Term Paper on "Panetti v. Quarterman"

Quoted Instructions for "Panetti v. Quarterman" Assignment:

Panetti v. Quarterman (Doc. No. 06-6407, Decided 6/28/07) (execution of the mentally ill). The *****brief*****: a stylized summary of the Court*****s decision. A brief is a short summary and analysis of the case. It is a set of notes, presented in a systematic way, in order to sort out the parties, identify the issues, ascertain what was decided, and analyze the reasoning behind decisions made by the courts.

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The brief needs to include the following elements:

1. Title and Citation

2. Facts of the Case

3. Issues

4. Decisions (Holdings)

5. Reasoning (Rationale)

6. Separate Opinions

7. Analysis

1. Title and Citation

The title of the case shows who is opposing whom. The name of the person who initiated legal action in that particular court will always appear first. Since the losers often appeal to a higher court, this can get confusing. The first section of this guide shows you how to identify the players without a scorecard.

The citation tells how to locate the reporter of the case in the appropriate case reporter. If you know only the title of the case, the citation to it can be found using the case digest covering that court, or one of the computer-assisted legal research tools (Westlaw or LEXIS-NEXIS).

2. Facts of the Case

Make a summary of the pertinent facts and legal points raised in the case. It will show the nature of the litigation, who sued whom, based on what occurrences, and what happened in the lower court/s.

The facts are often conveniently summarized at the beginning of the court*****s published opinion. Sometimes, the best statement of the facts will be found in a dissenting or concurring opinion. WARNING! Judges are not above being selective about the facts they emphasize. This can become of crucial importance when you try to reconcile apparently inconsistent cases, because the way a judge chooses to characterize and *****edit***** the facts often determines which way he or she will vote and, as a result, which rule of law will be applied.

The fact section of a brief SHOULD include the following elements:

 A one-sentence description of the nature of the case, to serve as an introduction.

 A statement of the relevant law, with quotation marks or underlining to draw

attention to the key words or phrases that are in dispute.

 A summary of the complaint (in a civil case) or the indictment (in a criminal case)

plus relevant evidence and arguments presented in court to explain who

did what to whom and why the case was thought to involve illegal

conduct.

 A summary of actions taken by the lower courts, for example: defendant

convicted; conviction upheld by appellate court; Supreme Court granted

certiorari.



3. Issues

The issues or questions of law raised by the facts peculiar to the case are often stated explicitly by the court. Again, watch out for the occasional judge who misstates the questions raised by the lower court*****s opinion, by the parties on appeal, or by the nature of the case.

Constitutional cases frequently involve multiple issues, some of interest only to litigants and lawyers, others of broader and enduring significant to citizens and officials alike. Be sure you have included both.

With rare exceptions, the outcome of an appellate case will turn on the meaning of a provision of the Constitution, a law, or a judicial doctrine. Capture that provision or debated point in your restatement of the issue. Set it off with quotation marks or underline it. This will help you later when you try to reconcile conflicting cases.

When noting issues, it may help to phrase them in terms of questions that can be answered with a precise *****yes***** or *****no.*****

For example, the famous case of Brown v. Board of Education involved the applicability of a provision of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution to a school board*****s practice of excluding black pupils from certain public schools solely due to their race. The precise wording of the Amendment is *****no state shall... deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.***** The careful student would begin by identifying the key phrases from this amendment and deciding which of them were really at issue in this case. Assuming that there was no doubt that the school board was acting as the State, and that Miss Brown was a *****person within its jurisdiction,***** then the key issue would be *****Does the exclusion of students from a public school solely on the basis of race amount to a denial of *****˜equal protection of the laws*****?*****

Of course the implications of this case went far beyond the situation of Miss Brown, the Topeka School Board, or even public education. They cast doubt on the continuing validity of prior decisions in which the Supreme Court had held that restriction of Black Americans to *****separate but equal***** facilities did not deny them *****equal protection of the laws.***** Make note of any such implications in your statement of issues at the end of the brief, in which you set out your observations and comments.

