Thomas berates 6th Circuit for giving death row inmate room to challenge juror bias

Justice Clarence Thomas berated the Sixth Circuit in a dissenting opinion for giving a death row inmate room to challenge his conviction based on a biased juror, reported Courthouse News. 

Joined by Justices Samuel Alito and Neil Gorsuch in his rebuke, Thomas claims the Sixth Circuit has flouted high court precedent by continually granting relief to death row prisoners in violation of the law. 

Thomas’ dissent came in a dispute over jurors who convicted Jeronique Cunningham of murdering three people — including a 3-year-old girl — during a drug deal gone wrong. Intending to rob a man who had sold him crack cocaine previously, Cunningham and his half-brother entered the apartment of Shane Liles.

Liles was not alone, however, so they ordered the group consisting of the man' girlfriend and other family and friends to hand over their valuables. When Liles said he had nothing left to give the men, they began shooting into the group, hitting all eight victims. A teenager and 3-year-old were killed in the shooting, and others were left with severe wounds including one lost eye. 

A jury convicted Cunningham of aggravated murder, attempted murder and aggravated robbery, and sentenced him to death. His convictions were affirmed by the Ohio Supreme Court. 

Cunningham later challenged his conviction, however, based on the perceived bias of the jury foreperson in his trial. An investigator working with his half-brother’s trial team interviewed several jurors and found that the foreperson in Cunningham’s jury thought he was an evil person and knew of his history with social workers who were afraid of him. Cunningham claims the juror had worked at Allen County Children Services and was able to obtain prejudicial information about him from her colleagues. 

Both the trial court and the Ohio Court of Appeals dismissed Cunningham’s claims. In 2006, however, the district court allowed Cunningham to investigate his claims under a habeas petition. After a long investigation including the deposition of multiple jurors, the district court ultimately dismissed Cunningham’s claims in 2019. 

Two years later, the Sixth Circuit would revive the case in a divided opinion. Ohio in turn petitioned the high court, but the majority of justices declined Monday to hear the case. Its rejection was one of dozens in the morning order list. 

Thomas wrote in dissent that the Sixth Circuit made clear errors in its judgment, and Cunningham’s juror bias claims should not have been entertained. By refusing to correct those errors, Thomas said the high court “permits the nullification of its jurisprudence."

“Although the procedural history of this case is complicated, the Sixth Circuit’s errors were not,” the Bush appointee wrote. “The panel majority’s reasons for ordering an evidentiary hearing on either of Cunningham’s juror-bias claims are indefensible.” 

The Sixth Circuit's error, according to Thomas, comes from a violation of the standard for relief set out by the federal law that governs relief for death penalty prisoners, the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act.

“We should not shirk our responsibility to correct classic AEDPA abuses, especially when a lower court brazenly commits errors for which we have repeatedly reversed it,” Thomas wrote. 

While Thomas chastised the high court for forming a new tolerance for repeat offenders, his ire is mostly directed at the Sixth Circuit. 

“While I disagree with the Court’s newfound tolerance for recidivism, primary responsibility for the Sixth Circuit’s errors rests with the Sixth Circuit,” Thomas wrote. “That court’s record of ‘plain and repetitive’ AEDPA error is an insult to Congress and a disservice to the people of Michigan, Ohio, Kentucky, and Tennessee.” 

Thomas said the regularity in which the court receives petitions from the Sixth Circuit on this issue shows that the judges on that circuit like to disregard the law. 

“The Sixth Circuit must do better, with or without this Court’s help,” Thomas wrote. “Unfortunately, the Sixth Circuit’s habeas jurisprudence suggests that certain circuit judges’ ‘taste for disregarding AEDPA’ has found its natural complement in other judges’ distaste for correcting errors en banc, no matter how blatant, repetitive, or corrosive of circuit law.” 

Cunningham was represented in his opposition brief by Michael Benza and Karl Schwartz.

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Protections provided by the Sixth Amendment at stake in SCOTUS case

Marc Hayden wrote in the Washington Times:

With many Americans focused on headline-grabbing U.S. Supreme Court cases, it would be easy to miss a critically important case that has flown under the radar: Shinn v. Jones and Ramirez. Despite the consolidated case’s low-profile, it has the potential to fundamentally reshape the criminal justice system in a manner that should offend conservatives’ core sensibilities — that of protecting life, liberty, and unalienable rights.

