Wainwright, Secretary, Florida Department of Corrections v. Torna (455 U.S. 586)
U.S. Supreme Court · decided March 22, 1982 · Supreme Court Database (Spaeth)
- Citation
- 455 U.S. 586 · 102 S. Ct. 1300
- Decided
- March 22, 1982
- Term
- October Term 1981
- Vote
- 7–2
- Issue area
- Criminal Procedure
- Disposition
- Reversed
- Outcome
- Petitioning party won
- Ideological direction
- Conservative
Opinion excerpt
Per Curiam. Respondent is in custody pursuant to several felony convictions that were affirmed by the Third District Court of Appeal of Florida. Torna v. State, 358 So. 2d 1109 (1978). The Florida Supreme Court dismissed an application for a writ of certiorari, on the ground that the application was not filed timely. 362 So. 2d 1057 (1978). A petition for rehearing and clarification was later denied. App. to Pet. for Cert. A-15. Respondent thereafter filed a petition for habeas corpus in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida, contending that he had been denied his right to the effective assistance of counsel by the failure of his retained counsel to file the application for certiorari timely. The District Court denied the petition on the ground that the failure to file a timely application for certiorari did not render counsel’s actions “so grossly deficient as to render the proceedings fundamentally unfair.” Id., at A-22. In reaching this conclusion, the District Court noted that review by the Florida Supreme Court was discretionary; “[fjailure of counsel to .timely petition for certiorari to the Supreme Court, therefore, only prevented [respondent] from applying for further discretionary review.” Id., at A-28. The Court of Appeals reversed. 649 F. 2d 290 (CA5 1981). In Ross v. Moffitt, 417 U. S. 600 (1974), this Court held that a criminal…
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