deal with the high court’s ruling that forced blood draws in most DUI cases will now require warrants, and the flood of “refusals” sure to follow as the implications of the case filter out to the public.

Wisconsin’s approach, first established in 1993 in State v. Bohling and then reinforced in 2004 in State v. Faust had been to allow warrantless blood draws in drunk driving cases after several criteria were met, including the presence of probable cause for the officer to believe the driver under investigation had indeed been driving under the influence of alcohol. The key factor that drove the Wisconsin interpretation was the fact that the blood alcohol level of a drunk driving suspect is continually shifting and dissipating from the time the driver is apprehended, and the extra time it takes to procure a warrant incontrovertibly causes BAC evidence to be lost.

Wisconsin’s rationale had recently served as a kind of dividing line in the national debate about warrantless blood draws.