Richard F. Trest v. Burl Cain, Warden (522 U.S. 87)
U.S. Supreme Court · decided December 9, 1997 · Supreme Court Database (Spaeth)
- Citation
- 522 U.S. 87 · 118 S. Ct. 478
- Decided
- December 9, 1997
- Term
- October Term 1997
- Vote
- 9–0
- Majority author
- Justice Breyer
- Issue area
- Criminal Procedure
- Disposition
- Vacated and remanded
- Outcome
- Petitioning party won
- Ideological direction
- Liberal
Opinion excerpt
Justice Breyer delivered the opinion of the Court. The petitioner in this case, Richard Trest, seeks a writ of habeas corpus, which would vacate a long sentence that he is serving in a Louisiana prison for armed robbery. The District Court refused to issue the writ. Trest appealed to the Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, which ruled against him on the ground of “procedural default.” Trest v. Whitley, 94 F. 3d 1005, 1007 (1996). The Fifth Circuit believed that Trest had failed to raise his federal claims on time in state court, that a state court would now refuse to consider his claims for that reason, and that this state procedural reason amounted to an adequate and independent state ground for denying Trest relief. Hence, in the absence of special circumstances, a federal habeas court could not reach the merits of Trest’s federal claims. Id., at 1007-1009; see generally Coleman v. Thompson, 501 U. S. 722 (1991); Rose v. Lundy, 455 U. S. 509 (1982). In his petition for certiorari to this Court, Trest pointed out that the Court of Appeals had raised and decided the question of “procedural default” sua sponte. The parties themselves had neither raised nor argued the matter. And language in the Court of Appeals’ opinion suggested that the court had thought that, once it had noticed the possibility of a procedural default, it was required to raise the matter on its own.…
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