U.S. Supreme Court: Criminal Cases
Each year the Criminal Justice Section monitors the criminal law opinions of the United States Supreme Court. The Section provides timely summaries of criminal law decisions as well as links to the actual opinions. The following cases, from the 2006 terms, are presented in chronological order.
Click on the case name to view the actual opinion.
2006 Term Opinions of the Court
Carey, Warden v. Musladin (Defendant Spectator-Conduct Claim)
Members of the victims family sat in the front row of the spectators' gallery wearing buttons displaying the victim's image. The trial court denied the defendant's motion to order the family members not to wear the buttons. The California Court of Appeal upheld the defendant's conviction, the Federal District court denied his habeas petition but the Ninth Circuit reversed and remanded, finding that the state court's decision "was contrary to, or involved an unreasonable application of, clearly established Federal law," 28 U.S.C. sec 2254(d)(1), as determined by Estelle v. Williams, 425 U.S. 501, and Holbrook v. Flynn, 475 U.S. 560 (test for inherent prejudice). The U.S. Supreme court held that the Ninth Circuit improperly concluded that the California Court of Appeal's decision was contrary to or an unreasonable application of clearly established federal law as determined by this Court.
(a) Because “clearly established Federal law” in §2254(d)(1) “refers to the holdings, as opposed to the dicta, of this Court’s decisions as of the time of the relevant state-court decision,” Williams v. Taylor, 529 U. S. 362, 412, federal habeas relief may be granted here if the California Court of Appeal’s decision was contrary to or involved an unreasonable application of this Court’s applicable holdings.
(b) This Court addressed the effect of courtroom practices on defendants’ fair-trial rights in Williams, in which the State compelled the defendant to stand trial in prison clothes, and Flynn, in which the State seated uniformed state troopers in the row of spectators’ seats immediately behind the defendant at trial. In both cases, which dealt with government-sponsored practices, the Court noted that some practices are so inherently prejudicial that they must be justified by an “essential state” policy or interest. E.g., Williams, supra, at 505.
(c) In contrast to state-sponsored courtroom practices, the effect on a defendant’s fair-trial rights of the spectator conduct to which defendant objects is an open question in this Court’s jurisprudence. The Court has never addressed a claim that such private-actor court-room conduct was so inherently prejudicial that it deprived a defendant of a fair trial or applied the test for inherent prejudice in Williams and Flynn to spectators’ conduct. Indeed, part of that test—asking whether the practices furthered an essential state interest— suggests that those cases apply only to state-sponsored practices. Reflecting the lack of guidance from this Court, lower courts have diverged widely in their treatment of defendants’ spectator-conduct claims. Given the lack of applicable holdings from this Court, it can-not be said that the state court “unreasonably appli[ed] . . . clearly established Federal law.”
Lopez v. Gonzales, Attorney General
Lopez, a legal permanent resident alien, pleaded guilty to aiding and abetting possession of drugs in South Dakota for telling someone where to obtain cocaine. The offense is a felony in South Dakota, however most first-time, simple possession cases are punished as misdemeanors under the federal Controlled Substances Act. The Immigration and Naturalization Service began removal proceedings in the ground, inter alia, that Lopez’s state conviction was for an aggravated felony. The Immigration judge ordered Lopez removed in light of 8 U.S.C. Section 1229b (a) 3 which provides that the Attorney General’s discretion to cancel the removal of a person otherwise deportable does not reach a convict of an aggravated felony. The Board of Immigration Appeals affirmed and the Eighth Circuit affirmed the Board.
In an 8-1 decision, the justices ruled in favor of Lopez. The court held that conduct that is a felony under state law but a misdemeanor under the Controlled Substances Act 18 U. S. C. §924(c)(2) is not a felony for purposes of immigration and naturalization.
(The American Bar Association submitted an amicus brief on behalf of Lopez that the Criminal Justice Section cosponsored. Access the brief here.
Ayers v. Belmontes
By a 5-4 vote, the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty for Fernando Belmontes, a California man convicted of beating a woman to death 25 years ago. The Court reversed the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals that threw out Belmontes's death sentence because the trial judge confused and misled jurors who were considering whether to give Belmontes the death penalty by not specifically instructing them that they could consider "forward-looking" productive existence mitigating evidence offered at the sentencing phase. Writing for the majority, Justice Kennedy stated that the trial judge's directions were adequate. The 9th Circuit was wrong to conclude that jurors might have failed to take all the evidence into account before settling on a death sentence when Belmontes presented his mitigating evidence in open court.