In a 6-3 opinion with a rather salty dissent, Justice Thomas places federalism before the 6th Amendment holding that a state court defendant cannot access federal habeas relief if ineffective counsel failed to properly raise a claim. According to Justice Sotomayor, “the Court’s decision will leave many people who were convicted in violation of the Sixth Amendment to face incarceration or even execution without any meaningful chance to vindicate their right to counsel”.

A Cold Opening

“On May, 25 1989, David Ramirez fatally stabbed his girlfriend and her 15 year-old daughter,” writes Justice Thomas in Shinn v. Ramirez. He continues to depict the brutal murder of the two victims in a manner more fitting of a true crime podcast than a procedurally weighty Supreme Court decision. Justice Thomas’s brutal depiction of the alleged acts of Mr. Ramirez wouldn’t seem odd in a Federal District Court opinion or perhaps even an appellate opinion, but experienced court watchers know exactly what Justice Thomas is up to- it’s been a mainstay of conservative stalwart Justices in Supreme Court criminal decisions. It seems as though “law and order” conservatives reviewing criminal cases almost purely based on procedural issues think a layer of shock and awe is necessary to whet the morbid appetite of those who still believe the “ends justify the means” in criminal matters.

Straying far from the Court’s textualist underpinnings, the opinion in Shinn v. Ramirez modifies the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act to bar claims of ineffective assistance of counsel opening the door to the possibility that an actually innocent defendant may remain behind bars due to the negligence of her counsel - a concern noted by the spirited dissent.

A Rigid Barrier to Federal Courts

The procedural issue at hand: Whether 28 U.S.C. 2254(e)(2) permits a federal court to order an evidentiary hearing on a defendant’s post conviction petition where the defense attorney negligently failed to develop the state-court record.

A state prisoner may request that a federal court order his release by petitioning for a writ of habeas corpus. Out of respect for our system of dual sovereignty, a federal court may only hear a state court claim or consider new evidence in very narrow circumstances. This is because a federal order to retry or release a state prisoner overrides the State’s sovereign power to enforce “societal norms through criminal law”. As such, federal courts review a writ of habeas corpus as an extraordinary remedy that guards against extreme malfunctions in the state criminal justice systems.

To meet this high bar, the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act requires that state prisoners exhaust all remedies available in the courts of the state. Second, the claim must not be procedurally defaulted - meaning that the prisoner must comply with all of the State court requirements before moving on to the federal court.

Federal courts may only excuse procedural default if a prisoner can demonstrate cause for the default and actual prejudice as a result of the alleged violation of federal law. One might think that the failure of a defendant’s attorney would be sufficient cause —it’s not. Unlike any other context, the Sixth Amendment has limited application here — federal courts have long held that in habeas cases the petitioner bears the burden of their attorney’s negligence causing procedural default. This is despite the fact that many of these defendants are indigent and did not select their own counsel. In sum, if the state selects an attorney for you and he or she screws up —no federal court access for you.

And so, the Supreme Court in Shinn v. Martinez held that a federal habeas court may not conduct an evidentiary hearing or otherwise consider evidence beyond the state-court record based on ineffective assistance of state post conviction counsel.

Justice Sotomayer’s dissent was a tongue lashing, even for someone who is known for writing passionate dissents. She called the opinion perverse and illogical and called it out for essentially gutting a prior opinion decided less than ten years ago.

The Impact of Shinn v. Ramirez and Jones

The impact is drastic. An innocent defendant could be procedurally barred from raising a claim of constitutional violation if his post-conviction counsel was ineffective. To put it bluntly —the State can grant you a lawyer and if he fails to adequately defend you federal courts may be procedurally barred from helping you - even if you are actually innocent.