William Shupp v. Louisiana

Louisiana grants the right to appellate review of criminal convictions in its courts of appeal and by application for writ of certiorari to the Louisiana Supreme Court. When a defendant loses his right to appeal to the court of appeal for no fault of his own, Louisiana allows for an out-of-time appeal. Here, after Shupp’s convictions by jury were affirmed by the Louisiana Third Circuit Court of Appeal, his lawyer told him that he would file an application for writ of certiorari to the Louisiana Supreme Court but then, after the deadline had passed, told him that he would not file the application. Then the trial court granted Shupp permission to file an out-oftime application for writ of certiorari because he had lost the right to file the application—without fault on his part—because of his lawyer. The court of appeal reversed, reasoning that Shupp “has already received his constitutional right to a direct appeal” in the court of appeal when the conviction was affirmed, and therefore, “he is not entitled to a writ of review to the Louisiana Supreme Court” even though he lost his right to seek review by application for writ of certiorari in the Louisiana Supreme Court because of his lawyer’s ineffective assistance of counsel. The Louisiana Supreme Court denied Shupp’s application for supervisory writ of review seeking to reverse the court of appeal and reinstate the trial court’s grant of the out-of-time application for writ of certiorari. The question presented by these circumstances is: Whether Louisiana’s denial of Shupp’s request to file an out-of-time application for writ of certiorari to