Document Type
Article
Publication Date
1991
Abstract
Winford L. Stokes, Jr. and Theodore C. Harris had much in common. Both were death-row inmates in the late 1980s. Both were convicted of murder following bifurcated jury trials in which they later alleged that they had not received effective assistance of counsel as required by the federal Constitution. Both inmates sought collateral review of their convictions in federal courts. The similarities between them end there. Because Stokes had procedurally defaulted on his federal constitutional claim in state court under the law of Missouri, the federal appeals court refused to consider the merits of his federal constitutional claim.' Harris, on the other hand, was convicted in a Florida state court, which allowed him to pursue his ineffective assistance of counsel claim even though he had not raised it in his initial appeal or in a state habeas proceeding. Although state courts denied Harris relief on the merits of his federal constitutional claim, a federal court collaterally reviewed the merits of the claim. In 1989, a federal appeals court granted Harris a writ of habeas corpus on constitutional grounds. In 1990, Stokes was put to death by lethal injection.
Recommended Citation
Laura G. Dooley, Equal Protection and the Procedural Bar Doctrine in Federal Habeas Corpus, 59 Fordham L. Rev. 737 (1991).