When is enough enough?

Sure, we put up with a lot for the benefit of being American citizens: all kinds of taxes, promulgation of statutes with excessive punishments, bureaucratic forms, and who knows what else. And for the most part, its worth it. But, should we put up with the fact that we can't clean up our own neighborhood- and no one else can either?

http://annandaleva.blogspot.com/2013/01/citizen-activists-frustrated-by-lack-of.html

I'm not certain, but living in filth doesn't seem like something we should have to put up with. Another good example of when enough is enough. (Oh, and keep an eye out for when VDOT makes a promise to come to a neighborhood meeting, and then doesn't bother to show up; shows a lack of respect for the very people who employ them.)

Habeas Corpus and Competence: There's no Relation

When declared unfit to stand trial, a person is given an indefinite (or sometimes a definite) stay on his or her trial. That person is deemed a crucial part of the process, and that when convicted he or she needs to have a clear understanding of what is happening to them. Two cases posed to the Supreme Court of the United States asked whether the same stood true for habeas petitioners, deemed mentally unfit for trial: Ryan v. Gonzales, 10-930 (from Arizona) and Tibbals v. Carter, 11-218 (from Ohio).

Habeas corpus is (primarily) a post-conviction proceeding, authorized under most state constitutions and under the federal constitution. It is initiated by a petition and followed by a hearing in front of an appellate judge or judicial panel. These proceedings are intended to reverse illegal detentions, and can do anything for a person from reversing the sentence and remanding for trial, to absolutely nothing, and everything in between.

In Rees v. Peyton, 384 US 312 (1966) and 386 US 989 (1967), the Supreme Court of the United States gave an indefinite stay to a death row prisoner This ruling went largely over-looked and unused by practitioners, not only because it was unclear why the court was giving the stay, but it also went overlooked because the action the court took was truly a non-action. Rees died in prison about 28 years later, his stay still lifted, and his case clarified.

January 8, 2013, Justice Clarence Thomas wrote a clarification which states, broadly, that a state prisoner has no right to a stay on his or her habeas proceedings when adjudicated incompetent:

“We hold that neither 18 U. S. C. §3599 nor 18 U. S. C. §4241 provides such a right and that the Courts of Appeals for the Ninth and Sixth Circuits both erred in holding that district courts must stay federal habeas proceedings when petitioners are adjudged incompetent.”

The ruling was unanimous. Justice Thomas explained that applying the same theory of requiring competence to a trial as to a post-conviction legal action is over simplifying the matter. A habeas petition, he explained, is at least 2 steps removed from the trial, (1) the factual record has been built for the collateral review, and (2) this is a federal habeas petition for state prisoners, and the state court must be given great deference except where coming to legal conclusions in matters of federal law. Additionally, there simply is no right to an attorney for federal habeas review of a state conviction, and the consequences of that are that there is no right to have a case put on hold if the defendant is unable to utilize his lawyer due to competency problems.

Although we’ve already heard this called “a big win for the cause of justice,”[1] and the concern for Clarence Thomas is that an indefinite stay frustrates the purposes of the AEDPA’s objective of encouraging finality, its not all bad news for criminal defense. Justice Thomas relents and does admit that there are cases wherein the facts are the basis of the habeas claim. In that instance a defendant could be called upon to testify, or the attorney could need that first-hand knowledge. In that instance, a federal judge may consider a stay. Trying to leave the choice of how long that stay should be up to the judges, Justice Thomas writes: “We do not presume that district courts need unsolicited advice from us on how to manage their dockets.” He can’t help but add that the federal judge should consider whether there is a reasonable hope of future competence before declaring the stay.

The rule is now clear: you can expect that if you have an incompetent client at federal habeas, you’re going to go forward with your legal arguments. That client has no right to an attorney, and as such faces a court not willing to wait for him or her to become competent before going through with a hearing. But, at least the purposes of the AEDPA won’t be frustrated!

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[1] Scheidegger, Kent. “Not Too Crazy for Habeas” Crime and Consequences (blog accessed January 9, 2012) <http://www.crimeandconsequences.com/crimblog/2013/01/not-too-crazy-for-habeas.html>.