Christeson v. Roper (574 U.S. 373)
U.S. Supreme Court · decided January 20, 2015 · Supreme Court Database (Spaeth)
- Citation
- 574 U.S. 373 · 135 S. Ct. 891
- Decided
- January 20, 2015
- Term
- October Term 2014
- Vote
- 7–2
- Issue area
- Civil Rights
- Disposition
- Reversed and remanded
- Outcome
- Petitioning party won
- Ideological direction
- Liberal
Opinion excerpt
Opinion PER CURIAM. Petitioner Mark Christeson's first federal habeas petition was dismissed as untimely. Because his appointed attorneys-who had missed the filing deadline-could not be expected to argue that Christeson was entitled to the equitable tolling of the statute of limitations, Christeson requested substitute counsel who would not be laboring under a conflict of interest. The District Court denied the motion, and the Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit summarily affirmed. In so doing, these courts contravened our decision in Martel v. Clair,565 U.S. ----, 132 S.Ct. 1276, 182 L.Ed.2d 135 (2012). Christeson's petition for certiorari is therefore granted, the judgment of the Eighth Circuit is reversed, and the case is remanded for further proceedings. I In 1999, a jury convicted Christeson of three counts of capital murder. It returned verdicts of death on all three counts. The Missouri Supreme Court affirmed Christeson's conviction and sentence in 2001, see State v. Christeson,50 S.W.3d 251(en banc), and affirmed the denial of his postconviction motion for relief in 2004, see Christeson v. State,131 S.W.3d 796(en banc). Under the strict 1-year statute of limitations imposed by the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (AEDPA), 28 U.S.C. § 2244(d)(1), Christeson's federal habeas petition was due on April 10, 2005. Nine months before this critical…
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