America's Trumpiest court doesn't care if your right to a fair trial was violated
Federal law explicitly authorizes federal courts to review convictions and sentences handed down by state courts, and to invalidate them if a prisoner is held “in custody in violation of the Constitution or laws or treaties of the United States.”
Last Thursday, however, a far-right panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit effectively eliminated state prisoners’ right to seek what is known as a “writ of habeas corpus” when they are imprisoned in violation of the Constitution or federal law, except in cases of “factual innocence.”
Among other things, this means that someone who is “factually guilty” of an unconstitutional crime — such as violating a Jim Crow law or a law prohibiting individuals from criticizing the president — would be stripped of their habeas rights in federal court. It could also potentially enable abusive conduct by police and prosecutors, such as coerced confessions or warrantless searches, by removing nearly all federal supervision of states that overlook such violations.
Judge Andrew Oldham’s decision in Crawford v. Cain is completely lawless. It finds this novel requirement that an unconstitutional or illegal conviction or sentence must stand, unless the prisoner shows they are innocent, within a federal statute that states that federal courts hearing habeas cases “shall summarily hear and determine the facts, and dispose of the matter as law and justice require.” Oldham, along with the two other Republican-appointed judges who joined his opinion, claims that only factual innocence “satisfies the law-and-justice requirement.”
Oldham’s opinion is only 19 pages, and he devotes only about six of them to this argument that the vague words “as law and justice require” eliminate federal habeas rights in nearly all cases. He cites no case law that even plausibly supports his argument, although he does quote from two recent Supreme Court decisions that state that habeas should only be available when “law and justice require” it to be available.
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2022/12/20/23517050/supreme-court-fifth-circuit-habeas-corpus-criminal-justice-andy-oldham-crawford-cain
This "judge" is a full-on Nazi.
= new reply since forum marked as read
Perhaps one of DU's resident lawyers can pipe in.
I'd really like to know. Thanks in advance.
