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By Andrew Stanton
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Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor wants the nation's highest court to weigh in on an issue that has been dividing lower courts.
The Supreme Court on Monday issued certiorari to dozens of cases, but denied it in the case of Lance Shockley, a Missouri man convicted and sentenced to death for allegedly killing a police officer in 2005. His attorneys urged the court to determine whether individuals seeking post-conviction relief are able to obtain a certificate of appealability whether just one member of a multi-judge panel would grant the certificate, a question that has divided appeals courts.
Newsweek reached out to Shockley's attorneys for comment via email.
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Why It Matters
Any ruling on the matter from the Supreme Court would have implications for individuals seeking relief after being convicted of a crime across the country. If they ruled in support of Shockley, that would make it easier for those individuals to receive a certificate of appealability. If they ruled the other way, it would standardize the practice of requiring a majority of the panel to grant the certificate.
What to Know
Shockley was convicted of the murder of Patrol Sergeant Dewayne Graham in 2005 but has sought to have the conviction overturned over concerns that he had ineffective counsel during his trial.
A prospective juror mentioned during jury selection that he had authored a book, but Shockley's lawyers did not ask any follow-up questions. The individual was chosen for the jury and later became the foreman. It was later learned that his book had similarities to Shockley's case.
Shockley's attorneys sought a new trial over concerns that the foreman was biased against him. However, they did not call witnesses to the stand, and the request for a new trial was declined.
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New lawyers he brought onto the case learned the foreman had given copies of his book to other jurors and filed for relief with the Missouri Supreme Court, arguing his attorneys' failure to ask about the book constituted a violation of his constitutional right. The Missouri Supreme Court ultimately rejected his request, but one justice argued he should have a new trial.
This was upheld by a district court judge and a three-judge panel on the U.S. Appeals Court for the 8th District, where a majority of the panel is required to grant a certificate for the petitioner to receive relief. In some other districts, the certificate of appeal is granted even if only one judge on the panel agrees.
Shockley's lawyers asked the Supreme Court to make a determination on the 5-4 circuit split about whether a new trial should be granted when even one judge on a panel rules in favor of an individual seeking relief.
The court declined to hear the case, but Sotomayor wrote a dissent arguing the court should have done so and settled the question.
"Allowing an appeal whenever one judge votes to grant a certificate also reflects the substantive standard that governs habeas appeals. After all, a certificate must issue so long as 'reasonable jurists could debate whether...the petition should have been resolved in a different manner or that the issues presented were 'adequate to deserve encouragement to proceed further,'" she wrote.
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson joined her dissent.
What People Are Saying
Sotomayor wrote in her dissent: "It is difficult to see how an attorney's decision not to call witnesses in support of a credible mistrial motion, when invited to do so by the presiding judge in a capital murder trial, could fail to constitute ineffective assistance of counsel under Strickland v. Washington, 466 U. S. 668 (1984). More importantly, reasonable jurists could obviously debate the merits of Shockley's claim, as they have done at the Missouri Supreme Court, the Eighth Circuit, and now this Court as well. The Court of Appeals plainly erred when, over multiple dissents, it treated as not even debatable the District Court's denial of relief on Shockley's ineffective-assistance claim. Had the Court instead followed the approach taken in the Third, Fourth, Seventh, and Ninth Circuits, that error would have been avoided."
Shockley's attorneys wrote in their petition to the Supreme Court: "There is a deep and entrenched circuit split on an issue that has already drawn scrutiny from several members of this Court. The Third, Fourth, Ninth, and Seventh Circuits require a certificate of appealability to issue so long as any circuit judge votes to grant one. But the Fifth, Sixth, Eighth, Tenth, and Eleventh Circuits will deny the right to appeal over even a reasoned dissent. That split is untenable and unjust. Petitioner should not be put to death without appellate review of Sixth Amendment claims that several judges find substantial just because he is imprisoned in Missouri rather than bordering state Illinois."
Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey, a Republican, in a filing: "Shockley attempts to create a circuit split out of differences of administration on a procedural matter within the discretionary power of the circuit courts. There is no real split and no issue worthy of certiorari review.
What Happens Next
Sotomayor wrote that she hopes the court will settle the question in the future.
"Unfortunately, the Court leaves the issue for another day. The Courts of Appeal, however, remain free to reconsider their operating rules and align them with the text and purpose," she wrote.
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