This is a guest post by Christine Scott of White Pine Diamonds. The link at the end of the article will take you to your company’s website.
A broken engagement is one of the hardest things an adult can endure. Their engagement ring, the symbol of their promise to love each other ’till death do them part, is now at the center of the conflict, but with good reason. In 2012, the average amount spent on an engagement ring was $4000 – that sounds like four thousand reasons to go to court. But who is entitled to the engagement ring in addition to the monetary value?
The Supreme Court and the Adversarial Clause
On January 20, 2022, the Supreme Court issued its judgment in Hemphill v. New York, a criminal case related to the confrontation clause of the Sixth Amendment. In 2006, a 2-year-old boy was killed by a stray 9mm bullet and New York charged Nicholas Morris with murder. Ultimately, Morris pled guilty to the misdemeanor possession of a .357 magnum revolver despite being accused of using a 9mm revolver. A few years later, New York also charged Darrell Hemphill with murder. Hemphill’s defense blamed Morris and presented indisputable evidence that police found a 9mm gun at Morris’s home.
In response and as the reason for the Supreme Court hearing of the case, the state produced testimony from Morris’ hearing to disprove the idea that Morris committed the murder. Morris did not testify at Hemphill’s trial. The state simply presented Morris’ transcripts of the hearing as evidence against Hemphill. Under New York law enshrined in People v. Reid1 the state was allowed to do so because “Hemphill’s arguments and evidence ‘opened the door’ to the introduction of these extrajudicial testimonies which were not subject to cross-examination because they were ‘reasonably necessary’ to ‘correct’ that “misleading impression” created by Hemphill by blaming Morris.2
D. Obstacles to Legal Protection after Conviction under Rule 32
This section describes some of the obstacles to the Creation of Rule 32 It is impossible to obtain DNA evidence after conviction under the Rule. Rule 32 has strict requirements for the pleadings discussed in Section I.D.2, which often makes most petitions dead on arrival, particularly for pro-se prisoners.70 See discussion in Section II.C; see also discussion and cited sources at footnote 222. Furthermore, obtaining DNA evidence under Rule 32, even for a well-founded request, requires first obtaining physical evidence from the State in order to conduct the testing.71 See Ala R. Crim. page 32.1(e). While rule 32 permits the detection of state evidence, it does so with a “good reason” standard that creates a catch-22 for DNA cases that makes testing nearly impossible. 72 See discussion in Section I.D.3. Finally, even for applications that are well reasoned and present a good reason for discovery, Rule 32 prohibits consecutive applications and requires an applicant to make a claim within six months of the discovery of the DNA technology applied for, a benefit that impossible for this technology is now well established.73 See discussion in Section I.D.4; see also discussion in Part II.
This section concludes by discussing an exception to the time limits under rule 32 that some Alabama courts have proposed to remedy some cases: equitable tolls.74 See discussion in Section I.D.4. However, even if a court has recognized the possibility of a reasonable toll, it has also found that the petitioner did not exercise due care, i.e. H. he should have known he would request the DNA test sooner and has therefore refused redress.75 See z , order at 14-15, State v. Cunningham, #CC-95-439 (Ala. Cir. Ct. 12 Dec 2012) (“Cunningham would have at least attempted to request DNA testing of the scratches and hairs in the rape kit well before 2004”). These rule 32 barriers combine, as this section shows, to make rule 32 inadequate for access to the right to DNA testing that Alabama created by law and upheld in court.76 See, for example, the discussion and the in Section Cited Cases II.C.