Supreme Court rules against Oregon inmate

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By The Oregonian

Published: 03/03/2004

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that an Oregon man could not appeal his kidnapping conviction on a federal constitutional claim because he hadn't fully raised that issue in his state appeals.
In an 8-1 decision, the nation's highest court said that Michael Reese, 50, could not pursue a federal appeal of his 1991 convictions for kidnapping and attempted sodomy on the grounds that he received inadequate legal representation. Reese had been in and out of prison since 1974, including a stint on a rape charge. A judge sentenced him to about 25 years in prison.
Experts said the ruling was important, although it likely would be one of the least noticed decisions from the Supreme Court's 2003-04 term because it involves arcane workings of habeas corpus appeals process.
"It's not one of the headline grabbers of the term for sure," said Kent Scheidegger, Legal Director of the Criminal Justice Legal Foundation, a Sacramento-based victims rights group. But, he said, if the Supreme Court had ruled otherwise, "the standard of review for a defendant's claims would have been significantly lowered, reopening the door to repeated rounds of review of weak claims."
Steve Wax, the federal public defender for Oregon, said the ruling placed further limits on inmates with legitimate claims.
"There are people in the state system who are actually innocent and who were grossly disserviced by their lawyer or by a prosecutor who hid the ball," he said. "Habeas corpus exists to vindicate people's rights that have been trampled on."
For more than two decades, prosecutors and victims rights groups have been complaining that state inmates are using federal habeas corpus to file endless rounds of frivolous appeals.
The Supreme Court has tried to limit the ability of inmates to use the process, as did Congress in 1996.
After completing the direct appeal of his criminal convictions, Reese filed what's called a state post-conviction appeal, arguing that he received inadequate legal representation during his direct appeal.
The state courts rejected the appeals, and Reese filed his habeas corpus appeal. Again, he argued that he was denied his constitutional right to adequate legal advice on appeal.
A federal magistrate rejected that appeal, saying that his state appeal should have claimed both his state and federal constitutional rights to adequate legal assistance.
The U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals reversed the ruling, saying that Reese had done enough to raise both issues. But the U.S. Supreme Court disagreed.
Kevin Neely, spokesman for the Oregon Department of Justice, said the ruling strikes a fair balance between the rights of inmates and an overburdened appellate court system.

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