The following pending petitions involve issues of interest to capital habeas litigators:
Vasquez v. Guerrero, 25-1246 (cert. petition filed April 29, 2026)
(case below: unpublished (5th Cir.))
Questions presented:
To date, no court has reviewed the merits of Petitioner’s claim that, when his trial lawyers failed to investigate and expose a fatal flaw in the most critical evidence against him, he was denied his Sixth Amendment right to the effective assistance of counsel. The Fifth Circuit foreclosed any review of this claim based on its reading of a “due diligence” requirement of the Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act (AEDPA) applicable to “successive” applications for habeas relief. The Fifth Circuit construed the AEDPA’s due-diligence test to require the imputation to Petitioner of all information that a reasonable attorney, by the relevant date, could have discovered, even though Petitioner’s actual attorneys engaged in egregious misconduct that prevented Petitioner from discovering and asserting the claim. In urging that result, the State of Texas effectively admitted that it was aware at the time of trial that the evidence at issue was false yet failed to disclose that fact to Petitioner. The District Attorney whose office procured Petitioner’s conviction agrees that he is entitled to relief, but the courts below gave no deference to that position.
The questions presented are:
1. Does 28 U.S.C. § 2244(b)(2)(B)(i) impose a “reasonable attorney” or a “reasonable applicant” test for due diligence? If the former, are there exceptions to account for egregious misconduct by an applicant’s lawyer?
2. Would construing the AEDPA to bar merits review in a capital case of a substantial IAC claim, one not previously reviewed on the merits by any court, violate the Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments?
3. When an applicant is unaware of the relevant facts when he files a first-in-time application for habeas relief, are later-filed Brady and Napue/Giglio claim “second or successive”?
4. Is a court reviewing a federal habeas application, as a matter of due process or otherwise, required to resolve disputes over authority to speak for the State? What level of deference is owed to the State’s position expressed by an authorized representative?
Lindsey v. South Carolina, 25-1176 (cert. petition filed April 3, 2026)
(case below: 924 S.E.2d 104 (S.C.))
Questions presented:
1. Whether courts evaluating ineffective-assistance-of-counsel claims may evaluate only each error in isolation—or whether they are obligated to consider the prejudice resulting from the cumulative effect of counsel’s deficiencies.
2. Whether a trial court’s wholesale adoption in a capital case of the State’s proposed order without providing any judicial guidance or substantive change violates the Due Process Clause or Eighth Amendment.