Collins v. Byrd

• Decision Date: 14 March 1994
• Docket Number: No. A-758.,A-758.
• Citation: 510 U.S. 1185
• Parties: Collins, Warden v. Byrd.
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

510 U.S. 1185

Collins, Warden v. Byrd.

No. A-758.

Supreme Court of United States.

March 14, 1994.

Application to vacate the stay of execution of sentence of death, presented to JUSTICE STEVENS, and by him referred to the Court, denied.

JUSTICE SCALIA, dissenting.

On April 17, 1983, respondent and an accomplice entered a convenience store, emptied the cash register, and took the clerk's wedding band and watch. He then stabbed the clerk, ripped the store telephone out of the wall, and left his victim bleeding on the floor. The clerk died in a hospital a few hours later. The police arrested respondent early on the morning of April 18, after he had committed an armed robbery at another convenience store. Respondent was convicted of capital murder and sentenced to death on August 19, 1983. The sentence and conviction were affirmed on direct appeal by the Ohio Court of Appeals and the Ohio Supreme Court, see 512 N. E. 2d 611 (1987). We denied certiorari. 484 U. S. 1037 (1988). Respondent then filed a motion for state postconviction relief which was rejected by the trial and appellate courts. The Ohio Supreme Court denied review. 573 N. E. 2d 665 (1991). Respondent next filed a jurisdictional motion with the Ohio Supreme Court which alleged deficiencies in the performance of his appellate counsel on his direct appeal to the Ohio Supreme Court. That motion was rejected, see 596 N. E. 2d 472 (1992), and we recently denied an application to stay respondent's execution to consider a petition for certiorari stemming from the denial of that motion.

On March 7, 1994, only eight days before respondent's scheduled execution and six years after we denied certiorari on his direct appeal (almost 11 years after the murder for which he was tried and convicted, if anyone remembers that) respondent filed his first federal habeas petition. That formidable filing included 29 claims for relief and filled almost 300 pages. The District Court cited the substantial time gaps between respondent's conviction, rejection of his direct appeal, and denial of state postconviction relief, and rejected the habeas petition on the ground of delay. Respondent then sought a stay of execution from the Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. The Sixth Circuit granted the stay, and petitioner filed this application to vacate the stay.

I have considerable sympathy for the District Court's view that respondent's habeas petition should be rejected on the ground of inexcusable delay. The decision whether to assert jurisdiction over a habeas petition calls for an exercise of the court's equitable discretion, see Withrow v. Williams, 507 U. S. 680, 715-718 (1993) (SCALIA, J., dissenting), and the petitioner's delay in filing is a factor the court may consider. Cf. McCleskey v. Zant, 499 U. S. 467, 489 (1991) ("[A] petitioner may abuse the writ by failing to raise a claim through inexcusable neglect"). We have for many purposes, however, abandoned (or forgotten) the equitable nature of habeas corpus, and under the current state of our law I cannot say that it would have been unlawful or an abuse of discretion for the Sixth Circuit to require District Court consideration of the habeas petition on its merits, and to stay the execution pending that consideration. The Sixth Circuit's order, however, did much more than that.

First, the order stayed respondent's execution for "120 days to allow for further investigation and discovery of possible habeas claims." The Court of Appeals evidently ordered this suo motu, with no request for such relief from respondent himself — and understandably not. Respondent has had six years to "investigat[e] and discover...