Walter Mickens, JR. v. John Taylor, Warden (535 U.S. 162)
U.S. Supreme Court · decided March 27, 2002 · Supreme Court Database (Spaeth)
- Citation
- 535 U.S. 162 · 122 S. Ct. 1237
- Decided
- March 27, 2002
- Term
- October Term 2001
- Vote
- 5–4
- Majority author
- Justice Scalia
- Issue area
- Criminal Procedure
- Disposition
- Affirmed
- Outcome
- Petitioning party lost
- Ideological direction
- Conservative
Opinion excerpt
Justice Scalia delivered the opinion of the Court. The question presented in this case is what a defendant must show in order to demonstrate a Sixth Amendment violation where the trial court fails to inquire into a potential conflict of interest about which it knew or reasonably should have known. I In 1993, a Virginia jury convicted petitioner Mickens of the premeditated murder of Timothy Hall during or following the commission of an attempted forcible sodomy. Finding the murder outrageously and wantonly vile, it sentenced petitioner to death. In June 1998, Mickens filed a petition for writ of habeas corpus, see 28 U. S. C. § 2254 (1994 ed. and Supp. V), in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, alleging, inter alia, that he was denied effective assistance of counsel because one of his court-appointed attorneys had a conflict of interest at trial. Federal habeas counsel had discovered that petitioner’s lead trial attorney, Bryan Saunders, was representing Hall (the victim) on assault and concealed-weapons charges at the time of the murder. Saunders had been appointed to represent Hall, a juvenile, on March 20, 1992, and had met with him once for 15 to 30 minutes some time the following week. Hall’s body was discovered on March 30,1992, and four days later a juvenile court judge dismissed the charges against him, noting on the docket sheet that…
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