Stephen Mark McDaniel v. Edward Philbin, Warden
DueProcess Privacy
Did the Supreme Court of Georgia abuse its discretion by refusing to grant a Certificate of Probable Cause to review the judgment of the Habeas Court?
QUESTIONS PRESENTED: This case presents several issues of fundamental importance to the legitimacy of the United States' court system and the right of its citizens to be heard. The Constitutional right to Due Process, the right to the Effective Assistance of Counsel, and the validity of guilty pleas are implicated here. In denying a Certificate of Probable Cause, the Supreme Court of Georgia declined to hear the appeal without issuing any explanatory Opinion. Under the Rules of the Supreme Court of Georgia and Georgia's self-established precedent in Redmon v. Johnson, 302 Ga. 763 (2018), when a petitioner shows an error in the proceeding below that, had it not occurred, would likely have caused the petitioner to prevail, the Supreme Court of Georgia has a mandatory duty to hear the case on its merits and no longer has discretion to decline to hear the case. The judge at the Habeas Court level, in the Final Order in the case (which was actually authored by Counsel for Respondent), rewrote three of the Grounds of the Habeas Petition from Ineffective Assistance of Counsel challenges into issues that may not be raised in Habeas Corpus. In ruling on the _ remaining Ineffective Assistance Ground, the Habeas Court applied standards of law that are in conflict with United States Supreme Court precedents. . This case provides one of the clearest sets of facts upon which this Court can resolve conflicting standards of law that have arisen in the Federal Circuit Courts of Appeal and the courts of the states regarding Weatherford v. Bursey, 429 U.S. 545 (1977), involving illegal intrusion by the government into the defense camp for the purpose of obtaining privileged Core Opinion Work Product. , A matter of first impression is also raised on the right to the Effective Assistance of Counsel where defense attorneys, due to ignorance of the law, failed to raise challenge against i ‘= 3 the government's intentional theft of defense trial preparations and thereby waived a Constitutional right violation for which the only viable remedy was dismissal of the indictment with prejudice. These proceedings give rise to the following questions: 1. Did the Supreme Court of Georgia abuse its discretion by refusing to grant a Certificate of Probable Cause to review the judgment of the Habeas Court? 2. Did the Habeas Court exceed its authority by altering the Grounds of the Habeas Petition so as to prevent litigation of and ruling on Petitioner's issues? 3. Did the Habeas Court apply an erroneous standard of law when it ruled that the voluntariness of a plea is determined solely by whether a defendant is advised on the record of his rights as set out in Boykin v. Alabama, 395 U.S. 238 (1969), and that performance and advice of counsel, challenged as constituting Ineffective Assistance of Counsel, cannot have bearing on the decision to accept a plea agreement? ui