William Bracy v. Richard B. Gramley, Warden (520 U.S. 899)
U.S. Supreme Court · decided June 9, 1997 · Supreme Court Database (Spaeth)
- Citation
- 520 U.S. 899 · 117 S. Ct. 1793
- Decided
- June 9, 1997
- Term
- October Term 1996
- Vote
- 9–0
- Majority author
- Justice Rehnquist
- Issue area
- Criminal Procedure
- Disposition
- Reversed and remanded
- Outcome
- Petitioning party won
- Ideological direction
- Liberal
Opinion excerpt
Chief Justice Rehnquist delivered the opinion of the Court. Petitioner William Bracy was tried, convicted, and sentenced to death before then-Judge Thomas J. Maloney for his role in an execution-style triple murder. Maloney was later convicted of taking bribes from defendants in criminal cases. Although he was not . bribed in this case, he “fixed” other murder cases during and around the time of petitioner’s trial. Petitioner contends that Maloney therefore had an interest in a conviction here to deflect suspicion that he was taking bribes in other cases, and that this interest violated the fair-trial guarantee of the Fourteenth Amendment’s Due Process Clause. We hold that petitioner has made a sufficient factual showing to establish “good cause,” as required by Ha-beas Corpus 'Rule 6(a), for discovery on his claim of actual judicial bias in his case. Maloney was one of many dishonest judges exposed and convicted through “Operation Greylord,” a labyrinthine federal investigation of judicial corruption in Chicago. See United States v. Maloney, 71 F. 3d 645 (CA7 1995), cert. denied, 519 U. S. 927 (1996); see generally J. Tuohy & R. Warden, Greylord: Justice, Chicago Style (1989). Maloney served as a judge from 1977 until he retired in 1990, and it appears he has the dubious distinction of being the only Illinois judge ever convicted of fixing a murder case. Before he was…
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