While preparing the Weekly Review, I came across what should be the final decision in the Ramchair case. Since I love the case so much, I wanted to give it its own post.
When we left off on the Ramchair case, the final chapter had been written -- the Second Circuit had affirmed the DJ's conditional grant of habeas corpus on the grounds of ineffective assistance of appellate counsel. A conditional grant is where the court says something like the State must release petitioner if it does not retry him within 60 days.
What happens, though, if the State doesn't actually retry the petitioner in the time period set forth in the conditional grant? For Ramchair, it means that the conditional grant gets converted to an unconditional grant and the State is barred from retrying him. The decision is located at 2010 WL 2869503.
Follow me below the fold for "Epilogue - Now It's Over" . . .
Epilogue - Now It's Over
The effect of the Second Circuit's affirmance of the DJ's grant of habeas corpus was that the remedy was reinstated. That meant that the State had 45 days to declare that they were going to retry Ramchair or else release him.
However, the State took 81 days to take any action. The State did not ask for an extension of the 45 day deadline and no reason was offered for missing it. The DJ then issued an order to show cause why Ramchair should not be retried.
After the State submitted papers, the DJ concluded that the State is barred from retrying Ramchair because the State's delay was "inexcusable, and the circumstances are sufficiently extraordinary to justify an order prohibiting reprosecution."
The DJ began his analysis with a review of the conditional writ. I like it, so I am going to post the whole paragraph here:
Conditional writs of habeas corpus were apparently a twentieth-century innovation. Originally, the only form of ultimate relief on a habeas corpus petition was unconditional discharge. See In re Medley, 134 U.S. 160, 173 . . . (1890) (“under the writ of habeas corpus we cannot do anything else than discharge the prisoner from the wrongful confinement”). The Supreme Court later recognized that a federal district court has “broad discretion in conditioning a judgment granting habeas relief,” and “may delay the release of a successful habeas petitioner in order to provide the State an opportunity to correct the constitutional violation found by the court.” See Hilton v. Braunskill, 481 U.S. 770, 775 . . . (1987). The development of this remedial flexibility provides a major benefit to state prosecutors, who can continue detaining the successful petitioner even after his conviction has been found constitutionally invalid. In exchange for this benefit, it is reasonable to expect the State to comply with the conditions set forth in a conditional writ. As a leading treatise on habeas corpus puts it, “[t]he ‘retry or release’ form of the typical conditional release order and the history of such orders as affording a limited and time-constrained alternative to immediate release may justify an order forbidding reprosecution ... if the state inexcusably ... fails to act within the prescribed time period.” 2 Randy Hertz & James Liebman, Federal Habeas Corpus Practice and Procedure § 33.3.
The DJ then goes through the extraordinary facts of the Ramchair case and why, under the facts, a bar on retrial is necessary. You can see these prior posts to see just how extraordinary. But essentially -- the case has had remarkable twists and turns through the state and federal system for 13 years, all the while Ramchair sat in prison as a result of an unfair trial.
The State gave two reasons for the delay. First, it stated that it spent some of the 45 days attempting "to re-establish contact with the complaining witness." The DJ writes this reason off as absurd, saying that it shouldn't take 45 days to do that. And, in any event, the State did not even explain what efforts they had made.
The DJ believes that the real delay was a result of the State's second proffered reason -- whether or not to file a cert. petition. The DJ points out that the State made the decision not to seek cert. on June 21 and then declared on June 22 that it was going to retry Ramchair. As a result, the DJ says that the reason "rings hollow." The DJ says that a cert. petition would not have relieved the State of complying with the conditional writ. He points out that the most prudent thing for the State to have done was make the decision on the cert. petition expeditiously and then seek a stay of the Second Circuit's mandate. But that was clearly not an option now.
Overall, the DJ summed it up like this: "where the person it wishes to retry has already served the bulk of the 10 to 20 year sentence imposed as a result of a defective conviction and there is no good reason for failing to comply with (or seek relief from) the deadline-accountability is appropriate."
And the accountability moment is this: conditional writ becomes unconditional writ "and the State may neither reprosecute Ramchair nor continue to detain him pursuant to the invalid conviction."
THE END.*
*I guess the State could potentially appeal this order. But if I had to guess, I'd say the State will let this one go.
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