Eastern District of California Blog

EDCA Court Dismisses Fresno Unified Special Education Suit

A federal judge has dismissed a case brought by Fresno Unified against the family of a special education student who has been entangled in a costly legal battle with the district for years.

Magistrate Judge Michael Seng said the district didn't have the right to bring the case against Krista Uribe, now 22, and her family since the district was contesting the remedy of a prior court's decision, not the decision itself.

Fresno Bee, 8/1/14

EDCA Magistrate Judge Recommends Habeas Relief For Souliotes

In these 93-page findings and recommendations, U.S. Magistrate Judge Michael J. Seng recommends to the district court that George Souliotes's habeas petition be granted and that he be released unless California states its intent to retry him within 30 days.  Regular readers may remember this case from my prior posts and Op-Ed piece in the Modesto Bee.  It's the one where the Attorney General concedes that the scientific evidence the prosecution relied on to convict Souliotes of arson-murder is flawed, but nonetheless argues that his petition should be dismissed as untimely because it was filed five days late and should otherwise be denied. 

The day after the magistrate judge's F&Rs, attorneys for Souliotes moved for his immediate release pending further proceedings.  Once again, California opposed release.  Judge Seng construed the motion for immediate release as an objection to his "conditional" release recommendation and referred the matter to the district court.   

C'mon Kamala Harris, doesn't innocence count for anything anymore?  Where the State agrees that the evidence used to convict Souliotes was flawed, why oppose 71-year old Souliotes's release pending further proceedings?

Magistrate Judge Finds New Evidence of Actual Innocence Permits Review Of Habeas Petition Challenging Arson-Murder Conviction

In Souliotes v Hedgpeth, No. 06-cv-0667-AWI-MJS, Yosemite Magistrate Judge Michael J. Seng issued these 99-page Findings & Recommendations (F&Rs) concluding that George Souliotes had presented sufficient evidence of actual innocence to equitably excuse his otherwise untimely petition for writ of habeas corpus.  In his §2254 petition, Souliotes challenges his Stanislaus County conviction of arson and three counts of murder arising out of a 1997 fire in which three people died.  Souliotes was sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole. 

At his trial, Souliotes was convicted of setting a fire at rental property he owned with testimony from a state criminalist that flammable compounds used as accelerants and found at the scene were also found on his shoes.  According to the judge's F&Rs at p.2, the "new evidence upon which Petitioner relies establishes unequivocally that the chemical compound found on Petitioner's shoes was not the same as that found at the fire scene."  The Attorney General "now agrees there is no chemical evidence linking Petitioner to the fire scene . . . and now acknowledges that the previously-introduced scientific evidence or arson was in fact unreliable."  "[B]oth parties agree it cannot be determined if the fire was intentionally or accidentally initiated."   As a result, Judge Seng recommends that the evidence of actual innocence be held to excuse the late-filing of Souliotes's habeas petition and that the court should proceed to consider the merits of his underlying claims, including his claim of actual innocence.   For a lay summary, see Modesto Bee, 4/27/12 .

This case is a poster child for a lot of what is wrong with the anti-habeas law (AEDPA) and the decimation of habeas corpus protections in recent years.  Habeas law has become so complex with its numerous roadblocks (exhaustion, procedural default, timeliness, etc.) that even experienced attorneys have difficulty figuring it all out and can easily make mistakes that bar review of potential constitutional violations and actual innocence claims.  In this case, Souliotes federal habeas petition was initially filed on May 20, 2006.  It was found to have been filed 5 days late and was dismissed in 2008.  In Souliotes v. Evans, 622 F.3d 1173 (9th Cir. 2010), the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in a 2-1 decision affirmed in part, but reversed and remanded for an evidentiary hearing on whether the defendant used due diligence in discovering the new evidence of innocence.  On August 17, 2011, the Court vacated its original opinion in light of its intervening en banc decision in Lee v. Lampert, 653 F.3d 929 (9th Cir. 2011) (en banc) and remanded for the district court to conduct whatever proceedings are necessary to determine whether any of Souliotes's habeas claims may be addressed on the merits.  Souliotes v. Evans, 654 F.3d 902 (9th Cir. 2011).  The Court also directed the district court to expedite the matter on remand, given that Souliotes was 70 years old. 

What is wrong with this picture?  Where everyone agrees that the physical evidence that resulted in Souliotes's conviction and life sentence is invalid and in no way links him to the crimes, why does our system require an evidentiary hearing and years of delay before we can get to the merits of his habeas petition?  At this point, it is hard to fathom why the Attorney General and Stanislaus County D.A. have still not agreed to a new trial and Souliotes's release.  Has actual innocence become so irrelevant to our system of justice?   Here's hoping that the AG steps up and does the right thing now by not filing objections to the magistrate's F&Rs and agreeing to 70-year old Souliotes's immediate release pending any decision whether to retry him.  [revised 4/29/12]

Fresno Evidentiary Hearing Set In Triple Murder Habeas Case

A Modesto landlord convicted of murder in the 1997 deaths of a mother and her two children will get another chance to argue for a new trial at a hearing Jan. 24 in federal court in Fresno.

George Souliotes, 70, is serving a life sentence at Pleasant Valley State Prison in Coalinga for the 2000 murder conviction in Stanislaus County Superior Court.

The jury determined Souliotes set fire to his northwest Modesto rental home, killing 30-year-old mother Michelle Jones, her 6-year-old son Daniel Jr. and 3½-year-old daughter Amanda in 1997.

The fire swept through the home the Jones family had rented from Souliotes. The Ronald Avenue home was west of Tully Road and just north of West Briggsmore Avenue.

In August, a three-judge panel from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th District granted Souliotes a chance to argue his case for a new trial in a lower court. Previously, two other courts refused to hear his appeals.

The hearing will be held before U.S. Magistrate Michael J. Seng in Fresno.

Souliotes and his defense lawyers will try to show that it is more likely than not that no reasonable juror would have convicted him given new evidence in the case.

Prosecutors told jurors during Souliotes' two trials — the first ended in a hung jury — that a flammable substance found on shoes in Souliotes' home matched a compound that ignited the fire.

But years later, a scientist discovered a process by which he could distinguish the substance on the shoes from substances in the fire debris. They were found to be chemically different and came from different sources, experts learned.

Modesto Bee, 11/26/11.; see also my Cameron Todd Willingham post, 9/8/9 (innocent man likely executed based on faulty arson expert evidence).