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Thread: Erick Daniel Davila - Texas Execution - April 25, 2018

  1. #11
    Senior Member CnCP Legend FFM's Avatar
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    COA denied yesterday by the 5th Circuit.

    http://www.ca5.uscourts.gov/opinions...15-70013.0.pdf

  2. #12
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    On June 28, 2016, the US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit DENIED Davila's petition for en banc rehearing.

    https://www.supremecourt.gov/search....es/16-6219.htm

  3. #13
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    Quote Originally Posted by MRBAM View Post
    That should leave him about 18 months away from an X date. Pretty quick even for Texas. Bye Erick.
    so his time is close now

  4. #14
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    Cert granted today...sigh.

    https://www.supremecourt.gov/orders/...317zr_q8l1.pdf

    Looks like another time-wasting extension of Martinez and Trevino.

  5. #15
    Administrator Aaron's Avatar
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    Supreme Court to review Texas death penalty case

    The U.S. Supreme Court will review the death penalty case of a Fort Worth man who shot and killed a 5-year-old girl and her grandmother at a children’s birthday party. The high court said Friday it would look into a legal distinction between ineffective lawyering in the trial court and during state appeals.

    Erick Davila, 29, received the death penalty for the 2008 shooting deaths of Annette Stevenson, 47, and her 5-year-old granddaughter, Queshawn, according to Davila’s brief filed to the U.S. Supreme Court. Davila, a gang member, drove up to a house where he knew a rival gang member, Jerry Stevenson, was and shot into the house and front porch. Instead of killing the man, Davila killed Stevenson's daughter and mother.

    During his trial, defense attorneys said Davila didn’t intend to kill multiple people, only Jerry Stevenson, which would make the case ineligible for a capital murder conviction and the death penalty. To be convicted of capital murder in this case, Davila must have knowingly and intentionally killed multiple people.

    In his brief to the high court, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said Davila did intend to kill multiple people because he said after his arrest that he wanted to shoot “the guys on the porch and ... [was] trying to get the fat dude.” Aside from Jerry Stevenson, only women and children were at the party, the brief said.

    The trial jury seemed to hesitate on the intent issue, submitting a question to the court during deliberations asking: “Are you asking us did he intentionally murder the specific victims, or are you asking us did he intend to murder a person and in the process took the lives of 2 others.”

    The court sent legal definitions and included a charge that said Davila would be responsible for a crime if the only difference between what happened and what he wanted was that a different person was hurt, the brief said. The defense objected, saying it was an improper jury instruction, but the court overruled the objection. Within an hour, the jury came back with a capital murder conviction, later sentencing Davila to death.

    The crux of Davila’s current legal argument rests on this jury instruction and how his subsequent appellate lawyers dealt with it.

    Davila’s direct appeal began after his sentence, but his appellate lawyer didn’t raise improper jury instruction as an issue — a mistake Davila’s current lawyer says was “life-threatening.”

    “The judge gave a bad instruction. The lawyer on direct appeal did not raise it,” said Seth Kretzer, Davila’s federal appellate attorney. “Had she attacked it and won, he might have gotten a new trial, not death-eligible.”

    After his direct appeal, Davila’s state habeas appeal, where one raises issues outside of the trial, didn't argue that his lawyer in the direct appeal was ineffective for not raising the jury issue — another mistake, Kretzer said.

    Paxton said in Texas’ brief that Davila’s arguments are meritless, that a federal district court looked into the jury instruction in question and found no fault against it.

    Death row inmates can also appeal their case in the federal courts system, but it is generally ruled that issues that could be raised at the state level — like the jury instruction — can’t be reviewed at the federal level until they have gone through the state courts. One exception to this rule is if the state habeas lawyers failed to raise the issue of ineffective trial counsel.

    Now, Kretzer is trying to argue that exception should also apply to state habeas lawyers who fail to raise the issue of ineffective appellate counsel as well. In that case, Davila could argue that because his state habeas lawyer didn’t fault his direct appeals’ lawyer for not bringing up the jury instruction, the federal courts can now hear it.

    “The way the law works right now is if the trial counsel made a mistake, the federal court could save the inmate’s life, but if the appellate counsel made the mistake, they would have to go ahead and execute,” Kretzer said.

    The Supreme Court has gotten involved because different federal appeals courts have ruled differently on the distinction between ineffective trial counsel and appellate counsel. In previous rulings, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals has said that there is no distinction between the two, but the 5th Circuit, which covers Texas, as well as the 6th, 7th, 8th and 10th circuit courts, all have ruled that the two shouldn't be treated the same, the state's brief said.

    “If the Court was willing to address a potential circuit split, Davila’s case is not an appropriate vehicle for doing so,” Paxton wrote, re-emphasizing that the federal district court rejected the case based on both procedure and merit.

    The Supreme Court will review the case soon, however, according to Kretzer. He said the court told him it wished to fast-track the merits review and hold oral arguments as soon as April.

    https://www.texastribune.org/2017/01...-penalty-case/
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  6. #16
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    Justices express caution, intrigue in death penalty case

    U.S. Supreme Court justices wrestled Monday with the possible implications of siding with a Texas death row inmate who argues his case should have another chance in federal court because his appellate attorney neglected to bring up a trial error.

    The court appeared split along ideological lines during the hearing, with Justice Anthony Kennedy — often a swing vote — sharing the same concerns as the conservative justices.

    A ruling on the case is expected by the end of June, when the court's term ends.

    The origins of the case dates back to 2008, when Erick Davila fatally shot a rival gang member’s 5-year-old daughter and mother during another girl’s birthday party in Fort Worth. Davila, 30, claims he intended only to kill his rival, Jerry Stevenson.

