S. Ct. case points out Catch 22 of habeas
The Supreme Court recently decided a case which points out the Catch 22 faced by defendants trying to obtain relief through habeas corpus. The case is Wellons v. Hall. Like any good case it has great facts - which of course involve sex. The defendant wanted to explore contacts between the jurors and the judge and bailiff during trial. Apparently the jurors gave the judge a chocolate penis and the bailiff chocolote breasts. They also planned a reunion after trial with the bailff (maybe to make use of the gifts?) Natuarlly, this caused concern for Mr. Wellons and his lawyers.
Mr. Wellons attempted to find out exactly what happened, and got caught up in what the Supreme Court described as a "procedural morass". He tried to raise the claim on direct appeal but it was rejected because there was no record of what happened - fair enough. He then filed a habeas petition and tried to develop the evidence. The court rejected the petition, holding it had already been decided on appeal. Not to be deterred, he sought relief in federal court, and requested an discovery and an evidentiary hearing. He was again denied, the court finding his claim was procedurally barred.
So in the end, Mr. Wellons was denied relief without the court ever actually addressing the evidence. You might find that strange - unless you are familiar with how courts handle habeas claims. Unfortunately, this happens all too often. Defendants are denied the right to develop evidence, and then the claim is denied because you have no evidence.
Mr. Wellons' case ended up as a debate over the Court's GVR (grant, vacate and remand) authority. In the end, a majority of the court vacated the decision, and sent it back to the Court of Appeals to determine whether Mr. Wellons should have been granted and evidentiary hearing. I'll leave that debate and discussion to the law professors. What I find important is the court's recognition of the procedural barriers faced by habeas petitioners.
The majority summed up the problem in a footnote:
Moreover, the allegedly “unequivocal” holding that JUSTICE ALITO quotes was preceded by a discussion of the deference owed under the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (AEDPA) to the “Georgia Supreme Court’s judgment as to the substance and effect of the ex parte communication.” Id., at 937. This is the classic formula-tion of a decision of whether to grant habeas relief. Indeed, it would be bizarre if a federal court had to defer to state-court factual findings, made without any evidentiary record, in order to decide whether it could create an evidentiary record to decide whether the factual find-ings were erroneous. If that were the case, then almost no habeas petitioner could ever get an evidentiary hearing: So long as the statecourt found a fact that the petitioner was trying to disprove through the presentation of evidence, then there could be no hearing. AEDPA does not require such a crabbed and illogical approach to habeas procedures, and there is no reason to believe that the Eleventh Circuit thought otherwise.
Federal habeas all too oftens involves a perfunctory review of the State court decision. As long as they gave a reason that's not completely off the wall, that's good enough. Maybe the Court wants to remind Courts that review should consist of more than that. I certainly hope so.
