On Point: B. Opinions

Hemphill v. New York,  USSC No. 20-637, 142 S.Ct. 681, 1/20/22 reversing and remanding People v. Hemphill, 150 N.E.3d 356; Scotusblog page (including links to briefs and commentary)

New York charged Hemphill with a homicide; a stray 9mm bullet fired after a fight in the street had killed a child. Hemphill’s defense was that another man, Morris, had fired the shot. Police had searched Morris’s room and found both 9mm and .357-magnum ammunition, and the state had, in fact, originally charged Morris with the murder. Hemphill was able to introduce evidence of Morris’s possession of the 9mm ammo by cross-examination of a state’s witness. In response the state sought to introduce portions of a transcript of Morris’s ultimate plea–in which he admitted to possessing a .357 revolver, rather than the 9mm pistol that had killed the child. Morris was out of the country and thus not available for cross-examination, but the New York courts ruled the transcripts were admissible under state law allowing such evidence where it is “reasonably necessary” to “correct” a “misleading impression.” The Supreme Court reverses, declaring in an 8-1 decision that “Hemphill did not forfeit his confrontation right merely by making the plea allocution arguably relevant to his theory of defense.” (Slip op. at 2).

Shoop v. Twyford, USSC No. 21-511, cert granted 1/14/22; SCOTUSblog page (containing links to briefs and commentary)

Questions  presented:

1.  28 U.S.C. §2241(c) allows federal courts to issue a writ of habeas corpus ordering the transportation of a state prisoner only when necessary to bring the inmate into court to testify or for trial. May federal courts evade this prohibition by using the All Writs Act to order the transportation of state prisoners for reasons not enumerated in §2241(c)?

2.  Before a court grants an order allowing a habeas petitioner to develop new evidence, must it determine whether the evidence could aid the petitioner in proving his entitlement to habeas relief and whether the evidence may permissibly be considered by a habeas court?

We have a new development to report.  Recall that in 2015, Federal Defender Shelley Fite wrote an excellent guest post about a 7th Circuit decision, Pidgeon v. Smith, 785 F.3d 1165 (2015).  The 7th Circuit held that Machner‘s requirement–that a defendant claiming ineffective assistance of counsel must present his lawyer’s testimony at an evidentiary hearing–is just a Wisconsin rule. “[A]n ineffective assistance claim is a claim under the United States Constitution” and “[n]othing in Strickland or its progeny requires prisoners seeking to prove ineffective assistance to call the challenged counsel as a witness.”

Lange v. California, USSC No. 20-18, 141 S.Ct. 2011, 6/23/21, vacating People v. Lange

Lange was playing loud music with his car windows down and honking his horn when he happened past a California highway patrol officer. The officer turned on his lights to pull Lange over, but Lange was close to home: he continued 100 feet and pulled into his garage. The officer entered the garage and ultimately arrested Lange for misdemeanor drunk driving. The California Court of Appeal held that “hot pursuit” is always an exigency: that is, it excuses an officer from needing a warrant to enter the home, even when the officer is pursuing someone suspected of a misdemeanor. This is the position our state supreme court has adopted as well. State v. Ferguson, 2009 WI 50, ¶¶20-30, 317 Wis. 2d 586, 767 N.W.2d 187. The Supreme Court now rejects this per se rule, holding that the usual “totality of the circumstances” test must govern whether warrantless intrusion of the home is justified.

Greer v. United States, USSC No. 19-8709, together with United States v. Gary, USSC No. 20-444, June 14. 2021; Scotusblog pages for Greer and Gary (including links to briefs and commentary)

These two federal felon-in-possession defendants were convicted before Rehaif v. United States, 588 U.S. ___ (2019), which held that, under 18 U.S.C. § 922(g), the government must prove that the defendant knew he was a felon at the time he possessed a firearm. Thus, they seek relief from their convictions under the onerous plain-error standard. The Court holds they have met their burden.

United States v. Cooley, USSC No. 19-1414, 141 S.Ct. 1638 (June 1, 2021), vacating and remanding 919 F.3d 1135 (9th Cir. 2019); Scotusblog page (including links to briefs and commentary)

A unanimous Court holds that tribal police officers have the power to search and temporarily detain non-Indians suspected of breaking federal or state laws within reservations.

United States v. Cooley, USSC No. 19-1414, 2021 WL 2194835, 6/1/21, vacating 919 F.3d 1135 (9th Cir. 2019)

Cooley’s truck, parked on the side of a US highway running through the Crow Reservation in Montana, attracted the attention of a Crow Police Department officer. The officer said that when he approached the truck, he found Cooley “appeared to be non-native” and showed signs of intoxication; he also had two semiautomatic rifles on his front seat. The officer eventually ordered Cooley out of the truck and patted him down; eventually he would discover methamphetamine and paraphernalia in the vehicle.

United States v. Palomar-Santiago, USSC No. 20-437, May 24, 2021, reversing  and remanding 813 Fed. Appx. 282 (9th Cir. 2020); Scotusblog page (including links to briefs and commentary)

Under 8 U.S.C. §1326(d), a person removed from the U.S. for a criminal conviction and then charged with illegally reentering the country may collaterally attack the removal order if he or she meets three criteria: (1) the person any exhausted administrative remedies available to challenged the order;

Edwards v. Vannoy, USSC No. 19-5807, 141 S.Ct. 1547 (May 17, 2021), affirming 2019 WL 8643258 (5th Cir. May 20, 2019) (denying certificate of appealability); Scotusblog page (including links to briefs and commentary)

This decision alters the long-standing doctrine for deciding whether new rules of criminal procedure established by a decision of the Supreme Court apply retroactively to cases that are final and, therefore, require the defendant to seek collateral review of his or her conviction. The result is that new rules of criminal procedure will no more forever apply retroactively to cases on collateral review.

Caniglia v. Strom, USSC No. 20-157, 2021 WL 1951784 , May 17, 2021; Scotusblog page (including links to briefs and commentary)

In four quick pages, a unanimous Supreme Court rejects the notion that the police have a “caretaking” duty that “creates a standalone doctrine that justifies warrantless searches and seizures in the home.” This undoes a lot of law, in Wisconsin and elsewhere; at a minimum we can say that State v. Pinkard, 2010 WI 81, 327 Wis. 2d 346, 785 N.W.2d 592 and State v. Matalonis, 2016 WI 7, 366 Wis. 2d 443, 875 N.W.2d 567, both of which permitted entries to residences on “community caretaker” grounds, are no longer valid. But the brevity of the decision leaves a lot of questions unanswered; and its unanimity (as the concurrences show) obscures real disagreement about just what the Court has decided.