SCOTUS UPHOLDS RIGHT TO FILE HABEAS

Khalil Kholi was sentenced to ten consecutive terms of life in prison for first-degree sexual assault in 1993. Three years later the Rhode Island Supreme Court affirmed his conviction on appeal.

On May 16, 1996 he filed a motion to reduce his sentence and on May 23, 1997 he filed a Motion for a Post Conviction Remedy. Both were denied. On January 16, 1998 the state Supreme Court upheld the denial of the motion to reduce the sentence and on December 14, 2006 it upheld the denial of the request for post conviction relief.

Under the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (AEDPA) a writ of habeas corpus in Federal Court is only timely if it is filed within one year of the case becoming final on direct appeal. However time is tolled while the case is under collateral review in the state court.

Kholi filed a habeas in Federal Court but for it to be timely under the AEDPA both the motion to reduce the sentence and the request for Post Conviction Remedy must be considered collateral review. No one questioned the request for Post Conviction Remedy which is similar to a writ of habeas corpus. But the state challenged the motion to reduce the sentence. The state said that since the request was addressed to the court’s discretion, and not as a matter of law, it was not on collateral review. But in a rare victory for defendants the Supreme Court upheld Kholi’s right to file his Petition for a Writ of Habeas Corpus.

The term “collateral” means not direct. Thus anything that is not a direct review is a collateral review and the motion to reduce the sentence is not part of the direct review. Furthermore, since it is a reconsideration of the sentence it is a review. In any case, when it comes to whether or not a judge used the proper discretion in determining a sentence the line between what is a matter of law and what is not is a close one often left to appellate judges.

Thus the Supreme Court upheld Kholi’s right to file his writ of habeas corpus. Of course that doesn’t mean that he wins, it only means he has the right to have it heard.