Summary
U.S. Supreme Court case in which a double murderer attempts to raise new challenges to his sentence long after the proper time for doing so by accusing the previous lawyers of ineffective assistance. In 2008, Erick Davila sprayed bullets at a child's birthday party in an attempt to kill rival gang members. The group assembled on the porch of the Houston home was mostly women and children having cake and ice cream for the birthday, though the father of one of the children was also there and being targeted by Davila. In this assault, Davila wounded three girls and one woman, and he killed Annette Stevenson and her five-year-old granddaughter. After Davila's case had been heard and decided on direct appeal and in a state habeas corpus proceeding, he went to federal court with a habeas corpus petition. There, he wanted to raise a new issue relating to the jury instruction regarding how many people he needed to have intended to kill in order to be guilty of capital murder rather than just murder. His lawyer had not raised the issue on appeal (probably because she considered it a weak claim), and this would normally block the issue from the federal courts as well. Davila claimed that the appeal lawyer was ineffective for not raising it. His lawyer in state habeas corpus had not claimed ineffective assistance of the appeal lawyer, so this claim also could not normally be raised in a subsequent review of the case. So Davila claims the habeas corpus lawyer was ineffective also. The federal district court held that the claim was barred and, in addition, that it was without merit even if it could be considered. In the Supreme Court, CJLF argued that there needs to be an end to this chain of reopening decided cases by attacking the competence of all the prior lawyers. The high court agreed and affirmed the judgment.
