Carlos Trevino, Petitioner v. Rick Thaler, Director, Texas Department of Criminal Justice, Correctional Institutions Division (569 U.S. 413)
U.S. Supreme Court · decided May 28, 2013 · Supreme Court Database (Spaeth)
- Citation
- 569 U.S. 413 · 133 S. Ct. 1911
- Decided
- May 28, 2013
- Term
- October Term 2012
- Vote
- 5–4
- Majority author
- Justice Breyer
- Issue area
- Civil Rights
- Disposition
- Vacated and remanded
- Outcome
- Petitioning party won
- Ideological direction
- Liberal
Opinion excerpt
Justice BREYER delivered the opinion of the Court. In Martinez v. Ryan, 566 U.S. 1, 132 S.Ct. 1309, 182 L.Ed.2d 272 (2012), we considered the right of a state prisoner to raise, in a federal habeas corpus proceeding, a claim of ineffective assistance of trial counsel. In that case an Arizona procedural rule required a defendant convicted at trial to raise a claim of ineffective assistance of trial counsel during his first state collateral review proceeding-or lose the claim. The defendant in Martinez did not comply with the state procedural rule. But he argued that the federal habeas court should excuse his state procedural failing, on the ground that he had good "cause" for not raising the claim at the right time, namely that, not only had he lacked effective counsel during trial, but also he lacked effective counsel during his first state collateral review proceeding. We held that lack of counsel on collateral review might excuse defendant's state law procedural default. We wrote: "[A] procedural default will not bar a federal habeas court from hearing a substantial claim of ineffective assistance at trial if, in the [State's] initial-review collateral proceeding, there was no counsel or counsel in that proceeding was ineffective." Id., at ----, 132 S.Ct., at 1320. At the same time we qualified our holding. We said that the holding applied where state procedural law said…
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