| Darr v. Burford | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Argued December 5, 1949 Decided April 3, 1950 | |
| Full case name | Darr v. Burford |
| Citations | 339 U.S. 200 ( more ) |
| Case history | |
| Prior | 172 F.2d 668 (2d. Cir. 1949) |
| Court membership | |
| |
| Case opinions | |
| Majority | Reed, joined by Vinson, Burton, Clark, Minton |
| Dissent | Frankfurter, joined by Black, Jackson |
| Dissent | Jackson (note) |
| Douglas took no part in the consideration or decision of the case. | |
Darr v. Burford, 339 U.S. 200 (1950), was a United States Supreme Court case about habeas corpus .
Darr was already confined at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary when he was summoned to appear in another county where he was tried and sentenced for armed bank robbery. He petitioned the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals for habeas corpus claiming he could not afford counsel and was not given enough time to prepare witnesses for his defense. He applied for habeas without appealing the conviction. His habeas petition was denied on the merits.
He then filed in district court without petitioning the United States Supreme Court for certiorari in the state proceeding. He claimed that he did not have access to counsel, time to prepare witnesses and added a new claim that his confession was coerced. The district judge applying the doctrine of comity based on Ex Parte Hawk "examined into the merits sufficiently to assure himself that no extraordinary circumstances existed sufficient to justify federal inquiry into the merits...without the exhaustion of all other available remedies". [1] [2]
The Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit affirmed.
The Court affirms the 10th Circuit decision. If a denial of federally-protected constitutional rights is alleged the Supreme Court must be petitioned for certiorari before habeas relief is sought at the district court unless "exceptional circumstances" are shown. [3] [4]
The Hawk doctrine (1944) stated that a petition for certiorari presenting the federal question to the Supreme Court was required to exhaust state remedies before the merits of a habeas petition would be considered.
Congress authorized federal courts in 28 USC § 2254 to grant habeas review when the state process was "ineffective to protect the rights of the prisoner". The exhaustion requirement recognized in Ex parte Hawk was codified in the 1948 amendment to § 2254: "This new section is declaratory of existing law as affirmed by the Supreme Court. (See Ex parte Hawk, 1944, 64 S. Ct. 448, 321 U. S. 114, 88 L. Ed. 572.)". [4] The Court concluded that the "legislative history of § 2254 reveals no suggestion that the draftsmen intended...to differentiate between exhaustion of state remedies and review in this Court." [5] [6]
The dissent was concerned that "denial of certiorari would in practice attain a significance which the Court is unwilling to give it by candid adjudication". [7] [4]
Brown v. Allen unambiguously stated that denial of certiorari should not be given weight by district courts considering habeas petitions. [8] Fay v Noia overruled the requirement to petition the Supreme Court for certiorari before habeas. [9]
Habeas corpus is a recourse in law by which a report can be made to a court in the events of unlawful detention or imprisonment, requesting that the court order the person's custodian to bring the prisoner to court, to determine whether their detention is lawful.
In law, certiorari is a court process to seek judicial review of a decision of a lower court or government agency. Certiorari comes from the name of an English prerogative writ, issued by a superior court to direct that the record of the lower court be sent to the superior court for review. The term is Latin for "to be made more certain", and comes from the opening line of such writs, which traditionally began with the Latin words "Certiorari volumus...".
"Prerogative writ" is a historic term for a writ that directs the behavior of another arm of government, such as an agency, official, or other court. It was originally available only to the Crown under English law, and reflected the discretionary prerogative and extraordinary power of the monarch. The term may be considered antiquated, and the traditional six comprising writs are often called the extraordinary writs and described as extraordinary remedies.
A writ of coram nobis is a legal order allowing a court to correct its original judgment upon discovery of a fundamental error that did not appear in the records of the original judgment's proceedings and that would have prevented the judgment from being pronounced.
Hill v. McDonough, 547 U.S. 573 (2006), was a United States Supreme Court case challenging the use of lethal injection as a form of execution in the state of Florida. The Court ruled unanimously that a challenge to the method of execution as violating the Eighth Amendment to the United States Constitution properly raised a claim under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, which provides a cause of action for civil rights violations, rather than under the habeas corpus provisions. Accordingly, that the prisoner had previously sought habeas relief could not bar the present challenge.
Day v. McDonough, 547 U.S. 198 (2006), is a US Supreme Court case involving the one-year statute of limitations for filing habeas corpus petitions that was established by the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (AEDPA). In a 5–4 decision, the Court ruled that if the government unintentionally failed to object to the filing of a petition after the AEDPA limitations period has expired, it is not an abuse of discretion for a district court to dismiss sua sponte the petition on that basis.
The Supreme Court of the United States handed down sixteen per curiam opinions during its 2005 term, which lasted from October 3, 2005, until October 1, 2006.
In United States law, habeas corpus is a recourse challenging the reasons or conditions of a person's confinement under color of law. A petition for habeas corpus is filed with a court that has jurisdiction over the custodian, and if granted, a writ is issued directing the custodian to bring the confined person before the court for examination into those reasons or conditions. The Suspension Clause of the United States Constitution specifically included the English common law procedure in Article One, Section 9, clause 2, which demands that "The privilege of the writ of habeas corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in cases of rebellion or invasion the public safety may require it."
