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Arguments Today

By Kent Scheidegger et al.

Today, I expect, will be spank the Ninth Circuit again day at the U.S. Supreme Court. On the docket are two habeas cases, Waddington v. Sarausad and Hedgpeth v. Pulido (formerly Chrones v. Pulido). Ben Winograd has this post at SCOTUSblog. In the Pulido case, CJLF's brief is here, and our pre-argument press release is here. Usually, the "bottom side" brief defends the opinion below, but counsel for Pulido has pretty much thrown the Ninth Circuit's indefensible "structural error" theory under the bus. His argument is more that the district court's straight application of the Brecht v. Abrahamson rule to this instructional error reached the correct result. Update: The Pulido transcript is here. Predicting the outcome here is a no-brainer. Look for a short, relatively quick, probably unanimous opinion saying, "Ninth Circuit, Brecht is the standard...continue to full post

Full post as published by Crime and Consequences on October 15, 2008 (boomark / email).