by Dale Chappell
The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals (“TCCA”) held on February 5, 2020, that the failure to include “or others with him [the primary assailant]” in the jury instruction for a self-defense against multiple assailants defense was a “calculated” omission that deprived a defendant of his defense, requiring ...
by Dale Chappell
Finding confusion in the state courts over the status of the law and obstacles put in place by the federal prison system that hindered filing for relief, the U.S. District Court for the District of Vermont granted resentencing, excusing the late filing of a motion to vacate ...
by Dale Chappell
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit held that the federal district court unreasonably applied “clearly established federal law” when it erroneously required a more demanding standard of review than the law requires for ineffective assistance claims (“IAC”) where trial counsel was clearly ineffective, requiring ...
by Dale Chappell
While the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear a case to settle a deep and widening split among the federal courts, the Court’s newest justice filed a statement on March 23, 2020, saying that he would grant certiorari in the “right case” to resolve a problem that ...
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 ...
