Constitutional Law

Recent US Supreme Court Decision Further Tightens Access to Habeas Relief

December 25, 2015 | By James S. Friedman, LLC

Many defendants convicted in State court proceedings will, after exhausting their State level appeals and post-conviction applications, seek habeas relief in Federal court. Generally speaking, the process focuses upon violations of Federal constitutional law in the underlying State proceedings, and is commenced by filing a habeas petition and supporting papers in the appropriate Federal district court within the applicable limitations period. Habeas is often the final opportunity to attack a State court conviction. These applications frequently, but do not always, stem from allegations of ineffective assistance of counsel. For many years, the US Supreme Court has issued decisions restricting the availability of habeas relief to a State defendant. The latest case to do so is White v. Wheeler, No. 14-1372, decided on December 14, 2015.

A capital jury convicted defendant Wheeler of killing two individuals. The habeas petition arose from a claim that a judge improperly struck a prospective juror for cause during the selection process. The prosecutor moved to strike the juror for cause because his responses during voir dire indicated that he was not absolutely certain he could realistically consider the death penalty. The defense opposed the motion, arguing that the prospective juror’s responses indicated that he could consider all penalty options, regardless of any reservations he may have had about the death penalty. The trial judge struck the juror for cause because his inconsistent answers suggested that he could not consider the death penalty as part of the entire range of sentencing options.

The district court dismissed the petition, but the Sixth Circuit reversed and granted habeas relief as to defendant’s sentence. That Court found that excusing the prospective juror violated the Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments to the Federal Constitution. The US Supreme Court reversed, and its basis for doing so is clearly, unmistakably and repeatedly stated throughout the opinion. Continue reading ›

Maryland v. Kulbicki – New US Supreme Court Decision Helps Define Ineffective Assistance

December 13, 2015 | By James S. Friedman, LLC

Maryland v. Kulbicki, No. 14-848 (2015), a recent US Supreme Court decision, helps to further define the concept of ineffective assistance of counsel for purposes of Sixth Amendment claims. The case is important for anyone considering a motion for post-conviction relief in State court or a habeas petition in Federal court based upon an argument that their attorney did not perform properly.

In 1993, Kulbicki shot his paramour in the head at close range. His trial commenced in Maryland state court in 1995. The prosecutor called an FBI agent as an expert witness to testify on the subject of Comparative Bullet Lead Analysis (“CBLA”). At the time of trial, CBLA was accepted by the relevant scientific community as valid. The expert testified that the composition of elements in the molten lead of a bullet fragment located in Kulbicki’s truck matched the composition of lead in a bullet fragment removed from the victim’s brain, and that one would expect to find such a similarity when examining two pieces of the same bullet. The expert also testified that a bullet taken from Kulbicki’s gun did not exactly match the two fragments, but was sufficiently similar to conclude that the two bullets probably came from the same package. In light of this and other evidence, Kulbicki’s jury convicted him of first-degree murder.

Kulbicki subsequently filed a petition for post-conviction relief, which he amended in 2006 to include a claim that defense counsel was ineffective for failing to question the legitimacy of CBLA. Between the time of the conviction and 2006, CBLA had fallen out of favor, was no longer generally accepted by the scientific community, and was therefore inadmissible.

State v. Watts – New NJ Decision Suggests Further Retreat on Search and Seizure Rights

December 8, 2015 | By James S. Friedman, LLC

On December 2, 2015, the New Jersey Supreme Court decided State v. Watts. This decision, coming on the heels of the late-September decision of State v. Witt, may suggest a continuing erosion of a criminal defendant’s constitutional right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures.

The police obtained a warrant to search the defendant and his apartment, set up a surveillance, and waited for the defendant to leave his residence. The defendant left his home and walked to a liquor store located about 1 1/2 blocks from his apartment. He was detained when he left the liquor store and patted down for weapons. The officers also took his apartment keys, but decided to not conduct a more thorough search of the defendant’s person at that point because they were then located in a busy area with pedestrian and vehicular traffic. Some of the officers then returned to the defendant’s apartment with his keys. They entered and searched it, but did not locate drugs or related paraphernalia. Other officers handcuffed the defendant, placed him in a police car, and transported him back to his apartment. He shook his leg as he walked, and four bundles of heroin fell from his pants.