Lefkowitz v. Newsome, 420 U.S. 283 (1975), is a U.S. Supreme Court case which held that when state law permits a defendant to plead guilty without giving up his right to judicial review of specified constitutional issues, such as the lawfulness of a search or the voluntariness of a confession, the defendant is not prevented from pursuing those constitutional claims in a federal habeas corpus proceeding.
The Supreme Court of the United States handed down ten per curiam opinions during its 2010 term, which began October 4, 2010 and concluded October 1, 2011.
The Taney Court heard thirty criminal law cases, approximately one per year. Notable cases include Prigg v. Pennsylvania (1842), United States v. Rogers (1846), Ableman v. Booth (1858), Ex parte Vallandigham (1861), and United States v. Jackalow (1862).
During the tenure of Morrison Waite as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, the Supreme Court heard an unprecedented volume and frequency of criminal cases. In just fourteen years, the Court heard 106 criminal cases, almost as many cases as the Supreme Court had heard in the period from its creation to the appointment of Waite as Chief Justice. Notable cases include United States v. Cruikshank (1875), United States v. Reese (1875), Reynolds v. United States (1878), Wilkerson v. Utah (1879), the Trade-Mark Cases (1879), Strauder v. West Virginia (1880), Pace v. Alabama (1883), United States v. Harris (1883), Ex parte Crow Dog (1883), Hurtado v. California (1884), Clawson v. United States (1885), Yick Wo v. Hopkins (1886), United States v. Kagama (1886), Ker v. Illinois (1886), and Mugler v. Kansas (1887).
In some jurisdictions, a petition for review is a formal request for an appellate tribunal to review the decision of a lower court or administrative body. If a jurisdiction utilizes petitions for review, then parties seeking appellate review of their case may submit a formal petition for review to an appropriate court. In United States federal courts, the term "petition for review" is also used to describe petitions that seek review of federal agency actions.
Townsend v. Sain, 372 U.S. 293 (1963), was a United States Supreme Court case wherein the Court expanded the circumstances in which federal courts should hold evidentiary hearings when presented with petitions for habeas corpus by state prisoners following denial of postconviction relief in state court. The Court held that federal district courts must hold evidentiary hearings if the state court did not resolve all material factual disputes in a full and fair hearing supported by the record.
Department of Homeland Security v. Thuraissigiam, 591 U.S. ___ (2020), was a United States Supreme Court case involving whether the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996, which limits habeas corpus judicial review of the decisions of immigration officers, violates the Suspension Clause of Article One of the U.S. Constitution. In the 7–2 opinion, the Court ruled that the law does not violate the Suspension Clause.
Cullen v. Pinholster, 563 U.S. 170, is a 2011 United States Supreme Court case concerning evidentiary development in federal habeas corpus proceedings. Oral arguments in the case took place on November 9, 2010, and the Supreme Court issued its decision on April 4, 2011. The Supreme Court held 5–4 that only evidence originally presented before the state court in which the claim was originally adjudicated on the merits could be presented when raising a claim under 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d)(1), and that evidence from a federal habeas court could not be presented in such proceedings. It also held that the convicted murderer Scott Pinholster, the respondent in the case, was not entitled to the habeas relief he had been granted by the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.
Fay v. Noia, 372 U.S. 391 (1963), was a 1963 United States Supreme Court case concerning habeas corpus. In a majority opinion authored by Justice William J. Brennan, Jr., the Court held that state prisoners were entitled to access to habeas relief in federal court, even if they did not pursue a remedy in state court that was not available to them at the time. Furthermore, the majority in Fay set out the "deliberate bypass" standard, whereby federal habeas courts could not deny petitions brought by state prisoners unless that prisoner had "deliberately bypassed the orderly procedure of state courts" for the adjudication of constitutional claims.
Braden v. 30th Judicial Circuit Court of Kentucky, 410 U.S. 484 (1973), was a decision of the US Supreme Court regarding the statutory jurisdiction of federal district courts to grant writs of habeas corpus for guaranteeing the right of state prisoners to receive a speedy trial in another state under the Speedy Trial Clause of the Sixth Amendment to the US Constitution.
Brown v. Allen, 344 U.S. 443 (1953), is a landmark United States Supreme Court case about habeas corpus.
Schectman v. Foster, 172 F.2d 339 (1949), was a Second Circuit Court of Appeals by Judge Learned Hand about federal habeas review of criminal convictions by state courts.
Moore v. Dempsey involving a mob-dominated trial, is cited as such a rare and exceptional case in both Ex parte Hawk and Darr v. Burford.
The 'extraordinary circumstances' exception to the requirement that state remedies be exhausted prior to federal habeas corpus review originally seemed to contemplate those situations where exigencies—usually pertaining to the protection of some aspect of the federal government from state action—made it inadvisable to permit the state processes to run their course.
Text of Darr v. Burford, 339 U.S. 200(1950) is available from: Cornell Google Scholar Justia Library of Congress