by Dale Chappell
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit ruled on March 31, 2020, that the district court’s constructive amendment to an indictment that allowed the Government to prove its case with an alternative, lower standard constituted ineffective assistance of counsel (“IAC”) where trial counsel failed to ...
by Dale Chappell
In an opinion that amounted to just three paragraphs, the Supreme Court of the United States held on March 23, 2020, that the Fifth Circuit’s rule barring plain error review for unpreserved factual errors had “no legal basis,” and the Court vacated the lower court’s decision and ...
by Dale Chappell
The U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Indiana overturned the conviction of Russell Taylor, a person linked to Jared Fogle’s child pornography case, finding that Taylor’s counsel failed to advise him that “the government never really had a case” with some of the charges it ...
by Dale Chappell
While this country has the highest rate of incarceration in the world, with 2.3 million of its residents in prison, it also has the alarmingly high rate of people on probation or parole: 4.5 million.
In other words, 1 in 55 adults in this country is on ...
by Dale Chappell
The Supreme Court of California granted habeas corpus relief, vacating a conviction and death sentence in the 1983 murder of Los Angeles Police Officer Paul Verna, after finding ineffective assistance of counsel (“IAC”) once again, over three decades later.
Kenneth Gay was convicted of first-degree murder and ...
by Dale Chappell
Finally answering a question that had been left open in the Circuit, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit held on February 24, 2020, that a person may be “actually innocent” of an erroneous mandatory career offender sentence, opening the door for relief under the ...
by Dale Chappell
More than 95 percent of state and federal prisoners plead guilty, and most of them do so on the advice of their lawyer. A successful attack on a guilty plea would then depend on showing that counsel’s bad advice to plead guilty rendered the plea not “knowing ...
by Dale Chappell
The Supreme Court of the United States held on February 26, 2020, that just as the elements clause of the Armed Career Criminal Act (“ACCA”) statute provides the criteria defining what prior offenses qualify as “violent felonies,” so too do the criteria defining what prior offenses qualify ...
by Dale Chappell
The Supreme Court of Kansas held on October 25, 2019, that the statute criminalizing speech determined to be a threat of violence is unconstitutional, at least as far as it prohibits “reckless disregard” for others.
When Timothy Boettger was angry about the police refusing to investigate the ...
by Dale Chappell
Addressing what can often be a confusing issue for many pro se habeas petitioners, the en banc U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit held on February 24, 2020, that attaching a court order to a habeas application to support the claims is sufficient to allow ...
