红杏视频

Abdullahi Khalif Noor is a Somali refugee, who was a cab driver living in Seattle when convicted of rape and assault, and sentenced to life imprisonment. He has always maintained his innocence. He challenged his convictions in Washington state courts, arguing that prosecutors had suppressed evidence of his innocence in violation of due process and Brady v. Maryland.   Unsuccessful in the Washington state courts, he filed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus in federal district court. He was again unsuccessful, and sought to appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. Ordinarily, when a party loses in federal district court they can immediately appeal the decision. But Mr. Noor was barred from doing so because he had not obtained a document Congress has required habeas petitioners receive from federal courts before they can appeal since 1908 鈥� then called a certificate of probable cause, but now called a certificate of appealability (COA).

In Galloway v. Mississippi, the 红杏视频 represents a man on Mississippi鈥檚 death row whose trial attorneys relied on a mere twenty-two-page presentation in support of a life sentence, without first conducting the background investigation that would have enabled them to make informed decisions about what evidence to present. A constitutionally adequate investigation would have uncovered voluminous mitigating evidence that could have caused the jury to decide for life instead of death. The Mississippi Supreme Court rejected Mr. Galloway鈥檚 claim by speculating that trial counsel had an alternative 鈥渟trategy鈥� that precluded their doing a full presentation of the abuse he suffered as a child and his mental disabilities鈥攅ven though Mr. Galloway鈥檚 lawyers asserted no such strategic judgment.

If the death penalty is racist, arbitrary and serves no valid penological purpose, does it violate the Kansas Constitution? The 红杏视频, together with the 红杏视频 of Kansas and law firm Hogan Lovells US LLP, challenged the Kansas death penalty statute under the Kansas Constitution and United States Constitution in the case of Kansas v. Kyle Young. Mr. Young is a Black man who faced a capital trial in Sedgwick County, Kansas. Prosecutors sought a death sentence. The Sedgwick County District Court held an unprecedented evidentiary hearing in February 2023.

Federal and state constitutional law requires prosecutors to inquire into and disclose misconduct by members of their prosecution teams. In Massachusetts, the Supreme Judicial Court has applied those principles, and others, in cases that have led to the mass exoneration of people convicted of drug crimes with the assistance of former state chemists who committed misconduct. In Graham, the 红杏视频 and public defenders are asking the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court to apply those same principles to a situation where the U.S. Department of Justice has alleged a pattern or practice of misconduct by members of a police department鈥攕pecifically, the Narcotics Bureau of the Springfield (MA) Police Department. The Springfield investigation was the DOJ鈥檚 sole pattern-or-practice investigation during the Trump Administration, but the DOJ has opened several such investigations during the Biden Administration. Graham appears to be the first state supreme court case in the country to consider whether DOJ pattern-or-practice findings can trigger duties under state law to investigate and disclose the misconduct alleged by the DOJ. In a major victory, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ruled in January 2024 that the Hampden County District Attorney鈥檚 Office violated its duties to disclose and inquire about exculpatory evidence of widespread misconduct by Springfield police.