Habeas petition denied; makes newspaper; newspaper uses wrong terms
That a Petition for Writ of Habeas Corpus was denied is not news – it is to be expected – but that it made this morning’s Courant is certainly news.
Richard Lapointe, convicted 20 years ago of killing his wife’s grandmother, will not get a new trial.
In a written decision in Rockville Thursday, Superior Court Judge Stanley T. Fuger denied the request for a new trial, which means Lapointe will remain behind bars for life, plus 60 years, without the possibility of parole.
Fuger said the evidence put forward by Lapointe’s attorney was much like his 83-page petition – “exceeding in extraneous detail, yet lacking in key substance.” And more than one-third of the 177 exhibits presented at a hearing July 16-20 for a new trial were completely irrelevant to the case.
Okay, this really irks me. It isn’t a hearing for a new trial. It is a hearing on a Petition for Writ of Habeas Corpus. How hard is it to get the story straight? Yes, that’s the eventual result, in that if the conviction is found to be unconstitutional as a result of a violation of the Sixth Amendment guarantee of effective assistance of counsel, then the remedy is a new trial, but this is not a petition for a new trial. [Jamie Spencer expressed the same frustration with incorrect reporting a few weeks ago.]
To get Lapointe’s case heard, [his lawyer] Casteleiro had to prove that Lapointe’s counsel was ineffective during his original trial and in his bid for a new trial, which meant he had to prove that Lapointe’s counsel’s errors were so serious that he was deprived of a fair trial.
I guess that’s what he had to prove, but this shorthand seems quite inadequate. What he had to prove was that the trial attorney’s performance was below the standard of a reasonably competent criminal defense lawyer and that but for his deficient performance, the outcome would have been different (he would have been acquitted).
See? That wasn’t hard. Sixth Amendment jurisprudence 101.
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about 3 years ago
Is ineffective rep a “but for” test?
about 3 years ago
The prejudice prong is.
about 3 years ago
Crummy legal reporting is why people think that “beyond a reasonable doubt” is the same thing as “beyond a shadow of a doubt”. I’m not a lawyer and that distinction drives me crazy, because when criminal trials are reported, newspapers typically don’t explain the whole idea of reasonable doubt. I can’t tell you how many discussions I’ve had with people where they insist that the jury convicted someone ‘beyond all doubt’, largely based upon what they saw in a newspaper or heard on the local news.
about 3 years ago
As a crime a crime/court reporter myself, I take interest in this post. I’ll tell you I would not try to get a phrase like “writ of habeus corpus” past my copy desk. They’d slap my wrist for sure. It’s my job to make sense of the court room for the reader, and using Latin (or is it Greek?) isn’t accomplishing that goal. We’re a general interest newspaper, not a law journal nor court docket.
I have to say, I don’t see what’s wrong with skipping straight to what a court action means effectively rather than techinically. Readers aren’t lawyers, they don’t care about the details. I know, because they call and bug me all the time
You’re making an assumption that if the true and technical information is printed, then readers will absorb it and be more educated and the world will be a better, smarter place and people will better understand what you do as a profession.
The more likely result is that they wouldn’t read an overly technical story at all. We in the industry assume, and have some data of limited value to back it up, that people stop reading when they get to the first sentence they have to read twice. They’ll see habeus and skip right to the funnies page.
Whether you disagree or not, this is the rationale in the industry for this type of writing.
about 3 years ago
Jesse: Thanks for your comment
The Writ of Habeas Corpus is not some complicated legal concept. It is one of the most precious Constitutional rights afforded our citizens. It is also not a legal term of art, such as a Terry stop.
A Writ of Habeas Corpus is not a petition for a new trial. It is also not a technical phrase. To call it a petition for a new trial is a gross generalization and frankly an insult to the Great Writ.
I understand your point about catching the reader’s attention: I would not be averse to a title like: “Judge denies X’s bid for a new trial”. Then the paragraph uses the correct term: “A Superior Court judge denied X’s challenge to his conviction. X claimed that his lawyer didn’t represent him effectively, a right that is protected by the Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution. This claim was raised via what is called a Petition for Writ of Habeas Corpus, the oldest Constitutional safeguard against the power of the State to illegally confine individuals” or some variation thereof.
