Home -> Law Blog Directory -> Criminal Law Blogs -> Capital Defense Weekly

Criminal Law

: Capital Defense Weekly

More on Holland v. Horn

By Karl R. Keys, Esq.

Looking a little further at William Holland v. Horn, 2008 U.S. App. LEXIS 4816 (3rd Cir 3/6/2008), the easiest way of explaining the opinion is that relief was granted on the basis of counsel’s failure to ask for expert assistance (Ake v. Oklahoma) in the penalty phase but not the guilt phase. If you are looking for such a discussion and are not a federal habeas litigator skip to the bottom of page 18 of the opinion or bring a bottle of aspirin as this isn’t an easy read in light of a fairly complex, factual driven discussion of the federal habeas rules governing procedural default. I would also recommend reading the opinion in the PDF format or wait until you can read it in advance sheet / West reporter as there is a footnote in Judge Greenberg’s opinion that stretches over four (4) pages in the PDF format and completely lost me in the Lexis version...continue to full post

Full post as published by Capital Defense Weekly on March 09, 2008 (boomark / email).