Just a few quick items today.
First, I read a really interesting discussion from earlier this week over at Prawfsblag called "Bifurcating Habeas" about how "habeas corpus" has become splintered, at least for teaching purposes, into two separate areas: (i) review of executive detention, which would be taught in constitutional law or federalism-type courses; and (ii) review of criminal convictions, which would be taught in criminal procedure type courses. Obviously, that split is seen in full effect on this blog, as I have only written a single post about executive detention (I believe it was during the first week of the blog). That's because the day to day experience of review of executive detention is not relevant to 2254. In fact, this blog slices up habeas even more by excluding 2255 -- federal review of federal criminal judgments. As I have stated before, in most ways, 2255 is not really even "habeas corpus" review and much of it is not relevant to 2254 cases. In any event, it's an interesting discussion and that refers to the comments as well.
Second, as a result of the Supreme Court denying cert. to a habeas petitioner who lost his petition before the Ninth Circuit, Idaho has set a date for the first execution to be carried out in that State since 1994.
Finally, on Tuesday, the New York Court of Appeals affirmed the conviction of Christopher Porco, who was convicted of killing his father and dismembering his mother with an ax. At the time of his murder, his father was the law clerk for the presiding justice of the Third Department. Porco had argued that there was a Crawford violation when the prosecution was allowed to submit evidence that his mother nodded affirmatively to an officer when asked at "her bedside" whether her son was responsible. The court concluded that, even if there was a constitutional violation, the error was harmless. Mr. Porco's attorney has stated that, if the Supreme Court denies cert., he will be filing a habeas corpus petition in federal court. So I guess I could be writing more about this case someday. A news report about the case is available here.
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