Why do you have to pander to the lack of knowledge of the reader? I thought the point of the newspaper was to inform and educate? Use the correct term and people will become familiar with it. They should. It is a fundamental Constitutional protection against the power of the government to illegally confine you. That’s a pretty damn big deal.
about 3 years ago
I don’t think habeas as a concept is complicated, but only as a phrase. Yeah, a reporter can explain it, but why?
Reading your hypothetical paragraph as a hypothetical editor, it’s very standard daily newspaper style up to the sentence that starts “This claim was raised via…”
The reason that sentence is non-standard is because you begin explaining jargon that is not essential to understanding the story. The essentials of the story are the convict wanted a new trial, the judge wouldn’t give it to him.
The reason mentioning habeas is superfluous is we almost never – if ever – see any other petition raised by a convicted criminal. Aren’t all petition’s for a new trial habeas writs, some based on ineffective assistance of counsel, some not? And what does habeas do that is not a petition for a new trial? x = y and y = x, no?
It seems that way to this lay person.
People incarcerated without any charge could bring a habeas writ, I suppose, but that’s so rarely happening outside of Guantanamo. Perhaps in a Guantanamo story, habeas would be a more essential phrase, but I haven’t given that much thought.
So why use both phrases – “petition for new trial” and “writ of habeas corpus” – if one is immediately understood, the other is not, and there doesn’t seem to be a great need for both in order to convey essentially what happened in court?
These are genuine questions, by the way, not rhetorical flair.
This isn’t just court reporting: we newspaper folk avoid jargon whenever possible, no matter how sacred the jargon is.
As a side note, I would also argue that writ of habeas corpus is a legal term of art, admittedly a much older, more revered and traditional term than, say, Alford plea or Terry stop, but nonetheless it’s jargon that’s more useful to the initiated than the lay.
I agree with Karoli, by the way, that the media are to blame for the public’s misunderstanding of standards of evidence. I would, however, single out in particular one medium: television. TV reporters rarely get “beats” and so don’t develop any expertise anywhere. I’m in court three or four times per week and I frequently tutor my TV colleagues on court conventions, rules and procedures because I, too, hate misinformation, even if it’s in my competitor’s report.
about 3 years ago
[quote comment="3525"]I don’t think habeas as a concept is complicated, but only as a phrase. Yeah, a reporter can explain it, but why?
Reading your hypothetical paragraph as a hypothetical editor, it’s very standard daily newspaper style up to the sentence that starts “This claim was raised via…”
The reason that sentence is non-standard is because you begin explaining jargon that is not essential to understanding the story. The essentials of the story are the convict wanted a new trial, the judge wouldn’t give it to him.
The reason mentioning habeas is superfluous is we almost never – if ever – see any other petition raised by a convicted criminal. Aren’t all petition’s for a new trial habeas writs, some based on ineffective assistance of counsel, some not? And what does habeas do that is not a petition for a new trial? x = y and y = x, no?
It seems that way to this lay person.
People incarcerated without any charge could bring a habeas writ, I suppose, but that’s so rarely happening outside of Guantanamo. Perhaps in a Guantanamo story, habeas would be a more essential phrase, but I haven’t given that much thought.
So why use both phrases – “petition for new trial” and “writ of habeas corpus” – if one is immediately understood, the other is not, and there doesn’t seem to be a great need for both in order to convey essentially what happened in court?
These are genuine questions, by the way, not rhetorical flair.
This isn’t just court reporting: we newspaper folk avoid jargon whenever possible, no matter how sacred the jargon is.
As a side note, I would also argue that writ of habeas corpus is a legal term of art, admittedly a much older, more revered and traditional term than, say, Alford plea or Terry stop, but nonetheless it’s jargon that’s more useful to the initiated than the lay.
I agree with Karoli, by the way, that the media are to blame for the public’s misunderstanding of standards of evidence. I would, however, single out in particular one medium: television. TV reporters rarely get “beats” and so don’t develop any expertise anywhere. I’m in court three or four times per week and I frequently tutor my TV colleagues on court conventions, rules and procedures because I, too, hate misinformation, even if it’s in my competitor’s report.[/quote]
The Writ of Habeas Corpus is mentioned in the Constitution – Miranda warnings are not. The latter is a legal term of art – referring to a collection of rights.
