Habeas Relief Sufficiency of Evidence.

Byline: Derek Hawkins

United States Supreme Court

Case Name: Jefferson S. Dunn v. Matthew Reeves

Case No.: 20-1084

Focus: Habeas Relief Sufficiency of Evidence

Willie Johnson towed Matthew Reeves' broken-down car back to the city after finding Reeves stranded on an Alabama dirt road. In payment for this act of kindness, Reeves murdered Johnson, stole his money, and mocked his dying spasms. Years after being convicted of murder and sentenced to death, Reeves sought state postconviction relief, arguing that his trial counsel should have hired an expert to develop sentencing-phase mitigation evidence of intellectual disability. But despite having the burden to rebut the strong presumption that his attorneys made a legitimate strategic choice, Reeves did not call any of them to testify. The Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals denied relief, stressing that lack of evidence about counsel's decisions impeded Reeves' efforts to prove that they acted unreasonably. Reeves v. State, 226 So. 3d 711, 750751 (2016).

On federal habeas review, the Eleventh Circuit held that this analysis was not only wrong, but indefensible. In an unpublished, per curiam opinion that drew heavily on a dissent from denial of certiorari, the Eleventh Circuit reinterpreted the Alabama court's lengthy opinion as imposing a simple per se prohibition on relief in all cases where a prisoner fails to question his counsel. Reeves v. Commissioner, Ala. Dept. of Corrections, 836 Fed. Appx. 733, 744747...