Last Friday, I joked that last week could have been the best habeas week ever, at least in the Second Circuit.
I wanted to briefly revisit what happened last week, just to show how crazy it all was.
If you haven't heard by now, last Wednesday, after almost two years of working on its decision, the Second Circuit concluded in Besser v. Walsh that the New York State Persistent Felony Offender statute was unconstitutional under Blakely (and Cunningham, as well). (DISCLOSURE/DISCLAIMER: I am one of the attorneys in the case].
That was huge.
Then, on Friday, the Second Circuit affirmed the district court's habeas grant in one of the craziest habeas cases of all time, Racky Ramchair v. Conway.
So two big habeas cases in one week. Great stuff.
But there are some things that made it that much better. Obviously, Besser is big news just on its own. It's not every day that the Second Circuit will conclude that a state statute is unconstitutional, particularly on habeas review. But Besser was the culmination of almost 10 years of challenges to the statute beginning soon after Apprendi was decided in 2000.
And then comes Ramchair two days later, which also was the culmination of years and years of post-conviction litigation, bouncing back and forth from federal to state court.
One critical aspect of Ramchair is that the New York State Court of Appeals rejected the constitutional claim (IAAC) in a published opinion.
This means that, in the span of three days, the Second Circuit issued opinions that concluded that the New York State Court of Appeals had issued unreasonable -- not just wrong, but unreasonable -- decisions in two criminal cases.
That is a big deal.
And then there are the judges that wrote the opinions. In my prior post, I had mentioned that Sack was on both panels. But I had overlooked the fact that so was Winter.
Winter wrote Besser and
joined in Ramchair.
Sack wrote Ramchair and joined in Besser.
A lot of habeas work from two judges. That's also a bit crazy.
So, there certainly are reasons to conclude that it was the best habeas week ever in the Second Circuit.
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