No. 19-602

Chesley Eugene Saunders v. Mark S. Inch, Secretary, Florida Department of Corrections, et al.

Lower Court: Eleventh Circuit
Docketed: 2019-11-08
Status: Denied
Type: Paid
Response Waived
Tags: attorney-client-relationship confidential-information criminal-trial due-process effective-assistance-of-counsel fair-trial fundamental-fairness judicial-bias judicial-recusal professional-misconduct recusal sixth-amendment
Key Terms:
DueProcess HabeasCorpus TradeSecret
Latest Conference: 2020-01-10
Question Presented (AI Summary)

Whether the Due Process Clause and the Constitutional Guarantees of a Fundamentally Fair Trial permit a criminal trial to be presided over by a judge who was the defendant's former attorney

Question Presented (OCR Extract)

QUESTIONS PRESENTED 1. Whether the Due Process Clause of the United States Constitution and the Constitutional Guarantees of a Fundamentally Fair Trial permit a criminal trial to be presided over by a judge who was the defendant's former attorney, who the client had discharged for professional misconduct, on a substantially related case, and where the trial judge issued a ruling concerning the admissibility of the underlying facts of the prior case, with which the court had confidential information by virtue of the prior representation, that negatively impacted the defendant? 2. Whether the Sixth Amendment guarantee of effective assistance of counsel permits a defense lawyer, who had worked in the same office as the trial judge, who knew and had reason to know that the trial judge had previously represented the defendant on a substantially and closely related matter, to fail to move to recuse the judge and fail to present a defense?

Docket Entries

2020-01-13
Petition DENIED.
2019-12-27
Waiver of right of respondent Secretary, Florida Department of Corrections to respond filed.
2019-12-23
DISTRIBUTED for Conference of 1/10/2020.
2019-11-05
Petition for a writ of certiorari filed. (Response due December 9, 2019)
2019-10-02
Application (19A356) granted by Justice Thomas extending the time to file until November 8, 2019.
2019-09-20
Application (19A356) to extend the time to file a petition for a writ of certiorari from October 6, 2019 to November 8, 2019, submitted to Justice Thomas.

Attorneys

Chesley Eugene Saunders
Patrick Michael MegaroHalscott Megaro, P.A., Petitioner
Patrick Michael MegaroHalscott Megaro, P.A., Petitioner
Secretary, Florida Department of Corrections
Wesley Heidt — Respondent
Wesley Heidt — Respondent