Summary
The United States District Court for the Eastern District of Wisconsin denied Devon E. Words’s motion for release on bail while his 28 U.S.C. § 2254 habeas petition was pending. The court concluded that Words had not shown a readily apparent likelihood of success on his ineffective-assistance-of-trial-counsel claim or otherwise justified the extraordinary relief requested.
Topics
Practice areas
Questions Presented
- Whether a federal habeas court should release Words on bail while his § 2254 petition is pending.
- Whether Words demonstrated a sufficiently apparent likelihood of success on the merits to justify the extraordinary remedy of bail.
Holdings
- A federal court may grant bail to a habeas corpus petitioner, but the power must be exercised very sparingly.
- Words failed to justify release on bail because his chance of success on the merits was not readily apparent.
Key quotations
“The power, however, is “to be exercised very sparingly” because “[a] defendant whose conviction has been affirmed on appeal . . . is unlikely to have been convicted unjustly. . . . And the interest in the finality of criminal proceedings is poorly served by deferring execution of sentence till long after the defendant has been convicted.”” (Order denying bail)
Factual background
Devon E. Words is a Wisconsin state prisoner incarcerated at Kettle Moraine Correctional Institution. A jury convicted him of second-degree intentional homicide and possession of a firearm by a person adjudicated delinquent. His pending § 2254 petition alleges ineffective assistance of trial counsel, and he sought release on bail while the petition was under consideration.
Procedural history
Words, a Wisconsin state prisoner convicted of second-degree intentional homicide and possession of a firearm by a person adjudicated delinquent, filed a federal habeas petition alleging ineffective assistance of trial counsel. While the petition was pending and fully briefed, he moved for release on bail. The respondent opposed the motion, and the district court denied it.