Bryan Goeke, Superintendent, Renz Correctional Center v. Lynda Ruth Branch (514 U.S. 115)
U.S. Supreme Court · decided March 20, 1995 · Supreme Court Database (Spaeth)
- Citation
- 514 U.S. 115 · 115 S. Ct. 1275
- Decided
- March 20, 1995
- Term
- October Term 1994
- Vote
- 9–0
- Issue area
- Criminal Procedure
- Disposition
- Reversed
- Outcome
- Petitioning party won
- Ideological direction
- Conservative
Opinion excerpt
Per Curiam. In this case, the Eighth Circuit granted habeas relief on the ground that it is a violation of Fourteenth Amendment due process for a state appellate court to dismiss the appeal of a recaptured fugitive where there is no demonstrated adverse effect on the appellate process. The court declined to consider whether application of its ruling in respondent’s case would violate the principle of Teague v. Lane, 489 U. S. 288 (1989) (plurality opinion), concluding the State had waived that argument. The State raised the Teague bar, and application of the Eighth Circuit’s novel rule violates Teague’s holding. For this reason, certiorari is granted and the judgment is reversed. In 1986, a Missouri jury convicted Lynda Branch of the first-degree murder of her husband. On retrial after the Missouri Court of Appeals reversed her conviction because of an error in the admission of evidence, the jury again convicted her. Branch moved for a new trial, and the trial court scheduled a hearing for April 3, 1989, to consider this motion and to sentence her. Before the hearing, however, Branch, who was free on bail, took flight to a neighboring county. She was recaptured on April 6,1989, and sentenced to life imprisonment without possibility of parole. Branch filed a timely notice of appeal on direct review and an appeal of the trial court’s denial of her motion for post-conviction…
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