United States Third Circuit

Dismissal of a second petition for a writ of habeas corpus in a first-degree murder case is affirmed over petitioner's claims that a magistrate: 1) was required to conduct an evidentiary hearing to determine whether petitioner abused the writ; 2) applied the wrong legal standard under the "cause" element of the abuse-of-the-writ doctrine; and 3) wrongly found that petitioner was not "actually innocent" of the murder for which he was convicted, and such actual innocence would have excused his noncompliance with the requisite habeas procedures.

Appellate Information

• Argued 06/08/2007
• Decided 11/30/2007
• Published 11/30/2007

Judges

• Before:  SMITH and GREENBERG, Circuit Judges, and POLLAK, District Judge .

Court

• United States Third Circuit

Counsel

• For Appellant:
  
• David Rudovsky (argued), Kairys, Rudovsky, Messing & Feinberg, Philadelphia, PA, Lee Markovitz, Pittsburgh, PA, for Appellant.


• For Appellees:
  
• Stephen A. Zappala, Jr., District Attorney, Michael W. Streily, Deputy District Attorney, Ronald M. Wabby, Jr. (argued), Assistant District Attorney, Office of the District Attorney, Pittsburgh, PA, for Appellees.