The defendant moved to suppress the drugs, arguing that the police could not detain him to conduct another search after the pat down on the street. The trial court granted the motion and suppressed the drugs, finding that the officers could not continue to detain the defendant and conduct further searches after the search of his person conducted outside the liquor store failed to yield any drugs. The court believed that the warrant gave the police one opportunity to search the defendant – either outside the liquor store or back at his apartment – and additional searches violated his constitutional rights. Continue reading ›

Recent NJ Supreme Court Decision Signals Loss of Protection for Motorists Subject to Vehicle Searches

December 4, 2015 | By James S. Friedman, LLC

Generally speaking, a motor vehicle is not protected from unreasonable searches and seizures to the same extent as a home. Our State’s Supreme Court has further reduced that level of protection.

William Witt was pulled over on Route 48 in Carneys Point in Salem County in December 2012. Witt’s high beams were activated, and he failed to dim them as he passed a nearby police officer. The officer spoke with Witt, determined that he was intoxicated, performed field sobriety tests, and arrested him. The officer searched the car for an open alcohol container and located a handgun in the center console. Witt moved to suppress the gun, arguing that the search and seizure were unreasonable. This argument was based on the 2009 Supreme Court decision, State v. Pena-Flores, which required the police to have both probable cause and exigent circumstances before conducting a warrantless search of an automobile. The search of Witt’s vehicle was unconstitutional because there were no exigent circumstances preventing the police from first obtaining a warrant.

In the September 2015 decision of State v. Witt, the NJ Supreme Court overturned Pena-Flores and retreated to the standard set in the 1981 decision of State v. Alston. The earlier standard allowed police to search a vehicle without a warrant when they had probable cause to believe the vehicle contained evidence of a crime, and where the probable cause stemmed from circumstances that were unforeseeable and spontaneous. Continue reading ›

Grady v. North Carolina – Satellite-Based Monitoring of Sex Offenders Can Violate Fourth Amendment Rights

May 11, 2015 | By James S. Friedman, LLC

The United States Supreme Court decided Grady v. North Carolina on March 30, 2015. After completing his prison term for sex offenses, the State determined that Grady was a recidivist sex offender, and wanted to place him on satellite-based monitoring. Grady argued that the monitoring program, which required him to wear a monitoring device at all times, violated his Fourth Amendment right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures. Grady’s argument was based on U.S. v. Jones, where the Supreme Court held that installing a GPS tracking device on a suspect’s car was a “search” within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment. The State courts rejected Grady’s argument, finding that the monitoring program at issues was not a Fourth Amendment search. This conclusion was based, apparently in large part, upon the view that the proceeding giving rise to the monitoring was civil in nature, whereas Jones was a criminal case, which entailed different (higher) legal standards.

The Supreme Court rejected the reasoning of the State courts. First, the monitoring program was a “search” because it enabled the State to “physically intrude on a constitutionally protected area … [A] State conducts a search when it attaches a device to a person’s body, without consent, for the purpose of tracking that individual’s movements.” The fact that the monitoring program was civil in nature was rendered meaningless by settled law establishing “that the Fourth Amendment’s protection extends beyond the sphere of criminal investigations [] and the government’s purpose in collecting information does not control whether the method of collection constitutes a search.”

Ultimately, however, the Court observed that the Fourth Amendment protects only against unreasonable searches and seizures. Thus, it remanded the matter to the North Carolina courts to determine whether the monitoring program was reasonable when viewed as a search. Continue reading ›

Rodriguez v. United States – Great Search and Seizure Ruling

May 4, 2015 | By James S. Friedman, LLC

The United States Supreme Court decided Rodriguez v. United States on April 21, 2015. The decision enhances Fourth Amendment protections in cases involving motor vehicle stops.

Briefly, Rodriguez, the driver, and his passenger were stopped by a Valley, Nebraska police officer for veering onto the shoulder of a State highway and then jerking back onto the road. The officer was a K-9 officer who had his police dog with him. He conducted a records check on the vehicle’s occupants, questioned Rodriguez and his passenger, checked all of the necessary documents, wrote a warning ticket, and returned the documents to the occupants with the warning ticket. Thus, the main purpose of the initial stop – the investigation of a traffic infraction – was completed.

Nevertheless, the officer did not consider Rodriguez and his passenger free to leave. He requested permission to walk his dog around the vehicle, and Rodriguez declined. The officer then instructed Rodriguez to turn off and exit the vehicle, and stand in front of his patrol car to await the arrival of a second officer. Rodriguez complied, the second officer arrived, the dog was escorted around the vehicle and alerted to the presence of drugs (methamphetamine). Significantly, approximately seven to eight minutes had passed between the issuance of the warning ticket and the alert by the dog. Continue reading ›