First, the Court accepted the case on the merits, rejecting procedural challenges to the appeal. A notice of appeal is delivered when received by the clerk, regardless of when it was officially filed. (discussing Fed.R.Civ.P. 5(d)(2)). A notice of appeal is valid so long as it specifies the appealing party, designates the judgment being appealed, and names the court to which the appeal is taken, even if it violates a local electronic filing requirement. (citing Fed.R.App.P. 3(c)(1)).
Case summaries and commentary on recently decided criminal law cases in the Third Circuit provided by Federal Defenders and CJA Panel Attorneys.
Monday, August 24, 2015
Habeas relief affirmed: government concedes unreliable fire-science and chromatography evidence has been discredited and Court finds remaining evidence not sufficiently “ample” to prove arson and murder beyond a reasonable doubt
In
Han Lee v. Superintendent Houtzdale SCI, the Third Circuit affirmed habeas
relief (under 28 U.S.C. § 2254) granted to a father who spent 24 years in prison for
allegedly setting a fire that killed his daughter.
First, the Court accepted the case on the merits, rejecting procedural challenges to the appeal. A notice of appeal is delivered when received by the clerk, regardless of when it was officially filed. (discussing Fed.R.Civ.P. 5(d)(2)). A notice of appeal is valid so long as it specifies the appealing party, designates the judgment being appealed, and names the court to which the appeal is taken, even if it violates a local electronic filing requirement. (citing Fed.R.App.P. 3(c)(1)).
The
Court then reviewed magistrate’s report and recommendation for plain error, without
AEDPA deference, consistent with the law of the case. See Lee
v. Glunt, 667 F.3d 397, 400–03 (3d Cir. 2012). The magistrate found that Lee had shown “that
the admission of the fire expert testimony undermined the fundamental fairness
of the entire trial because the probative value of [that] evidence, though relevant,
[was] greatly outweighed by the prejudice to the accused from its admission.”
Lee, 667 F.3d at 403. The Commonwealth
conceded that the basis for fire-science and gas-chromatography evidence has
now been discredited. The Court found that
the remaining evidence was not sufficiently “ample” to prove arson and murder
beyond a reasonable doubt. That evidence
was: (1) alleged inconsistencies in the Korean-to-English interpretation of
statements made by Lee in the hours following his daughter’s death, (2) a
cultural stoicism construed as nonchalance, and (3) autopsy results which posited
two alternate theories of cause of death, one wholly consistent with death in
an accidental fire, and the other (strangulation) which had very
little forensic support.
First, the Court accepted the case on the merits, rejecting procedural challenges to the appeal. A notice of appeal is delivered when received by the clerk, regardless of when it was officially filed. (discussing Fed.R.Civ.P. 5(d)(2)). A notice of appeal is valid so long as it specifies the appealing party, designates the judgment being appealed, and names the court to which the appeal is taken, even if it violates a local electronic filing requirement. (citing Fed.R.App.P. 3(c)(1)).
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