Mayle v. Felix is a rather important habeas opinion by the Supreme Court that got overshadowed by the last week's Kelo opinion and the upcoming release of Grockster and Castle Rock.
The 7-2 majority (opn. by J. Ginsburg) finds that a habeas petitioner, whose original petition included only a Sixth Amendment claim arising out of admission into evidence of a prosecution witnesses' videotape statement, could not be amend the petition under the "relation back" doctrine (Fed. R. Civ. Proc. 15 (c)(2)) to include a Fifth Amendment claim arising out of the admission of the petitioner's post-arrest statement to the police. The majority concludes that the circumstances giving rise to the Sixth Amendment do not arise from the same conduct, transaction, or occurence as the circumstances giving rise to the Fifth Amendment claim.
After some reflection, I think that Justice Souter's dissent is correct in stating that the relevant "conduct, transaction, or occurence" should be the trial where the unconstitutional evidence is admitted. To draw an analogy with a negligence case, there may be several breaches of duty of care along the way, but they all lead to the ultimate injury to the plaintiff. If the plaintiff in a negligence case is allowed to plead the ultimate injury generally and then amend to specify the precise nature of the breaches of duty, a habeas petitioner should be held to the same standard. This is particularly true because a habeas petitioner would generally have a much tougher time getting an attorney to draft the petition - after going through the direct appeal process, he or she are not likely to have any $$ left for counsel.
This last point segways into a policy implication of the Court's decision. Those petitioners who do somehow find counsel to write their petition would be among the lucky few, whose petition would be carefully drafted to avoid forfeiture of later-discovered valid claims. But the indigent majority would seem to be SOL.
I am also confused as to why the district court's wide discretion to deny amendment is not a sufficient safeguard of the Congress' intent in enacting AEDPA. The majority explains that this would allow petitioners to amend their claims as of right in the period between the court's independent preliminary review and the time the State is ordered to answer the petition. Unless I am missing something, this window of time is fairly small, so I really don't see the potential "parade of horrors."
Here is Goldstein & Howe's comprehensive description of the case.
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