Split SCOTUS summary reversal in California shaken-baby case involving sufficiency and habeas review
The opinion of the Court in Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U. S. 307 (1979), makes clear that it is the responsibility of the jury — not the court — to decide what conclusions should be drawn from evidence admitted at trial. A reviewing court may set aside the jury’s verdict on the ground of insufficient evidence only if no rational trier of fact could have agreed with the jury. What is more, a federal court may not overturn a state court decision rejecting a sufficiency of the evidence challenge simply because the federal court disagrees with the state court. The federal court instead may do so only if the state court decision was “objectively unreasonable.” Renico v. Lett, 559 U. S. ___, ___ (2010) (slip op., at 5) (internal quotation marks omitted).
Because rational people can sometimes disagree, the inevitable consequence of this settled law is that judges will sometimes encounter convictions that they believe to be mistaken, but that they must nonetheless uphold. The Court of Appeals in this case substituted its judgment for that of a California jury on the question whether the prosecution’s or the defense’s expert witnesses more persuasively explained the cause of a death. For this reason, certiorari is granted and the judgment of the Court of Appeals is reversed….
It is said that Smith, who already has served years in prison, has been punished enough, and that she poses no danger to society. These or other considerations perhaps would be grounds to seek clemency, a prerogative granted to executive authorities to help ensure that justice is tempered by mercy. It is not clear to the Court whether this process has been invoked, or, if so, what its course has been. It is not for the Judicial Branch to determine the standards for this discretion. If the clemency power is exercised in either too generous or too stingy a way, that calls for political correctives, not judicial intervention.
The decision below cannot be allowed to stand. This Court vacated and remanded this judgment twice before, calling the panel’s attention to this Court’s opinions highlighting the necessity of deference to state courts in §2254(d) habeas cases. Each time the panel persisted in its course, reinstating its judgment without seriously confronting the significance of the cases called to its attention. See Patrick v. Smith, 550 U. S. 915 (vacating and remanding in light of Carey v. Musladin, 549 U. S. 70 (2006)), reinstated on remand, 508 F. 3d 1256 (2007) (per curiam); 558 U. S. ___ (2010) (vacating and remanding in light of McDaniel v. Brown, 558 U. S. ___ (2010) (per curiam)), reinstated on remand sub nom. Smith v. Mitchell, 624 F. 3d 1235 (2010) (per curiam). Its refusal to do so necessitates this Court’s action today.
A lenthy dissent authored by Justice Ginsburg and joined by Justice Breyer and Sotomayor starts and ends this way:
The Court’s summary disposition of this case, in my judgment, is a misuse of discretion. I set out below my reasons for concluding that discretion, soundly exercised, would have occasioned denial of California’s petition for review…
In sum, this is a notably fact-bound case in which the Court of Appeals unquestionably stated the correct rule of law. It is thus “the type of case in which we are most inclined to deny certiorari.” Kyles v. Whitley, 514 U. S. 419, 460 (1995) (SCALIA, J., dissenting). Nevertheless, the Court is bent on rebuking the Ninth Circuit for what it conceives to be defiance of our prior remands. See ante, at 8. I would not ignore Smith’s plight and choose her case as a fit opportunity to teach the Ninth Circuit a lesson.
But even if granting review qualified as a proper exer cise of our discretionary authority, I would resist summary reversal of the Court of Appeals’ decision. The fact intensive character of the case calls for attentive review of the record, including a trial transcript that runs over 1,500 pages. Careful inspection of the record would be aided by the adversarial presentation that full briefing and argument afford. See, e.g., R. Fallon, J. Manning, D. Meltzer, D. Shapiro, Hart and Wechsler’s The Federal Courts and the Federal System 1480 (6th ed. 2009) (posing question whether summary reversal would “smack of unfairness to the losing party unless an opportunity were afforded for the filing of briefs on the merits”); Gressman, Supreme Court Practice §6.12(c), p. 417, and n. 46 (questioning the Court’s reliance on its own examination of the record in summarily reversing, without at least affording the parties, “particularly the respondent,” an opportunity to brief the critical issue and identify the relevant portions of the record). Peremptory disposition, in my judgment, is all the more inappropriate given the grave consequences of upsetting the judgment below: Smith, who has already served ten years, will be returned to prison to complete a sentence of fifteen years to life. Before depriving Smith of the liberty she currently enjoys, and her family of her care, I would at least afford her a full opportunity to de fend her release from a decade’s incarceration.
For some back-story on this remarkable case, check out this Los Angeles Times piece from last year headlined “A pawn in a legal chess match: Shirley Ree Smith spent 10 years behind bars for the death of her grandson before her conviction was overturned. Now she waits on skid row as the courts sort out whether a jury’s verdict — even if wrong — must prevail.”