NOTE: More students misread cases because they fail to see the issues in terms of the applicable law or judicial doctrine than for any other reason. There is no substitute for taking the time to frame carefully the questions, so that they actually incorporate the key provisions of the law in terms capable of being given precise answers. It may also help to label the issues, for example, *****procedural issues,***** *****substantive issues,***** *****legal issue,***** and so on. Remember too, that the same case may be used by instructors for different purposes, so part of the challenge of briefing is to identify those issues in the case which are of central importance to the topic under discussion in class.

4. Decisions

The decision, or holding, is the court*****s answer to a question presented to it for answer by the parties involved or raised by the court itself in its own reading of the case. There are narrow procedural holdings, for example, *****case reversed and remanded,***** broader substantive holdings which deal with the interpretation of the Constitution, statutes, or judicial doctrines. If the issues have been drawn precisely, the holdings can be stated in simple *****yes***** or *****no***** answers or in short statements taken from the language used by the court.

5. Reasoning

The reasoning, or rationale, is the chain of argument which led the judges in either a majority or a dissenting opinion to rule as they did. This should be outlined point by point in numbered sentences or paragraphs.

6. Separate Opinions

Both concurring and dissenting opinions should be subjected to the same depth of analysis to bring out the major points of agreement or disagreement with the majority opinion. Make a note of how each justice voted and how they lined up. Knowledge of how judges of a particular court normally line up on particular issues is esssential to anticipating how they will vote in future cases involving similar issues.

7. Analysis

Here the student should evaluate the significance of the case, its relationship to other cases, its place in history, and what is shows about the Court, its members, its decision-making processes, or the impact it has on litigants, government, or society. It is here that the implicit assumptions and values of the Justices should be probed, the *****rightness***** of the decision debated, and the logic of the reasoning considered.

A CAUTIONARY NOTE

Don*****t brief the case until you have read it through at least once. Don*****t think that because you have found the judge*****s best purple prose you have necessarily extracted the essence of the decision. Look for unarticulated premises, logical fallacies, manipulation of the factual record, or distortions of precedent. Then ask, How does this case relate to other cases in the same general area of law? What does it show about judicial policymaking? Does the result violate your sense of justice or fairness? How might it have been better decided?

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Here's an example brief of a particular case..

Commonwealth v. Amirault et al., 424 Mass. 616, 677 N.E.2d 652 (1997).

Facts

The owner and two employees of a daycare facility were charged with sexually molesting several of the facility*****s students. ***** Amirault, Cheryl Amirault LeFave, and Gerald Amirault were all originally represented by one lawyer in one single proceeding. Prior to severance, the trial court conducted a pre-trial hearing regarding the testimony of the child witnesses. Based on the testimony of a child psychologist, the court decided that the children would testify while seated at a small table, facing the jury, with the defendants behind them. The defendants would be able to see the children*****s faces, at least partially, and the children would be able to see the defendants by turning their heads. The attorney for the defendants did not object to this set-up; however, the attorney did raise confrontation clause issues with respect to the videotaped testimony of one child against Gerald.

Gerald*****s trial was severed from that of Cheryl and *****. Despite judicial prompting regarding potential confrontation clause issues, the attorneys did not object to the courtroom testimony of the child witnesses before trial, during trial, or on direct appeal.

Defendants sought post-conviction relief on the grounds that the courtroom set-up deprived them of their state and federal constitutional rights to confront the witnesses against them. Gerald*****s motion for new trial was denied by the judge who presided over Gerald*****s original trial. Cheryl and *****s motions for new trial were granted by a different judge.

The state appealed the decision regarding Cheryl and *****s new trial.

Issues

Whether Article 12 of the Mass. Const. Declaration of Rights is violated when a child witness is seated so that the defendant can, at best, see the child in profile and the child may comfortably avoid looking at the defendant during testimony?

Whether a criminal defendant seeking post-conviction relief is entitled to a new trial where her confrontation clause rights were violated at trial but where she failed to raise the issue before trial, at trial, or on direct appellate review?

Holding (6-1)

Yes, Article 12 is violated.

No, the defendant is not entitled to a new trial.

