Habeas Corpus - Habeas Granted in a Summary Order

Summary order today affirming a district court's grant of habeas:

Espinal v. Bennett, 09-0398-pr, August 18, 2009, Calabresi, Parker, Raggi.  Available here.

• Affirming Grant of Habeas
• Issues: Ineffective Assistance of Counsel based on counsel's failure to investigate a police report which corroborated petitioner's claim that he was not at the scene of the crime.  Error prejudiced petitioner since it prevented counsel from discovering a potential alibi witness, whose testimony would have probably changed the outcome of the trial.
• Notes: Second Circuit affirms for substantially the reasons stated in the district court opinion, which is available at:  Espinal v. Bennett, 588 F.Supp.2d 388 (EDNY 2008).
• Other notes: Counsel on the case for petitioner was William E. Hellerstein at Brooklyn Law School (Disclosure: I am an adjunct there, but I have no connection to the case), as well as Marjorie Smith on the brief and Ruth Liebesman, of counsel.

I know, I don't typically mention the attorneys' names, but I had to add a disclosure, so I thought I'd name everybody.  I am considering whether I should start adding attorney names more regularly.  It's public info and it allows readers to track down the attorney if they have any questions.  On the flip side, I am not sure whether all attorneys would want their name splashed on the internet for this reason.  I am going to think about it some more.