USA - Texas. U.S. Supreme Court Expands Opportunities for Federal Review of Ineffective Assistance Claims.

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled (5-4) in Trevino v. Thaler that a death row inmate in Texas can raise claims of ineffective counsel for the first time in federal court if they were unable to raise the claim in state appeals. The Court decided that its ruling in Martinez v. Ryan (2012), which provided such a right in an Arizona case, applies to this case in Texas because the “state procedural framework, by reason of its design and operation, makes it highly unlikely in a typical case that a defendant will have a meaningful opportunity to raise a claim of ineffective assistance of trial counsel on direct appeal.” In Martinez v. Ryan, the Supreme Court ruled that “procedural default will not bar a federal habeas court from hearing a substantial claim of ineffective assistance at trial if, in the initial-review collateral proceeding, there was no counsel or counsel in that proceeding was ineffective.” The case was heard in February. Trevino, 39, Hispanic, remains convicted of participating in the June 1996 gang rape and murder of 15-year old Linda Salinas, for which he was sentenced to death in Aug. 1997. But the decision should allow his actual lawyers to make a case to federal Judge Xavier Rodriguez that Trevino's trial lawyers were ineffective during the trial's punishment portion. The judge, and later the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, had previously refused to entertain such an argument. Each year, there are about 10,000 applications to argue cases before the Supreme Court, and about 100 of those are granted.