Res Judicata and the Resurrection of Claims on Post-Conviction

It has long been true that when an appellate court decides an issue on direct appeal, the doctrine of res judicata bars a criminal defendant from later raising the same issue in a petition for post-conviction relief. Usually a petitioner’s only option in that situation was to allege appellate counsel ineffective for failing to adequate raise the issue on direct appeal. But such a claim was rarely meritorious.

But recently, the Supreme Court of Indiana has provided another option. In State v. Stidham, 157 N.E.3d 1185 (Ind. 2020), a juvenile was tried and convicted for murder, and he was sentenced to 138 years. At the time of his direct appeal, the appellate courts reviewed the propriety of one’s sentence by considering whether the sentence was “manifestly unreasonable,” a fairly heavy standard for criminal defendants to show. Stidham raised the claim on direct appeal but was unable to satisfy the heavy burden, and his 138-year sentence was upheld.

Decades later, Stidham filed a petition for post-conviction relief, raising the propriety of his lengthy sentence as a freestanding claim. The Supreme Court considered whether the doctrine of res judicata barred the Court from revisiting the issue on post-conviction relief. The Court ultimately held the doctrine did not apply due to the “extraordinary circumstances” involved in Stidham’s case.

First, the Court noted strong notions of fairness can provide extraordinary circumstances to allow for the Court to revisit an issue previously decided. Second, the Court noted a major shift in the law can render the doctrine of res judicata inapplicable.

In Stidham’s case, there were two major shifts in the law: a change in the standard of review for inappropriate sentences, which eased the burden on criminal defendants; and significant limitations placed on sentences imposed on juveniles, given the new research on juvenile brain development.

In revisiting the propriety of Stidham’s sentence, the Supreme Court found Stidham’s 138-year sentence was inappropriate and revised it to 88 years.

Recently, another juvenile offender, Andrew Conley, claimed extraordinary circumstances allowed for resurrection of his claim regarding the propriety of his sentence to life without parole. The Indiana Supreme Court disagreed. The Court held that Conley could not show a major shift in the law to warrant reconsideration of his sentence. At the time of Conley’s direct appeal, the standard of review for sentencing claims had already been lessened for criminal defendants, and the reviewing court was already aware of the impact of the social science research regarding juvenile brain development.

From these two cases we get the following: if a post-conviction petitioner can show either a strong notion of fairness or a major shift in the law calls for resurrection of a claim previously decided, the petitioner may be able to circumvent the doctrine of res judicata in order to have the claim reconsidered.