Latest Case: Walden v. Shinn (Civil Rights)

The Oprah Interview as a Truth Commission

LESLEY WEXLER

Illinois Law professor Lesley Wexler explains how Oprah’s interview with Prince Harry and Meghan Markle might illuminate how a formal truth commission to deal with legacies of racism and colonialism might function in the British empire. Professor Wexler describes the purpose and function of state-operated truth commissions and notes the similarities and differences between those and the interview.

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Walden v. Shinn

Docket: 08-99012

Opinion Date: March 12, 2021

Judge: Sidney Runyan Thomas

Areas of Law: Civil Rights, Constitutional Law, Criminal Law

The Ninth Circuit affirmed the district court's denial of a habeas corpus petition challenging petitioner's Arizona state conviction for rape and murder and his death sentence. The panel concluded that the district court properly declined to grant habeas relief as to Claim I, which was based on the trial court's denial of severance. Given the Arizona Supreme Court's alternative ruling that evidence concerning each attack would have been admissible in separate trials on each attack, and petitioner's failure to assign any federal constitutional error to that dispositive ruling in his first PCR petition or his habeas petition, the panel affirmed the denial of habeas relief as to Claim 1. The panel also concluded that the district court properly declined to grant habeas relief as to claim 2, which was based on the trial court's admission of three eyewitness identifications. The panel explained that the state court's rejection of this claim was not contrary to, or an unreasonable application of, clearly established federal law, nor did it rest on an unreasonable determination of the facts. The panel further concluded that the district court properly determined that McKinney v. Ryan, 813 F.3d 798 (9th Cir. 2015) (en banc), has no impact on Claim 31 of petitioner's habeas petition; as to Claim 4, the district court properly denied petitioner leave to amend his habeas petition to add five previously withdrawn ineffective assistance of counsel claims on the grounds that those claims are untimely and do not relate back to his timely-filed claims and that petitioner unduly delayed seeking leave to amend; and as to Claim 5, the district court properly concluded that the trial court's admission of 19 purportedly "gruesome" crime scene and autopsy photos does not entitle petitioner to habeas relief because the state court's decision did not involve an objectively unreasonable application of clearly established Supreme Court precedent or an objectively unreasonable determination of the facts.