The New York Times

Wednesday, April 19, 2000

Justices Force 2 New Hearings on Death Row

By LINDA GREENHOUSE

WASHINGTON, April 18 -- The Supreme Court today set aside the death sentences of two convicted murderers in Virginia, indicating in two separate decisions that despite sharp restrictions imposed on federal courts by a 1996 law, federal judges still have a significant role to play in reviewing the quality of justice administered by the states.

The two decisions were the court's most important rulings to date on the meaning of the 1996 law by which Congress sought to limit the authority of federal courts to hear appeals from state prisoners.

One decision unanimously granted a new hearing on accusations of juror bias and prosecutorial misconduct to an inmate who was 50 minutes from execution when the Supreme Court intervened in October to grant a stay and accept his case for review.

The second decision was considerably more equivocal as the splintered court grappled with the ambiguously worded core provisions of the 1996 law, the Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act.

By a 5-to-4 vote, the court accepted the view of the law's supporters that federal judges must defer even to a state court decision they regard as incorrect, as long as the decision was not "unreasonable."

But at the same time, the court was unanimous in rejecting a definition of "unreasonable" that as a practical matter would have meant that federal courts would almost never be able to review state court rulings. Applying the law, the court then voted 6 to 3 that the inmate was entitled to a new sentencing hearing because his lawyer's performance at the original hearing fell below constitutionally minimum standards of competence.

Both cases happened to be death penalty appeals, coming at a time of heightened public concern over the fairness of the way capital punishment is applied, but the court was interpreting statutory provisions that apply across the board and are not limited to the death penalty. In the past the court has moved to streamline the appeals process for death row inmates, and the rulings today do nothing to reverse that.

Nor was there any suggestion that the court was reassessing its stance toward capital punishment. Since the retirement of the late Justice Harry A. Blackmun in 1994, no member of the court has taken a position of blanket opposition to the death penalty.

Both decisions were coincidentally, and confusingly, named Williams v. Taylor; the inmate in the first case, No. 99-6615, is Michael W. Williams, and in the second case, No. 98-8384, the inmate is Terry Williams. John B. Taylor is the warden of the Sussex State Prison in Waverly, Va., where both are housed.

The 1996 law restricted the authority of federal courts to grant petitions for writs of habeas corpus. It was an outgrowth of a long debate over whether habeas claims had become too much of an obstacle to swift justice and the principle of state sovereignty. These habeas petitions, challenging the constitutionality of a conviction or sentence, are the only source of federal jurisdiction over state criminal convictions and have long been a target of those seeking to curb federal authority over the states.

Somewhat surprisingly for the current Supreme Court, which in many ways has helped marshal the attack on federal habeas corpus, the decisions today amounted to a rebuff of the conservative federal appeals court that has most aggressively picked up that battle cry, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, in Richmond, Va. Both decisions overturned Fourth Circuit rulings; another Fourth Circuit decision, a ruling last year that declared the Supreme Court's Miranda decision to no longer be good law, will be the subject of an argument before the justices on Wednesday morning.

In the case of Michael Williams, the question was whether he was entitled to a Federal District Court hearing to present evidence that had not been developed in his earlier state court proceedings.

The Federal District Court in Richmond originally said he was entitled to a hearing on several issues, including a prosecutor's possible misconduct during the 1994 murder trial in failing to reveal his knowledge that there was reason to suspect a juror of bias.

But before the scheduled hearing could take place, the Fourth Circuit ruled that Mr. Williams was not entitled to it because he had "failed to develop the factual basis of a claim in state court proceedings." The meaning of the phrase "failed to develop," from the 1996 law, was the central issue in the Supreme Court's consideration of the case.

Michael Williams had not presented these issues in the Virginia courts because, he said, the state itself suppressed the facts and made essential evidence unavailable to him. In the view of the Fourth Circuit, the reason for the failure was immaterial; if an inmate had "failed to develop" his claim, there could be no evidentiary hearing in federal court.

In his unanimous opinion overturning that ruling today, Justice Anthony M. Kennedy said this was a misuse of the word "fail," which he said "connotes some omission, fault, or negligence on the part of the person who has failed to do something." Had Congress wanted to adopt a "no-fault reading of the statute," Justice Kennedy said, "it would have had to do no more than use, in lieu of the phrase 'has failed to,' the phrase 'did not.' "

The proper question, Justice Kennedy continued, was "whether the prisoner made a reasonable attempt, in light of the information available at the time, to investigate and pursue claims in state court," not whether the effort was successful.

At issue in the Terry Williams case was a different section of the 1996 law, defining the scope of federal court review of state court judgments. The law provides that in reviewing a habeas corpus petition, the federal court cannot set aside a state court decision unless the decision "was contrary to, or involved an unreasonable application of, clearly established federal law, as determined by the Supreme Court of the United States."

According to the Fourth Circuit, a state court decision could be considered unreasonable only if it interpreted or applied the relevant precedent "in a manner that reasonable jurists would all agree is unreasonable."

Although the Supreme Court was split on other issues in the case, all nine justices agreed that the Fourth Circuit's definition was incorrect. Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, who wrote the controlling opinion in interpreting the provision's central phrases, said the question should be whether the state court's decision was "objective unreasonable."

"The federal habeas court," Justice O'Connor said, should not transform the inquiry into a subjective one by resting its determination instead on the simple fact that at least one of the nation's jurists has applied the relevant federal law in the same manner the state court did in the habeas petitioner's case."

Justice O'Connor said that while the word "unreasonable" was "no doubt difficult to define," it was "a common term in the legal world and, accordingly, federal judges are familiar with its meaning."

It was after this point that the two factions on the court diverged. Justice O'Connor, whose opinion was joined by Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist and by Justices Kennedy, Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas, said that "for purposes of today's opinion, the most important point is that an unreasonable application of federal law is different from an incorrect application of federal law." A federal court could not grant the writ just because the state court decision was wrong, though reasonable, she said.

Justice John Paul Stevens, in an opinion joined by Justices David H. Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen G. Breyer, said it remained "the federal courts' independent responsibility" to interpret federal law. If Congress had intended federal courts to defer even to decisions they regarded as incorrect, he said, the 1996 law would have said so clearly, rather than by indirection.

The law has caused considerable confusion because it is a pastiche of provisions, some amended at the last moment and lacking in legislative history.

Justice Stevens said that "only a narrow category of cases" would likely be affected by the difference in interpretation between him and Justice O'Connor. Several liberal critics of the 1996 law agreed with that prediction today, noting that the court had already set the bar very high for habeas corpus relief and the most important aspect of the decision today was the demonstration that, however the standard was phrased, it had enough teeth to matter.

The vote to grant Terry Williams's petition was 6 to 3, with Chief Justice Rehnquist and Justices Scalia and Thomas dissenting on the ground that his legal representation, even if inadequate, had probably not made a difference to the outcome of his sentencing hearing.