Summary
U. S. Supreme Court decision to overturn a 2007 Ninth Circuit ruling, which had voided the conviction of California murderer Michael Pulido. Pulido was convicted on strong evidence of killing a gas station cashier during a 1992 robbery. Because both Pulido and his accomplice blamed each other for the killing, the jury could not agree on who actually fired the gun, but California’s felony-murder rule provides that accomplices to murder during the commission of a felony can both be found guilty of the murder. Fifteen years after his conviction, the Ninth Circuit sidestepped federal rules to invalidate Pulido’s conviction due to a minor jury instruction error previously deemed harmless by the California Supreme Court. CJLF joined the state’s appeal to argue that precedent (won by CJLF) requires that a claim of trial error raised on federal habeas corpus must be supported by substantial evidence that the error prejudiced the defendant’s case. No such evidence was presented to support the Ninth Circuit ruling. The high court agreed.[CJLF brief in PDF.]
