Second Circuit finally decided the longest pending sub judice habeas case (at least among the ones that I know about).
And this one is a habeas grant, not just a habeas win (see this post for an explanation about the difference between the two).
First, here are the details:
- Reversing Denial of Habeas; Ordering Lower Court to Grant Habeas
- Argued: 9/8/10; Decided: 5/4/11
- Panel: Livingston, Lynch, CJJ, Sessions, DJ
- Opinion by Lynch; Dissent by Livinston
- Lower Court Info: 08-CV-4850 (EDNY June 10, 2009) (CPS)
- In Circuit: Circuit Court COA
- Issues: whether admission of petitioner's videotaped statement to police taken in violation of his Fifth Amendment rights to counsel and to remain silent was harmless error
ANALYSIS: This was a first-degree murder case where petitioner's statement was admitted against him in violation of his Fifth Amendment rights. In fact, every court, including now the Second Circuit, has agreed that there was a constitutional violation here.
After deciding that there was constitutional error, the Second Circuit turns to harmless error. The court settles a question that, in my mind, had already been settled. The court states that harmless error in habeas review solely looks to the Brecht substantial and injurious effect standard.
The harmless error analysis is, obviously, fact-intensive. I won't go into too much of it here. But, as I have stated before, it's clear that Lynch loves to write and he uses some great language here. In describing one of the prosecution's witnesses, he says that this guy was the "archetypal miscreant." Nice.
The close of the opinion also caught my attention. The court orders the following relief: "For the foregoing reasons, we hereby REVERSE the district court’s denial of Wood’s petition, and REMAND back to the district court with instructions to grant the writ unless the State provides a new trial within a reasonable period." Lynch then adds the following footnote:
Although some of our cases have spoken of vacating the state conviction upon granting habeas, see, e.g., Zappulla, 391 F.3d at 464, 475; Ramirez v. Jones, 683 F.2d 712, 718 (2d Cir. 1982), this Court only has the power to act on the body of the prisoner, not on the conviction itself, see Fay v. Noia, 372 U.S. 391, 430-31 (1963) (“Habeas lies to enforce the right of personal liberty; when that right is denied and a person confined, the federal court has the power to release him. Indeed, it has no other power; it cannot revise the state court judgment; it can act only on the body of the petitioner.”), overruled on other grounds by Wainwright v. Sykes, 433 U.S. 72 (1977); Gentry v. Deuth, 456 F.3d 687, 697 (6th Cir. 2006); Wilson v. Lawrence County, Mo., 154 F.3d 757, 761 (8th Cir. 1998); 39A C.J.S. Habeas Corpus § 387 (“A federal writ of habeas corpus binds state courts, insofar as it mandates a state prisoner’s release from custody, but it does not vacate the judgment of conviction . . . .”).
I am not exactly sure what to make of the footnote. Technically, I guess it's true. But I am not sure I see the point. Let's assume that the federal court can't directly vacate the conviction. But a conditional release grant is going to invariably result in the conviction getting vacated. When a grant of habeas gets conditioned upon whether the State seeks a new trial, then the conviction gets vacated when the State pursues its option to seek a new trial. So it's all happening indirectly. Which means that, if the federal court goes one step further than it should and says that the conviction is vacated, it doesn't really matter in the end.* So I am not sure if the footnote was worth the time.
*The only time it will matter will be if the State chooses to leave the conviction in place and simply agrees to release petitioner. But I'd estimate that that's going to happen in only .0001% of cases. If my numbers are even remotely correct, then the footnote really wasn't worth it.
This is now the second Second Circuit opinion granting habeas that Lynch has written in his short time as a circuit judge. That's a good start.
In dissent, Livingston says that the error was harmless since the evidence against petitioner was "very strong" and the majority failed to consider the evidence as a whole.
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