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Ninth Circuit en banc habeas dissent assails state judge plea involvement as "judicial extortion"

By Douglas A. Berman

Today the Ninth Circuit handed down a divided en banc habeas ruling in Murdoch v. Castro, No. 05-55665 (9th Cir. June 21, 2010) (available here), which upholds a California state conviction over a potent lead dissent authored by Chief Judge Kozinski.  Here is how that dissent gets started: If it wasn?t for bad luck, Murdoch wouldn?t have no luck at all. He?s wakin? up this mornin? in jail when there?s strong proof he ain?t done nothing wrong.  I would certainly defer to a jury?s contrary verdict if it had seen this evidence and convicted Murdoch after a fair trial, presided over by a fair judge, followed by an appeal where the justices considered all of his constitutional claims.  But Murdoch had none of these. Start with the trial judge: He was so worried that the prosecution couldn?t put on sufficient evidence to convict Murdoch that he sentenced Murdoch?s alleged confederate (Dinardo) to life in prison, but promised to give him a big break if he testified against Murdoch...continue to full post

Full post as published by Sentencing Law and Policy on June 21, 2010 (boomark / email).