Appeals
At David Rice's appeal in March 1974, Judge Warren Urbom of the Federal District Court found that the police had no evidence to allow a search of his home, where they had allegedly found the dynamite. Judge Urbom also noted the inconsistencies in a Police Lieutenant's testimony about the reasons for a search warrant, and concluded "t is impossible for me to credit his testimony". He overturned Rice's conviction and ordered a new trial in which the evidence of the dynamite could not be used to corroborate the state's case. This ruling was upheld by the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals in 1975.
The State of Nebraska then appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court. The Supreme Court was in the process of ruling on a landmark case, Stone v. Powell (July 6, 1976), which in a decision taken together with Wolff v. Rice, the Court held that where states had provided opportunities for full and fair litigation of Fourth Amendment claims, the Constitution did not require the granting of federal habeas corpus relief.
As a result, David Rice had to go through state courts to decide the question of the legality of the search of his house. However, the Nebraska Supreme Court refused to hear his case on the grounds that the time limit for appealing through the state court had been exhausted.
Read more about this topic: Rice/Poindexter Case
Famous quotes containing the word appeals:
“Whatever appeals to the imagination, by transcending the ordinary limits of human ability, wonderfully encourages and liberates us.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Even an attorney of moderate talent can postpone doomsday year after year, for the system of appeals that pervades American jurisprudence amounts to a legalistic wheel of fortune, a game of chance, somewhat fixed in the favor of the criminal, that the participants play interminably.”
—Truman Capote (1924–1984)
“No rules exist, and examples are simply life-savers answering the appeals of rules making vain attempts to exist.”
—André Breton (1896–1966)