Sixth Circuit Grants Relief in Madrigal 

The United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit recently granted habeas relief in the capital case of Madrigal v. Bagley.  The Court, in an opinion issued June 27, 2005, affirmed the decision of the Federal District Court (N. Dist., J. Gwin) which had granted relief based upon a violation of the petitioner’s Sixth Amendment right to confront the witnesses against him.  At his 1996 trial in the Lucas County Court of Common Pleas, trial judge Judith Lanzinger (now a Justice with the Ohio Supreme Court) permitted the prosecution to read into evidence two out-of-court statements (totaling 79 pages of transcript) made to police by a codefendant who did not testify and was never subject to cross-examination.  The codefendant’s statements directly implicated Madrigal as the main perpetrator of the crime – a robbery and murder committed at a KFC fast-food restaurant in Toledo.  The Ohio Supreme Court on direct appeal found a confrontation clause violation, but deemed the error harmless.  Both the federal district court and Sixth Circuit held that the Ohio Supreme Court’s determination of harmless error was objectively unreasonable, issuing a conditional grant of habeas corpus requiring the State to either release Madrigal or grant him a new trial. 

Click here for a copy of the opinion. (.pdf)