US Supreme Court

Justices decline to reinstate Ohio attempted murder conviction

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The justices’ denial of relief in Davis v. Smith came as part of a list of orders released from the justices’ private conference on Friday, Jan. 24. On Friday afternoon, the justices added to their docket three new cases. Two of them were consolidated. As expected, they did not grant review in any additional cases on Monday morning.

Smith’s effort to invalidate his conviction hinged on Tolliver’s identification of him as her attacker. She was interviewed by police shortly after she woke from a medically-induced coma. However, she did not identify Smith in the 24 photos they showed her. He showed her a picture of Smith, and she later identified Smith as her attacker.

Smith sought to bar prosecutors from using Tolliver’s identification of him, arguing that it was too suggestive. He was convicted after the state trial court denied his motion. The 6th Circuit ordered that the federal district court throw out Smith’s conviction unless the state held a new trial in six months. In a single sentence, the justices upheld the 6th Circuit decision. The justices, as is usual for orders denying a review, did not explain their decision. Thomas suggested that the 6th Circuit had conducted its own review of facts and legal principles in the case. Thomas said that the 6th Circuit’s mistakes had “real consequences” and required the state to retry Smith for a crime committed almost a decade earlier. That result,” Thomas wrote, “comes at a steep cost for both society and the victim.” He would instead have summarily reversed (that is, without additional briefing or oral argument) the 6th Circuit’s decision, reinstating Smith’s conviction.

The justices once again did not act on several high-profile petitions for review that they considered at Friday’s conference, including a challenge to Maryland’s ban on assault rifles and a challenge by members of the San Carlos Apache Tribe to the transfer of land the Western Apaches regard as a sacred site to a copper mining company. The justices will not hold a regular conference until Friday, February 21. This article was originally published on Howe on Court.

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