{"id":13846,"date":"2011-06-28T16:35:25","date_gmt":"2011-06-28T21:35:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/?p=13846"},"modified":"2011-06-28T16:38:06","modified_gmt":"2011-06-28T21:38:06","slug":"scotus-takes-another-case-on-right-to-counsel-in-collateral-proceedings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/2011\/06\/scotus-takes-another-case-on-right-to-counsel-in-collateral-proceedings\/","title":{"rendered":"SCOTUS Takes Another Case on Right to Counsel in Collateral Proceedings"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

For the second time this month, the Court has granted certiorari in a case dealing with the right to counsel in collateral proceedings.\u00a0 The first case, Martinez v. Ryan <\/em>(see my post here<\/a>), concerns\u00a0a potential\u00a0constitutional right to counsel in a collateral proceeding in state court.\u00a0 The new case, Martel v. Clair<\/em>\u00a0(No. 10-1265), deals with\u00a0a potential\u00a0statutory right to counsel in a\u00a0federal habeas case.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s what happened.\u00a0 Convicted of murder and sentenced to death in state court, Clair filed a federal habeas petition.\u00a0 After discovery and\u00a0an evidentiary hearing, Clair complained to the district\u00a0court regarding the quality of his appointed federal public defender.\u00a0 It seems that Clair and his lawyer then patched up their relationship, but a couple months later Clair again wrote to the district\u00a0court and asked for the\u00a0appointment of substitute counsel to pursue new leads supporting an innocence claim.\u00a0 The district\u00a0court denied the request in a brief order and, on the same day,\u00a0denied all of the claims in the underlying petition.\u00a0 On appeal, the Ninth Circuit then vacated the judgment below on the ground that the district court had abused its discretion by failing to conduct further inquiry into Clair\u2019s complaints about his public defender.\u00a0 The Supreme Court granted the state\u2019s petition for certiorari yesterday.<\/p>\n

At one level, the Ninth Circuit\u2019s decision seems a very modest one that hardly warrants Supreme Court review.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

After all, the Ninth Circuit has not spoken to the merits of the habeas petition or even found that Clair\u2019s request for new counsel should have been granted.\u00a0 In a sense, its ruling could be\u00a0seen as purely and narrowly procedural: a district court must conduct some kind of inquiry into a claim that habeas counsel is failing to pursue potentially significant new leads, rather than summarily rejecting such claims.<\/p>\n

But the state sees much more at stake in Martel<\/em> than simply a procedural requirement\u00a0that habeas courts\u00a0look into complaints about counsel, and I suspect the cert. grant is an indication that\u00a0some of the justices\u00a0share the state\u2019s concerns.<\/p>\n

As the state sees it, the Ninth Circuit\u2019s ruling is necessarily bottomed on a statutory\u00a0right to \u201cmeaningful assistance\u201d under 18 U.S.C. \u00a7 3006A(c) (providing for appointment of counsel for indigents) and\/or 18 U.S.C. \u00a7 3599(a) (providing for appointment of counsel for capital petitioners in habeas cases).\u00a0 The state is concerned that such a right would routinely spawn fresh rounds of post-conviction litigation, especially in capital cases, where defendants have a strong incentive\u00a0to delay execution of their sentences.\u00a0 The concerns are exacerbated by the fact that the Ninth Circuit made no finding that Clair was prejudiced by the failure to grant his request for new counsel.\u00a0 The state sees in this a possibility that the statutory right to \u201cmeaningful assistance\u201d is more generous than the constitutional right to \u201ceffective assistance\u201d (which normally requires a demonstration of prejudice before relief is granted).\u00a0 Finally, the state is concerned that \u201cfailure-to-inquire\u201d remands, as in Martel<\/em>, create an opportunity for petitioners to add new\u00a0claims in circumvention of the stringent limitations that normally apply to second or successive habeas petitions.<\/p>\n

It seems to me that the statutory authorization\u00a0for appointment of counsel must necessarily contemplate some minimal level of competence, and that the court appointing counsel has a duty to look into facially credible assertions that counsel is failing to perform at the required level.\u00a0 Still, it does strike me as odd that the Ninth Circuit would grant relief without regard to prejudice.<\/p>\n

Cross posted at Life Sentence Blog.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For the second time this month, the Court has granted certiorari in a case dealing with the right to counsel in collateral proceedings.\u00a0 The first case, Martinez v. Ryan (see my post here), concerns\u00a0a potential\u00a0constitutional right to counsel in a collateral proceeding in state court.\u00a0 The new case, Martel v. Clair\u00a0(No. 10-1265), deals with\u00a0a potential\u00a0statutory […]<\/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":[30,24],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13846","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-criminal-justice","category-us-supreme-court","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13846","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=13846"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13846\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13846"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13846"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13846"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}