    To find Davila guilty of capital murder, jurors had to determine that he intended to kill multiple people, and Davila’s main defense was that he only intended to kill Stevenson. Tarrant County prosecutors countered by pointing to Davila's confession to police: “I was trying to get the guys on the porch, and I was trying to get [Jerry Stevenson].”

    As jurors deliberated, they focused on the intent issue, asking the judge if they should decide whether Davila intended to kill his two victims or if he intended to kill someone and in the process fatally shot two others.

    The judge instructed jurors that Davila would be responsible for a crime if the only difference between what happened and what he wanted was that a different person was hurt — without affirming to them that Davila must have intended to kill more than one person.

    Davila’s lawyer objected to the judge's instruction but was overruled. It was the right move by the lawyer, but it hurt Davila in the long run, according to Seth Kretzer, who argued on Davila’s behalf before the justices in Washington, D.C.

    The judge's instruction wasn’t brought up during Davila’s automatic, direct appeal,and another lawyer handling Davila's state habeas appeal — which focuses on facts outside of the trial record — didn't claim the appeals lawyer should have brought it up. Two big mistakes, according to Kretzer.

    Death penalty cases can also be appealed in the federal court system, but it is generally ruled that issues that could be raised at the state level can’t be reviewed federally. So, when a federal lawyer tried to raise the claim that Davila’s lawyer in the direct appeal was ineffective for not faulting the judge’s instruction, federal courts said they couldn’t rule on that because it could have been brought up during the state habeas appeal.

    There is an exception to this rule, created in the Supreme Court decision Martinez v. Ryan, which says that if state habeas lawyers fail to raise the issue of ineffective trial counsel, the federal courts can still hear it to ensure that defendants are guaranteed their Sixth Amendment right to a fair trial.

    Justice Samuel Alito told Kretzer that applying Martinez to Davila's case would burden federal appeals courts with numerous claims of errors from both trials and appeals.

    "If we accept your argument, it applies everywhere, and it's not limited to ineffective assistance of counsel,” Alito said, according to the court’s transcript. “... it applies to every single — every single type of error that could occur at trial."

    Kretzer disagreed, saying that if the Supreme Court sided with his client, it would only apply to claims of bad lawyering during the appeals process.

    “But the ineffective assistance of appellate counsel would be based on any type of error that occurred at trial,” Alito said. “So here you have a jury instruction error. But if we agree with you, it would apply to the erroneous introduction of evidence, to the — to improper statements made in closing, to any type of trial error, any type of constitutional trial error you can dream of.”

    Justice Stephen Breyer, a noted death penalty critic, said it wouldn’t be a huge burden for federal appeals courts to hear more cases similar to Davila's but added that he thought Alito made an interesting point. Breyer asked what the difference was between raising the claim that a lawyer messed up during trial and during the appeals process.

    “I mean, I'm just probably missing it, but what — what is a case where — where there's ineffective assistance of appellate counsel, but not ineffective assistance of trial counsel?” Breyer said. “What is that case?”

    Breyer expanded on what he saw as a conundrum in the rules of how and when someone can raise the claim that they had a bad lawyer at trial and/or during the direct appeal after trial.

    “Suppose we said, yes, there is — it's the same situation, you know, you have ineffective assistance — you have ineffective appellate counsel,” he said. “Well, obviously, you can't raise it because he was ineffective. So you never had a shot at it. It's Catch-22. Same with the trial counsel.”

    Texas Solicitor General Scott Keller shared the same concern as Alito.

    “Extending Martinez to appellate-IAC [ineffective assistance of counsel] claims will have a huge systemic cost by opening up the entire trial and everything that happened at trial to federal habeas review,” he told the court.

    Justice Sonia Sotomayor asked if that was enough of a reason to deny Davila. She and other jurists had noted throughout oral arguments that even if more claims were brought forward because the court sided with Davila, there would be a “initial uptick of claims until people settle down and realize that it's a small number that are viable,” Sotomayor said.

    If the high court rules in Davila's favor, the case would be sent back for federal courts to review his ineffective counsel claim. If it sides with Texas, Davila's appeal will be denied and he could become eligible for execution.

    http://www.gosanangelo.com/story/new...ase/100907744/
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  7. #17
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    In today's opinions, the United States Supreme Court AFFIRMED Davila's conviction and death sentence. Justices Ginsburg, Breyer, Sotomayor and Kagan dissented.

    https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinion...-6219_i425.pdf

  8. #18
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    This was a much needed win for the states. McWilliams, Buck, and that piece of trash opinion called Moore were heavy losses.

  9. #19
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    I think everything's going to be alright for a long time to come if President Trump gets to replace at least one of the dissenters and/or Justice Kennedy.

  10. #20
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    Justices rule against death row inmate over lawyer errors

    WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court has ruled against a Texas death row inmate who said his lawyers failed to challenge a faulty jury instruction at his trial and on appeal.

    The justices ruled 5-4 on Monday that Erick Davila could not bring a claim that his appeals lawyer was ineffective for failing to challenge the work of his trial lawyer.

    Davila was convicted in 2009 of the shooting deaths of a 5-year-old girl and her grandmother at a children's birthday party in Fort Worth. Prosecutors said Davila was trying to shoot someone else as part of a gang dispute.

    Davila claimed the jury should have been instructed it could find him guilty of both murders only if he meant to kill two people. He said he only meant to kill one.

    https://www.google.com/amp/www.nydai...icle-1.3278441
    Don't ask questions, just consume product and then get excited for next products.

    "They will hurt you. They will hurt your grandma, these people. The root cause of this is there's no discipline in the homes, they don't go to school, you know, they live off the government, no personal accountability, and they just beat people up for no reason, and it's disgusting." - Former Hamilton County Prosecutor Joe Deters

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