Friday, August 19, 2022

Reno v. Davis (9th Cir. - Aug. 19, 2022)

It's a death penalty case in the Ninth Circuit, so those are usually long, but worth reading. This one catches the eye at the outset because the caption lists the case as "Reno v. Davis" -- which isn't all that unusual, except that "Reno" is not just the habeas petitioner's last name, but his only name. As the first footnote explains, petitioner's name was formerly "Harold Ray Memro," but he had it legally changed to "Reno" in 1994. Okay. Reno it is.

The former Mr. Memro murdered three young boys -- including seven-year old Carl -- in sexual settings, and to the surprise of no one, gets sentenced to death. How long does it take the case to progress to this point in the habeas process? A long time, of course. A long time. Reno was convicted and sentenced to death in 1979. Unless my math is wrong, that's 43 years ago. And we're only now resolving Reno's first federal habeas petition.

I was thinking as I read the opinion how unmotivated I would be were I required to write the thing. Yes, he killed three little kids, so there's the "ick" factor, and for some, the desire to slam the guy and make sure that his habeas petition is "rapidly" denied. (The federal petition was filed in 1996, and the Ninth Circuit appeal was filed in 2017. But it only took the panel six months to write the 30-page opinion.)

At the same time, however, it's California, so the guy is not going to, in fact, be executed, regardless of what the Ninth Circuit does. Plus, at this point, he's 77 years old. He's dying in San Quentin one way or the other. Not that long from now. Hard to get super motivated, I think, to spend a ton of your own work life writing up what basically amounts to a hypothetical opinion about whether or not the guy should be executed.

But Judge Callahan does so, and the panel unanimously affirms the denial of his federal habeas petition. So another step completed in this 43-year old legal ship to nowhere.