HABEAS, SCHMABEAS
The New York Law Journal reports on Eastern District Senior Judge Jack Weinstein’s criticism of the Second Circuit for what he views as its lenient attitude towards allowing what are in effect successive habeas corpus petitions to be couched as civil procedure motions. The rules for filing successive habeas motions were tightened under the Antiterrorism Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996, but defendants have been finding loopholes to “couch” them “in the language of a motion.” Meanwhile, the Eastern District ranks as the 16th-slowest federal district court nationwide for processing habeas claims. In the matter before Weinstein, a convicted killer who’d lost a habeas claim filed a so-called Rule 60 motion, introducing Batson, Miranda and constitutional claims. The motion had already been denied, but upon appeal the Second Circuit remanded the matter to Weinstein and directed him, without explanation, to either issue or deny a certificate of appealability. “It has now been well over a decade since Rogers murdered his paramour and over seven years since he filed his first federal habeas petition,” Weinstein wrote. “This Memorandum and Order will be the third written opinion by the federal district court as a result of Rogers's quest to set aside his New York state court conviction. Yet, for reasons not clear to the parties or the court, this third certificate of appealability phase is mandated by the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit…Perhaps the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit might find it useful to consider whether requiring an application for a certificate of appealability in these circumstances is a sound use of petitioner and district court time.”   

"A RANDOM SORT OF THING" 
As a federal lawsuit filed by inmates targeting the state’s strict parole policies inches forward, Newsday reports on a reverse trend of sorts over the last year: the release rates for so-called “A-1” violent felons — those convicted of murder, attempted murder, kidnapping or arson in the first degree — stands at 17 percent (with 118 out of 1,087 being freed), compared to six percent during the last two years of the Pataki administration. Meanwhile, settlement talks in the lawsuit — which contends there is an “unofficial policy” of making blanket denials for A-1 felons based exclusively on their crimes — have broken off, allegedly after details were leaked to The Daily News, which ran a story that read in part, “Eliot Eyes Deal in Suit to Spring State's Most Heinous Killers.” Dodging the question of why the state broke off talks, Spitzer spokesman Paul Larrabee said, “The state absolutely has a right to deny parole to some violent felons in order to protect the citizens of the state.” Said Robert Isseks, attorney for the inmates, “It appears to be a random sort of thing. Some people get released, some people don't.”

CAT POWER
The New York Times follows up on the case of Siiri Marvits, whose landlord tried to evict her, ostensibly for violating her Greenwich Village apartment building’s no pet clause by keeping two cats. (The generous — and rent-controlled — $600 rent may have been a factor, too.) Presiding Appellate Term Justice Douglas McKeon denied the 184 West 10th Street Corporation’s bid to kick Marvits out, due to a 1983 law that says a landlord cannot evict a tenant who has openly kept pets for at least three months. (Marvits’ cats have lived with her since 1997.) Of particular interest was McKeon’s rhetoric-laced opinion: One “need not be a pet lover to appreciate that for many there is a special love that attaches to owning a pet, that companion and source of joy who can separate the sad and solitary from a world of loneliness and despair, serve as a playmate for a son or daughter, or just be a devoted friend whose loyalty remains steadfast in good times and bad.” “It isn’t as if these are stuffed animals,” Marvits told a Times reporter. “I’m attached to them.”