Mcwilliams v. Dunn
U.S. Supreme Court · decided June 19, 2017 · Supreme Court Database (Spaeth)
- Decided
- June 19, 2017
- Term
- October Term 2016
- Vote
- 5–4
- Majority author
- Justice Breyer
- Issue area
- Criminal Procedure
- Disposition
- Reversed and remanded
- Outcome
- Petitioning party won
- Ideological direction
- Liberal
Opinion excerpt
Justice BREYER delivered the opinion of the Court. Thirty-one years ago, petitioner James Edmond McWilliams, Jr., was convicted of capital murder by an Alabama jury and sentenced to death. McWilliams challenged his sentence on appeal, arguing that the State had failed to provide him with the expert mental health assistance the Constitution requires, but the Alabama courts refused to grant relief. We now consider, in this habeas corpus case, whether the Alabama courts' refusal was "contrary to, or involved an unreasonable application of, clearly established Federal law." 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d)(1). We hold that it was. Our decision in Ake v. Oklahoma, 470 U.S. 68, 105 S.Ct. 1087, 84 L.Ed.2d 53 (1985), clearly established that, when certain threshold criteria are met, the State must provide an indigent defendant with access to a mental health expert who is sufficiently available to the defense and independent from the prosecution to effectively "assist in evaluation, preparation, and presentation of the defense." Id., at 83, 105 S.Ct. 1087. Petitioner in this case did not receive that assistance. I McWilliams and the State of Alabama agree that Ake (which this Court decided in February 1985) sets forth the applicable constitutional standards. Before turning to the circumstances of McWilliams' case, we describe what the Court held in Ake . We put in italics language that we find…
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