Appellate Law

CA1: An actual opinion describing appellate procedure on a habeas grant

By S. COTUS

Foxworth v. Maloney, 06-2379.  When I started reading this, I knew it had to be good.  Selya appears to be using big words to grant some kind of habeas relief.  He points out that ?The king of habeas remedies is an order for unconditional release with prejudice to reprosecution.?  I wonder what the jester of habeas relief is?  Anyway, it seems that Selya actually seems to be taking this seriously (perhaps because he feels like giving people in jail anything requires more caution than keeping them in jail).  So, let?s get out our Selya-to-English dictionaries and see what he has to say.  (Actually, it turns out that it is fairly well-written, since he is writing for the government attorneys and judges that might actually need to follow his opinions, rather than condemned prisoners who don't matter, anyway.)

First, the District Court granted the petitioner a conditional writ of habeas corpus (i.e. that he be released if not recharged) on the basis of a Bruton error within sixty days.  The District Court did not address the other claims (without saying why it was unnecessary to resolve them).  Then the state (or ?Commonwealth?) as they say in the ?Bay State? filed a notice of appeal.  The District Court stayed its order.  The petitioner said ?Ah ha ? the First Circuit has no jurisdiction because the District Court only resolved some of my claims.?  He then said ?Nevermind.?  But, the First says that it needs to resolve whether it really has jurisdiction, anyway.  It says, that because the District Court considered its work done, there was a final judgment, and there is no need to consider whether FRCP 54 applies in the habeas context.  (Though a footnote does collect cases on the issue from other circuits.)

But, the First also says that on appeal, the Petitioner would have his choice of claims to defend the granting of the writ upon, because the First could affirm on other grounds ? except insofar as a as an insufficiency claim goes. Selya says that the issue of sufficiency isn?t really properly before the First because there was no cross-appeal (which makes sense, since the petitioner?s initial position was that there was no jurisdiction). But, Selya says that rather than simply allow the commonwealth to retry the matter, it should remand the case to the District Court to consider the sufficiency argument, because this issue will determine whether the state can really retry this guy or not and it is better to prevent unnecessary retrials, and Selya concludes, ?Although we do not hold that the Double Jeopardy Clause compels the review of a properly preserved insufficiency claim before the petitioner is retried... we do hold that, as a prudential matter, such claims (or, for that matter, other habeas claims for unconditional release with prejudice to reprosecution) ordinarily should be decided in a timely manner.?

I was going to write that this really seems to be screwing the petitioner for no reason. After all, it seems like Massachusetts gets a windfall (?windfall? means ?gets to use taxpayer money to keep people in jail) because the District Court didn?t fully adjudicate the claim. However, Selya does add that given the fact that he will, at least in part, probably get some relief below, the District Court should seriously entertain a request for bail.

Full post as published by Appellate Law and Practice on January 24, 2008 (boomark / email).