Summary
U. S. Supreme Court ruling upholding a Florida murderer's claim that the time limit for filing his petition for a fifth review of his case should be waived. Albert Holland was convicted on overwhelming evidence of murdering a Florida police officer. While Holland's claims of trial error and ineffective assistance of counsel were reviewed four times by state courts, including two reviews in the Florida Supreme Court, his lawyer failed to meet the deadline for filing a petition for re-review of these claims on federal habeas corpus. In the Supreme Court, Holland and the ACLU claimed that the lower federal courts are entitlted to waive the time limit to prevent an injustice. At Florida's invitation, CJLF joined the case to argue that Congress adopted the time limits to prevent unwarranted delay and specified the exceptions that would be allowed. The Court ruled to allow exceptions beyond those specified by Congress. [CJLF brief in PDF.]
