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This week’s (belated) edition

By Karl R. Keys, Esq.

From this week’s edition: Leading off this belated double edition is the Supreme Court’s holding in Beard v. Joseph Kindler. The Court in  Kindler remands this habeas case back to the Third Circuit. The Pennsylvania state courts found that the fugitive forfeiture rule would bar relief on Mr. Kindler’s claims.  Nonetheless, the Third Circuit granted relief.  The  Kindler Court holds that the Third Circuit should reevaluate whether that the procedural rule applied by the Pennsylvania state courts should serve as an adequate ground to bar federal habeas relief. The Ninth Circuit, en banc, granted penalty phase relief in Scott Lynn Pinholster v. Ayers.  “[T]he California Supreme Court?s “postcard” denial of Pinholster?s penalty phase ineffective assistance claim constituted an objectively unreasonable application of the clearly established federal law in Strickland...continue to full post

Full post as published by Capital Defense Weekly on December 16, 2009 (boomark / email).