Opinion

Ayers v. Belmontes

  • 549 U.S. 7
  • 127 S. Ct. 469
  • 166 L. Ed. 2d 334
  • 2006 U.S. LEXIS 8522
Court
Supreme Court of the United States
Filed
Nov 13, 2006
Status
Published
Author
Scalia
On the bench
Kennedy, Roberts, Scalia, Thomas, Auto, Scaua, Stevens, Souter, Ginsburg, Breyer
Cited by
232 cases
Authority
More cited than 24.3%

holding that “[a]ttorney miscalculation is simply not sufficient to warrant 26 equitable tolling, particularly in the postconviction context where prisoners have no constitutional 27 right to counsel.”

How later courts described this case

  • holding that “[a]ttorney miscalculation is simply not sufficient to warrant 26 equitable tolling, particularly in the postconviction context where prisoners have no constitutional 27 right to counsel.”
  • noting that 17 the question of whether a section 1983 action is barred by Heck is more difficult to answer where the 18 plaintiff is facing charges of resisting arrest or similar conduct arising from the same incident he is 19 claiming excessive force, a stay may be appropriate until such time as the underlying criminal 20 proceedings are conducted. “If the plaintiff is ultimately convicted, and if the stayed civil action 21 would impugn that conviction, Heck will require dismissal; otherwise, the civil action will proceed, 22 absent some other bar to suit.”
  • noting that the 1 question of whether a section 1983 action is barred by Heck is more difficult to answer where the 2 plaintiff is facing charges of resisting arrest or similar conduct arising from the same incident he is 3 claiming excessive force, a stay may be appropriate until such time as the underlying criminal 4 proceedings are conducted. “If the plaintiff is ultimately convicted, and if the stayed civil action would 5 impugn that conviction, Heck will require dismissal; otherwise, the civil action will proceed, absent 6 some other bar to suit.”
  • noting that “affirmative defenses routinely serve as a basis for granting Rule 12(b)(6) 15 motions where the defense is apparent from the face of the [c]omplaint”

Written by the judges who cited it.

The opinion

Justice Scalia,

with whom Justice Thomas joins, concurring.

I adhere to my view that limiting a jury’s discretion to consider all mitigating evidence does not violate the Eighth Amendment. See Walton v. Arizona, 497 U. S. 639, 673 (1990) (Scalia, J., concurring in part and concurring in judgment). Even accepting the Court’s jurisprudence to the contrary, however, this is arguably an easy case, given our reiteration in Johnson v. Texas, 509 U. S. 350,372 (1993), that a jury need only “be able to consider in some manner all of *25 a defendant’s relevant mitigating evidence,” and need not “be able to give effect to mitigating evidence in every conceivable manner in which the evidence might be relevant.” But since petitioner has not relied on Johnson , as Judge O’Scannlain did below, see Belmontes v. Brown, 414 F. 3d 1094 , 1141—1142 (CA9 2005) (opinion concurring in part and dissenting in part), I am content to join in full the Court’s opinion, which correctly applies Boyde v. California, 494 U. S. 370 (1990).

This is a copy of a public record, reproduced as it was published. It is not legal advice, and it may not be the version a court would rely on. Check the official source before you cite it.

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