For the Defense - Vol. 8, Issue 1 - 34

Shinn v. Ramirez:
A Rallying Cry for PCRA
Practitioners
Daniel Silverman
O
n May 23, 2022, the United States Supreme Court issued
its decision in Shinn v. Ramirez.1
Although the ruling
imposes new restrictions on federal habeas practice,
Shinn has profound implications for those we represent who
are still in state court. The decision requires PCRA practitioners
to up their game in order to protect our clients from its most
devastating effects.
The Supreme Court's new super-majority is expanding the
hostility toward habeas that the Court's conservative justices
have displayed for years, cutting off opportunities for relief at
the federal level. In much the same way it steadily chipped away
at the federal constitutional right to abortion before abolishing
it altogether and returning that issue to the states, the Court's
whittling at the protections that habeas had traditionally
provided also places greater responsibility on state courts to get
it right. For that to happen, lawyers who handle PCRA cases must
approach their work with far greater diligence and seriousness
34 For The Defense l Vol. 8, Issue 1
Why Habeas Is Important
Practitioners need to understand why habeas is so important
and a little about how the federal habeas process works to
understand why, after Shinn, PCRA proceedings will now take
on outsize influence in our clients' cases. Habeas corpus exists
in large part because we as a nation just don't fully trust state
courts to protect our federal constitutional rights.2
We may have
made some progress since the days when an African American
defendant accused of assaulting a white woman was fortunate
to live long enough to even see the inside of an Alabama
courtroom, but small-minded resistance toward granting accused
persons full protection under the law endures as ever. Our clients'
cases are affected with depressing regularity by overambitious
prosecutors, judges fearful of issuing unpopular rulings, lazy
of purpose. It cannot be emphasized enough: zealous PCRA
representation is more critical than ever before.

For the Defense - Vol. 8, Issue 1

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of For the Defense - Vol. 8, Issue 1

Contents
For the Defense - Vol. 8, Issue 1 - 1
For the Defense - Vol. 8, Issue 1 - 2
For the Defense - Vol. 8, Issue 1 - Contents
For the Defense - Vol. 8, Issue 1 - 4
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For the Defense - Vol. 8, Issue 1 - 44
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