{"id":1155,"date":"2012-04-13T21:39:02","date_gmt":"2012-04-14T01:39:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www3.law.harvard.edu\/journals\/hlpr\/?p=1155"},"modified":"2015-10-02T15:23:41","modified_gmt":"2015-10-02T15:23:41","slug":"examining-the-facts-in-the-cavazos-v-smith-and-connick-v-thompson-dissents","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/2012\/04\/13\/examining-the-facts-in-the-cavazos-v-smith-and-connick-v-thompson-dissents\/","title":{"rendered":"Examining the Facts in the Cavazos v. Smith and Connick v. Thompson Dissents"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Anne King<\/em><\/p>\n

The first decision of the Supreme Court\u2019s 2011 Term,\u00a0Cavazos v. Smith<\/em><\/a>, which involved the tragic case of Shirley Ree Smith and her family, is back in the news.<\/p>\n

Ms. Smith was convicted in the 1997 death of her seven week old grandson.\u00a0 Prosecutors had argued that the baby\u2019s death resulted from \u201cshaken baby syndrome.\u201d\u00a0 The Ninth Circuit decided that habeas review was warranted because of significant problems with the evidence presented at trial, but the Court issued a summary reversal without oral argument.<\/p>\n

But now California Governor Jerry Brown has\u00a0commuted Ms. Smith\u2019s sentenc<\/a>e \u2013 and her lawyers say she\u2019s planning to seek full exoneration based on new medical evidence.
\n
\nJustice Ginsburg\u2019s dissent in Smith is notable for its emphasis on the facts of the case and the nature of the evidence, which she highlighted to argue that the Court should never have granted certiorari.\u00a0 Supreme Court review is inappropriate, she wrote, in this \u201cnotably fact-bound case in which the Court of Appeals unquestionably stated the correct rule of law.\u201d<\/p>\n

Justice Ginsburg explained that the problematic medical evidence supported the Ninth Circuit\u2019s decision.\u00a0 The child\u2019s symptoms weren\u2019t typical of shaken baby syndrome \u2013 plus, the medical community now questions whether shaking a baby alone can actually cause death.\u00a0 The dissent also highlighted the \u201cmeager non-medical evidence\u201d \u2013 including no evidence of child abuse \u2013 and ineffective representation by Ms. Smith\u2019s counsel.<\/p>\n

Justice Ginsburg\u2019s focus on the facts in Smith echoes her dissent last year in\u00a0Connick v. Thompson<\/em><\/a>\u00a0\u2013 which she read from the bench, in an unusual step.<\/p>\n

John Thompson was convicted of murder in New Orleans and incarcerated for 18 years, spending 14 on death row. After his exoneration due to the discovery of significant Brady violations, Mr. Thompson won a civil suit against the New Orleans DA\u2019s office, and the Fifth Circuit upheld the verdict.<\/p>\n

In reversing the lower courts, Justice Thomas\u2019s majority opinion spent little time addressing the underlying facts of the case. The Court held that the DA\u2019s office could not be held liable for the acknowledged Brady violations based on failure to train its prosecutors.<\/p>\n

But Justice Ginsburg\u2019s dissent, by contrast, offered a deep exploration of the facts to illustrate \u201cthe grave injustice Thompson suffered,\u201d to show that the Brady violations in Mr. Thompson\u2019s prosecution \u201cwere neither isolated nor atypical,\u201d and to emphasize that Brady violations, in general, \u201care not easily detected.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s well worth reading the dissent to gain a full picture of the violations that \u201cinfected\u201d Mr. Thompson\u2019s prosecution, and the \u201cprosecutorial design\u201d (Justice Ginsburg\u2019s phrases) involved in carrying them out. The most egregious include withholding an eyewitness\u2019s description of a murder suspect who looked nothing like Mr. Thompson, and, in a separate case, the concealment of blood samples that didn\u2019t match Mr. Thompson\u2019s blood type.<\/p>\n

Justice Ginsburg\u2019s dissents in\u00a0<\/em>Smith<\/em>\u00a0and\u00a0Thompson<\/em>\u00a0emphasize the facts to highlight systemic problems in the justice system. These days, Justice Ginsburg is often joined in dissent by Justices Breyer, Kagan, and Sotomayor \u2013 and as the most senior member of that group she has the prerogative to assign the task of writing the dissent. And this fact makes Justice Ginsburg\u2019s dissents in\u00a0<\/em>Smith<\/em>\u00a0and\u00a0Thompson<\/em>\u00a0appear all the more significant.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Anne King The first decision of the Supreme Court\u2019s 2011 Term,\u00a0Cavazos v. Smith, which involved the tragic case of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1155","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/peZQka-iD","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1155","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1155"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1155\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1155"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1155"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1155"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}