{"id":13693,"date":"2011-06-16T09:32:21","date_gmt":"2011-06-16T14:32:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/?p=13693"},"modified":"2011-06-16T09:32:21","modified_gmt":"2011-06-16T14:32:21","slug":"%e2%80%9ci-don%e2%80%99t-have-to-take-any-time-for-this%e2%80%9d","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/2011\/06\/%e2%80%9ci-don%e2%80%99t-have-to-take-any-time-for-this%e2%80%9d\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cI Don\u2019t Have to Take Any Time for This\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Supreme Court will once again address alleged\u00a0Brady <\/em>violations by the New Orleans District Attorney\u2019s Office.\u00a0 Earlier this week, the Court granted certiorari in\u00a0Smith v. Cain<\/em> (No. 10-8145), in which Smith alleges that the prosecutor suppressed a veritable\u00a0boatload of exculpatory evidence in his murder trial.\u00a0 I\u2019ve only read the cert. petition, which obviously has a partisan slant, but on the face of things it appears there was some pretty egregious police and prosecutor misconduct.\u00a0 And, of course, there is a well-documented history of\u00a0Brady <\/em>violations in the DA\u2019s office in New Orleans, including in the Supreme Court\u2019s\u00a0 earlier case\u00a0of Kyles v. Whitley<\/em>, 514 U.S. 419 (1995).\u00a0 Earlier this very term, the Court again dealt with discovery issues\u00a0in the Big Easy in\u00a0Connick v. Thompson<\/a><\/em>, declining to find civil liability for what even the state conceded were violations of\u00a0Brady<\/em>.\u00a0 Indeed, according to the cert. petition, the very assistant district attorney who prosecuted Smith later had his law license suspended for a\u00a0Brady <\/em>violation in another case.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m a little surprised the Court took\u00a0Smith<\/em>, both because it has not been through federal habeas (it\u2019s coming directly up from the state court system) and because it\u2019s basically an \u201cerror-correction\u201d case \u2014 at least as framed by the cert. petition, the case does not really\u00a0present any\u00a0questions of law, but will instead require the justices to roll up their sleeves and sort through a rather complex evidentiary record to produce a case-specific, fact-intensive ruling.\u00a0 On the other hand, for reasons that are not clear to me, this seems to be precisely the way that the Court has engaged with\u00a0Brady <\/em>ever since\u00a0United States v. Bagley <\/em>in 1985.\u00a0\u00a0See, e.g., Kyles<\/em>;\u00a0Cone v. Bell<\/em>, 129 S. Ct. 1769 (2009).<\/p>\n

In some ways, I\u2019m more interested to hear what the Court has to say about a collateral procedural issue\u00a0 in\u00a0Smith<\/em> that received relatively brief treatment in the petition, but that is also expressly encompassed by the cert. grant.\u00a0 Smith claims that the Louisiana courts violated his due process rights by rejecting all of his\u00a0Brady-<\/em>type claims without finding any facts or providing any explanation.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

At the conclusion of a four-day evidentiary hearing on Smith\u2019s claims of discovery abuse, here is what the trial judge said:<\/p>\n

I\u2019m ready to rule in the case.\u00a0 I don\u2019t have to take any time for this.\u00a0 I have been listening to this for quite a while.\u00a0 I am denying post-conviction relief.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Wow.\u00a0 That\u2019s all you get for a ruling in a serious criminal case after presenting\u00a0testimony by\u00a0six\u00a0witnesses in support of\u00a0allegations of multiple constitutional violations \u2014 violations that go to core questions of guilt or innocence?<\/p>\n

This aspect of\u00a0Smith <\/em>reminds me of my work on sentence explanation.\u00a0 I\u2019ve argued (e.g., here<\/a>) that appellate courts ought to demand more analytical rigor than they do from sentencing judges.\u00a0 Although it is not a sentencing case, I\u2019d be happy to see the Court use\u00a0Smith <\/em>as an opportunity to begin to articulate some minimal due process requirements for judicial explanation, at least when it comes to potentially decisive, credibly supported claims by criminal defendants.<\/p>\n

Cross posted at Life Sentences Blog.<\/a><\/p>\n

For my posts on other cert. grants this week, see here <\/a>and here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Supreme Court will once again address alleged\u00a0Brady violations by the New Orleans District Attorney\u2019s Office.\u00a0 Earlier this week, the Court granted certiorari in\u00a0Smith v. Cain (No. 10-8145), in which Smith alleges that the prosecutor suppressed a veritable\u00a0boatload of exculpatory evidence in his murder trial.\u00a0 I\u2019ve only read the cert. petition, which obviously has a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ocean_post_layout":"","ocean_both_sidebars_style":"","ocean_both_sidebars_content_width":0,"ocean_both_sidebars_sidebars_width":0,"ocean_sidebar":"","ocean_second_sidebar":"","ocean_disable_margins":"enable","ocean_add_body_class":"","ocean_shortcode_before_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_after_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_before_header":"","ocean_shortcode_after_header":"","ocean_has_shortcode":"","ocean_shortcode_after_title":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_bottom":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_bottom":"","ocean_display_top_bar":"default","ocean_display_header":"default","ocean_header_style":"","ocean_center_header_left_menu":"","ocean_custom_header_template":"","ocean_custom_logo":0,"ocean_custom_retina_logo":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_height":0,"ocean_header_custom_menu":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_family":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_subset":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_size":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_unit":"px","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_line_height":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_unit":"","ocean_menu_typo_spacing":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_unit":"","ocean_menu_link_color":"","ocean_menu_link_color_hover":"","ocean_menu_link_color_active":"","ocean_menu_link_background":"","ocean_menu_link_hover_background":"","ocean_menu_link_active_background":"","ocean_menu_social_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_links_color":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_color":"","ocean_disable_title":"default","ocean_disable_heading":"default","ocean_post_title":"","ocean_post_subheading":"","ocean_post_title_style":"","ocean_post_title_background_color":"","ocean_post_title_background":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_image_position":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_attachment":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_repeat":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_size":"","ocean_post_title_height":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay":0.5,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay_color":"","ocean_disable_breadcrumbs":"default","ocean_breadcrumbs_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_separator_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_hover_color":"","ocean_display_footer_widgets":"default","ocean_display_footer_bottom":"default","ocean_custom_footer_template":"","ocean_post_oembed":"","ocean_post_self_hosted_media":"","ocean_post_video_embed":"","ocean_link_format":"","ocean_link_format_target":"self","ocean_quote_format":"","ocean_quote_format_link":"post","ocean_gallery_link_images":"on","ocean_gallery_id":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[30,68,24],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13693","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-criminal-justice","category-judges-judicial-process","category-us-supreme-court","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13693","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13693"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13693\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13693"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13693"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13693"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}