Reasoning

In Coy v. Iowa, 487 U.S. 1012 (1988), the U.S. Supreme Court considered whether a defendant*****s Sixth Amendment confrontation clause rights were violated when a complaining witness was allowed to testify from behind a screen, a screen that blocked the defendant from the witness*****s sight. The Supreme Court held that the defendant*****s rights were, indeed, violated. Specifically, the Supreme Court noted that the Sixth Amendment contemplates *****the right to meet the accusing witness in such a way that the witness must either look upon the accused*****s face as he testifies or deliberately avert his eyes and look away from him.*****

Although Coy was later modified and, indeed, relaxed, by the Court*****s decision in Maryland v. *****, 497 U.S. 836 (1990), Article 12 of the Mass Const Dec of Rights is more rigorous than the corresponding provision of the U.S. constitution; specifically, Article 12 states that *****every subject shall have a right . . . to meet the witnesses against him face to face.***** Thus, the rationale in Coy is particularly relevant to the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court*****s decision here.

Because the child witnesses were situated such that they naturally were facing away from the defendants during the bulk of their testimony (with the exception of direct identification of the defendants), the jury had no opportunity to observe whether the child witnesses were evasive during their substantive testimony. As the court notes, *****[t]he witness who faces the accused and yet does not look him in the yet when he accuses him may thereby cast doubt on the truth of the accusation.*****

There are exceptions to the *****face to face***** rule--notably dying declarations, public records, and other *****limited circumstances*****--but case law requires a particularized, case-by-case finding of reasons to bypass the face to face requirement. The child psychologist, Newberger, testified about general problems with child witnesses, but he did not speak to these particular child witnesses (indeed, he had not interviewed these young witnesses).

Interestingly, the Court expresses concern about the videotaped testimony used in the Gerald Amirault trial because, while Amirault was there, the jury could not see the interaction of all the people in the room (only the child*****s reaction to whatever was taking place). Still, the Court reaffirms its earlier decision that this videotaped testimony is acceptable.

On the issue of the right to a new trial, the court notes that, *****[o]nce the process has run its course--through pretrial motions, trial, posttrial motions and one or two levels of appeal--the community*****s interest in finality comes to the fore. The regular course of justice may be long, but it must not be endless.***** That said, new trials can be granted years after conviction.

The court reasons here, however, that the defendants waived their confrontation clause rights. Under the doctrine of waiver, failure to raise an argument at trial forfeits the right to raise that argument later. There are three important exceptions to the waiver doctrine.

First, a legal argument is not waived if it is so novel that a defendant would not have known to make that argument in a timely fashion. In the case at bar, the court finds that the confrontation clause argument was not entirely novel. Indeed, the very fact that Gerald*****s lawyer raised the issue of confrontation with respect to the videotaped testimony illustrates the *****obviousness***** of the issue with respect to child witnesses. The court finds, in essence, that the writing was on the wall: a reasonable lawyer would have known that the situation presented a colorable confrontation clause issue.

Second, a new trial may be appropriate despite waiver if there is evidence of ineffective assistance of counsel. Without significant discussion, the court concludes that these defendants have not demonstrated that their counsel was constitutionally deficient.

Third, a new trial may be appropriate to avoid a *****miscarriage of justice.***** Specifically, a new trial is appropriate if: (1) the evidence of guilt was not so overwhelming as to eliminate the possibility of innocence; (2) the error was sufficiently significant that it is possible that, but-for the error, a different result might have been reached; and (3) it is possible that the error was not simply a tactical decision on the part of defense counsel. Here, the court finds that there was a genuine question of guilt, and there is little likelihood that the failure to object was tactical at the appellate stage. However, the court finds that the defendants have not met their heavy burden of demonstrating that, but-for the courtroom set-up, a different outcome was likely.

Accordingly, the court concludes that the confrontation clause issue was waived and there is no reason to ignore that waiver. A new trial is inappropriate.

Separate Opinions

Dissent by O*****Connor

Justice O*****Connor concludes that the defendants did not waive their confrontation clause argument. Specifically, O*****Connor asserts that, at the time of defendants***** trial, the case law on the confrontation clause was not particularly clear. As a result, O*****Connor finds that a reasonable attorney might not have known to object to the courtroom set up, might not have recognized it as problematic.

Moreover, O*****Connor claims that, even if the argument was waived, this is one of those rare circumstances where a new trial is still appropriate because failure to grant a new trial may result in a miscarriage of justice. Specifically, O*****Connor asserts that the circumstances of the child witnesses***** testimony were crucial because the guilty verdict rested so heavily upon the jury*****s belief that the child witnesses were telling the truth.