Final Briefs in Danforth v. Minnesota
Below are the final top and bottom side briefs in Danforth v. Minnesota (06-8273) — a case examining state courts’ authority to expand retroactivity of Supreme Court criminal procedure rulings — which is scheduled for argument on October 31.
Click here to read the petitioner’s brief, filed by the Minnesota Public Defender’s office, and here to read the respondent’s brief.
Click here and here for amicus briefs from the American Civil Liberties Union and the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers in support of the petitioner; here for an amicus brief from Alaska and ten other states in support of the respondent; and here for an amicus brief from Kansas in support of neither party.
The Kansas amicus brief is interesting, as it tries to poke holes in the petitioner’s, the respondent’s, and the other amici briefs’ arguments, and instead, assert absolute states rights in the matter.
How common is an amicus brief which asserts a desire for a different conclusion than both parties seek?
Comment by David.Huberman — September 5, 2007 @ 2:30 pm
Happens occasionally. In the Prison Litigation Reform Act automatic stay case, Miller v. French, 530 U.S. 327 (2000), the U.S. Solicitor General tried to save the statute by destroying it. That is, they urged the Court to give the statute such a watered down construction as to make almost useless and only then uphold it. The prisoners wanted it struck down, and the state wanted it upheld as written and intended.
The state prevailed. This was in the previous administration, BTW.
Comment by Kent Scheidegger — September 5, 2007 @ 5:55 pm
I don’t see that much difference between Kansas’ position and that of NACDL and ACLU. All of them limit Teague to federal habeas. Kansas relies on the proposition that state habeas is not required by due process, as well as the internal logic of Teague.
But Kansas clearly goes too far — just watch what happens if it tries to say that state habeas corpus is available only to white, native-born Kansans. And of course, if Kansas chooses to dispense with habeas corpus, federal habeas is waiting with no deference to state courts and no exhaustion requirements. Maybe the Kansas AG should go back to defending the creationists on the State Board of Education.
Comment by Roger Friedman — September 5, 2007 @ 7:47 pm
Do you perhaps have the Kansas AG confused with his predecessor, Roger?
Saying that a state can limit a remedy of its own creation on retroactivity and saying it can discriminate on the basis of suspect classifications are quite different things.
Comment by Kent Scheidegger — September 5, 2007 @ 10:58 pm
Not on an act of grace theory.
Comment by Roger Friedman — September 6, 2007 @ 7:14 am