The case revolves around something quintessentially American — the right to an attorney and a fair trial. According to decades-old case law, the Sixth Amendment provides Americans the right to “effective assistance of counsel,” but not all lawyers are created equal. There are plenty of reports of defense attorneys showing up to court drunk, sleeping during the trial or simply ignoring exculpatory evidence. Thanks to the Sixth Amendment, if an attorney’s assistance was so inadequate that it influenced the case’s outcome, then the courts can order a retrial.

To obtain such relief, appellants must traverse the arcane appeals process, but if state appellate courts rebuff them, they can apply for relief in federal court via a writ of habeas corpus. This process is incredibly time-consuming. In fact, the time between sentencing and execution in capital cases can easily exceed 20 years.  

During the interim, new evidence of ineffective counsel can arise, which brings us to the crux of Shinn v. Jones and Ramirez, and the stakes are high — very high. Both Barry Jones and David Ramirez face death sentences for separate cases in Arizona, but appeals attorneys presented evidence in federal court, questioning their verdict and sentence, respectively. 

In 1995, despite steadfastly maintaining his innocence, Mr. Jones was convicted of an unconscionably heinous crime — child abuse resulting in death — although there is evidence that suggests he may not be guilty. Medical evidence available at the time would have poked holes in the prosecutors’ case against Mr. Jones, according to court documents, but his counsel failed to introduce it. While I can’t say for certain whether Mr. Jones is innocent, it seems that the jurors passed their verdict based on incomplete evidence.

Meanwhile, Mr. Ramirez’s guilt isn’t in question. A jury convicted him in 1990 of a gruesome double murder. Still, there’s reason to believe that Mr. Ramirez suffers from an intellectual disability, has brain damage, and endured serious childhood trauma. However, his lawyers originally failed to provide any evidence of this. Why is this important? Because mitigating evidence such as this would have virtually ensured that he received a sentence other than death.

Mr. Jones’ and Mr. Ramirez’s new attorneys have since brought the aforementioned evidence to light in federal court. They claimed that more effective counsel could have easily raised all of this evidence during the original trials, and as a result, their clients deserve retrials. It’s not unheard of for appeals attorneys to make such 11th-hour assertions in desperate bids to save their clients, but they made a good case. How good? Federal courts overturned Mr. Jones’ conviction and ordered a new hearing for Mr. Ramirez. 

Normally, this would ultimately trigger a retrial for Mr. Jones and a new sentencing hearing for Mr. Ramirez, but instead, the State of Arizona appealed the decision. Citing a provision in the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (AEDPA), Arizona asserts that new evidence demonstrating the ineffectiveness of counsel cannot be considered in habeas petitions if the defendant’s lawyers neglected to develop the evidence in state court proceedings. 

The State of Arizona’s interpretation of the AEDPA is unique, to say the least. To date, no appellate court has adopted such a reading, and the United States District Court in Arizona found the State of Arizona’s argument laughable, calling it “simply illogical.” After all, it makes no sense for the law to allow federal courts to entertain evidentiary hearings on claims of ineffective counsel but then to forbid the consideration of the same evidence simply because post-conviction relief counsel failed to raise it in state court.

If the U.S. Supreme Court sides with Arizona, the state will subsequently execute Mr. Jones and Mr. Ramirez despite the evidence. This will also set a dangerous precedent that new evidence of ineffective counsel — in all criminal cases, not just capital cases — can never be considered in federal court even though such claims almost always rely on new evidence.

This will lead to insidious effects that will reverberate throughout the criminal justice system—ensuring that an untold number of Americans, including the wrongly convicted, will never get a fair trial. This should concern all Americans—especially the U.S. Supreme Court’s conservative wing. 

Conservatives believe in law and order, but you can have neither as long as Americans are wrongly denied their constitutional rights and stripped of their lives and liberties. Yet, that could become a regular occurrence if the U.S. Supreme Court rules in favor of Arizona.

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