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Terrence Edwin Prince v. Joe A. Lizarraga, Warden

Paid petition · United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, No. 16-55418 · judgment May 8, 2018


Certiorari denied · May 13, 2019
Pre-decision estimate: 4% cert probability

Before the decision, roughly the 4.1% base rate. The model weighted this up for a Ninth Circuit decision below, a circuit split argued in the petition, and a dissent in the court below (flagged in the petition), and down for a state or local-government respondent.

Questions presented

The Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act (AEDPA) imposes gatekeeping provisions that prohibit federal district courts from even considering the merits of a “second or successive” habeas petition raising a claim based on newly discovered evidence unless the petitioner can “establish by clear and convincing evidence that, but for constitutional error, no reasonable factfinder would have found the applicant guilty of the underlying offense.” 28 U.S.C. § 2244(b)(2)(B). Read literally, that provision would bar even a claim based on exculpatory evidence that the state had intentionally suppressed until after a petitioner filed his first habeas petition. As this Court has repeatedly held, however, “second or successive” is a term of art that does not apply to all second-intime petitions. The questions presented are:

  1. Is a Brady claim brought in a second-in-time habeas petition “second or successive” for purposes of AEDPA’s gatekeeping provisions when the claim is based on previously undisclosed evidence?

  2. Does applying AEDPA’s severely limiting gatekeeping provisions to a second-in-time petition violate the presumption against retroactivity, where the petitioner’s initial petition was filed pre-AEDPA, and the second-in-time petition would have survived under the pre-AEDPA standard?

Counsel of record

For petitioner
Robert Mark Loeb
Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP

For respondent
Charles Shang-Rei Lee
California Attorney General's Office

Case

Conference history
Distributed for 2 conferences

Linked docket
18A299

Proceedings

  1. May 13 2019
    Petition DENIED.
  2. Apr 23 2019
    DISTRIBUTED for Conference of 5/9/2019.
  3. Apr 22 2019
    Reply of petitioner Terrence Edwin Prince filed.
  4. Apr 11 2019
    Certificates of Compliance and Service filed with respect to brief in opposition of respondent Joe A. Lizarraga, Warden.
  5. Apr 08 2019
    Brief of respondent Joe A. Lizarraga, Warden in opposition filed.
  6. Mar 05 2019
    Motion to extend the time to file a response is granted and the time is further extended to and including April 8, 2019.
  7. Feb 28 2019
    Motion to extend the time to file a response from March 8, 2019 to April 8, 2019, submitted to The Clerk.
  8. Feb 04 2019
    Motion to extend the time to file a response is granted and the time is extended to and including March 8, 2019.
  9. Jan 30 2019
    Motion to extend the time to file a response from February 6, 2019 to March 8, 2019, submitted to The Clerk.
  10. Jan 07 2019
    Response Requested. (Due February 6, 2019)
  11. Dec 26 2018
    DISTRIBUTED for Conference of 1/11/2019.
  12. Dec 14 2018
    Waiver of right of respondent Lizarraga, Warden to respond filed.
  13. Nov 19 2018
    Petition for a writ of certiorari filed. (Response due December 24, 2018)
  14. Sep 20 2018
    Application (18A299) granted by The Chief Justice extending the time to file until November 19, 2018.
  15. Sep 19 2018
    Application (18A299) to extend the time to file a petition for a writ of certiorari from October 18, 2018 to November 19, 2018, submitted to The Chief Justice.