As to the differences between a petition for a new trial and a Writ of Habeas Corpus, I’ll give you one recent example: If you are following Michael Skakel’s recent legal attempts, that is a petition for a new trial, not a Writ of Habeas Corpus. The standard of proof is different, as are the legal remedies available. Not all Habeas petitions involve IAC claims (legal term).
They are separate and distinct processes. In Connecticut, there is no right to counsel in a petition for a new trial, but there is one in a Writ for Habeas Corpus.
about 3 years ago
As to why you should use that term? I guess I always prefer referring to things/concepts/principles by their accurate name.
about 3 years ago
This is exactly the point.
I’ve been sitting in court rooms and writing about what goes on for three years now and you just confused me. I pity the poor reader who just wants some news with his coffee and only absorbs court info in passing.
about 3 years ago
I don’t know. I still think that if you use the correct term often enough, people will start to understand. It’s an annoyance to me, that’s all.
about 3 years ago
[quote comment="3532"] I still think that if you use the correct term often enough, people will start to understand.[/quote]I completely sympathize with that sentiment but I’m not sure it comes up often enough for that to be the case. I’ve reported on three appeals in the last year (all three were murder cases), each of which were habeas writs based on ineffective assistance of counsel (to my recollection), but that’s only 3 stories out of 200-250 for the year (plus the thousands of articles in the paper written not about court or crime). As you say, habeas writs are denied all the time (that’s why we don’t report them very often but for the most high-profile convicts).
And thanks for the exchange. Perhaps I’m the only one, but I’d love more media criticism from a public defender. The attorneys I deal with personally probably want to curry my favor more than honestly criticize my work.
about 3 years ago
I’m the same as you. I hate when people can’t get the stuff straight. At least it wasn’t a lawyer doing it, at least I presume the reporter isn’t a reporter. Of course today I was in trial and objected to something as hearsay. The prosecutor’s response?: “But it’s voluntary.” Gotta love it.
But I totally agree with you.
about 3 years ago
[quote comment="3535"]I completely sympathize with that sentiment but I’m not sure it comes up often enough for that to be the case. I’ve reported on three appeals in the last year (all three were murder cases), each of which were habeas writs based on ineffective assistance of counsel (to my recollection), but that’s only 3 stories out of 200-250 for the year (plus the thousands of articles in the paper written not about court or crime). As you say, habeas writs are denied all the time (that’s why we don’t report them very often but for the most high-profile convicts).
And thanks for the exchange. Perhaps I’m the only one, but I’d love more media criticism from a public defender. The attorneys I deal with personally probably want to curry my favor more than honestly criticize my work.[/quote]
Yes, thanks for engaging! This was better than “no comment”, which is probably what I would say in real life.
about 3 years ago
Perhaps it’s time to change all the legal jargon to terms that most people learn in college if you want reporters to understand the courts. Just like the Bible has been re-translated into modern language and Catholics ceased using Latin in mass now many years ago, perhaps legal lingo needs a comprehensive update.
I’m not a lawyer, but I’ve worked for and with a lot of them. I’ve got a much-used copy of Black’s Law Dictionary on the shelf next to me, but I still get stuff wrong. From what I see reading appellate rulings – some of the lawyers out there also get it wrong, which is why we have these ineffective counsel cases in the first place!
Whaddya think? Is it time for a Revised Standard Version of legalese?
about 3 years ago
[quote comment="3584"]Perhaps it’s time to change all the legal jargon to terms that most people learn in college if you want reporters to understand the courts. Just like the Bible has been re-translated into modern language and Catholics ceased using Latin in mass now many years ago, perhaps legal lingo needs a comprehensive update.
I’m not a lawyer, but I’ve worked for and with a lot of them. I’ve got a much-used copy of Black’s Law Dictionary on the shelf next to me, but I still get stuff wrong. From what I see reading appellate rulings – some of the lawyers out there also get it wrong, which is why we have these ineffective counsel cases in the first place!
Whaddya think? Is it time for a Revised Standard Version of legalese?[/quote]
It would have to be a massive undertaking and one that would face tremendous opposition. I’m not sure if you can replace all legal terms, but lawyers and judges have to do a much better job of explaining them and casting them in normal language – such as the Rule Against Perpetuities