Review of Federal Criminal Cases


Court drops a bombshell in Martinez v. Ryan

Tuesday, March 20, 2012 No Comments by Nancy King

In a 7:2 decision today, the Court in Martinez v. Ryan held that ineffective assistance of counsel during state post conviction proceedings can be cause for excusing procedural default of a claim of ineffective assistance of counsel at trial.

The Court originally agreed to consider whether a prisoner who claims that he was denied the effective assistance of counsel at trial has a constitutional right to an effective attorney in “collateral” (post-appeal) proceedings in state court in
order to raise that claim for the first time.  But today it didn’t answer that question.   Rather than addressing the constitutional question about the scope of the right to counsel, it answered an “equitable” question about the scope of federal habeas corpus review. Read more »

Barring use of 2241 for sentencing challenge not suspension, 11th Circuit holds

Thursday, May 19, 2011 8 Comments by Nancy King

Today in Gilbert v. United States the Eleventh Circuit in a divided en banc decision held that a federal prisoner who had previously filed an application for relief under Section 2255 could not use the “savings clause” to raise in a later habeas petition under Section 2241 his claim that he was erroneously sentenced as a career offender.    The majority opinion by Judge Carnes reasoned that the petitioner was not claiming that he had been convicted for conduct that did not constitute a crime, as in other savings clause cases.  The majority also noted that the case did not involve a sentence beyond the statutory maximum for the offense. Relying on Felker v. Turpin, the court also disagreed with the dissenting judges’ argument that interpreting the statute to prohibit habeas review in this situation violates the Suspension Clause. Read more »