United States Second Circuit

In this case, petitioner was convicted of second-degree murder and was sentenced to 25 years to life, of which he has thus far served 22 years. In 2002, petitioner filed an amended petition for a writ of habeas corpus, alleging ineffective assistance of counsel and presenting essentially unchallenged expert testimony persuasively demonstrating that the victim could not have died on the night of the supposed murder. The district court dismissed the petition as time-barred, and this court reversed and remanded for the petition to be heard on the merits, holding that a "credible" and "compelling" showing of actual innocence warrants an equitable exception to the limitation period set forth by the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act, as here. On remand, the district court nonetheless denied the petition in its entirety. The judgment of the district court denying habeas relief is reversed and on remand the district court is directed to issue a writ of habeas corpus, where the denial of petitioner's ineffective-assistance claim involved an "unreasonable application" of Strickland v. Washington.

Appellate Information

• Decided 03/11/2015
• Published 03/11/2015

Judges

• Cabranes

Court

• United States Second Circuit

Counsel