Rivas v. Fischer, No. 13-2974 (2d Cir. 2015)
Annotate this CaseIn 1993, a jury found Rivas guilty of second-degree murder for killing his former girlfriend (Hill) on March 27, 1987. Rivas was sentenced to an indeterminate term of imprisonment of 25 years to life. In 1999, Rivas sought post-conviction relief (NY Criminal Procedure Law 440.10), claiming ineffective assistance of counsel and presenting essentially unchallenged expert testimony persuasively demonstrating that Hill could not have died on Friday, March 27, 1987. The Onondaga County trial court denied Rivas’s petition. In 2002, Rivas filed an amended federal petition for habeas corpus. After a remand, the district court dismissed the petition as time-barred. The Second Circuit reversed, holding that a credible and compelling showing of actual innocence warrants an equitable exception to the limitation period set forth by the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act and that Rivas had made such a showing. The court stated that a reasonable juror, apprised of all the evidence in the record, would more likely than not vote to acquit. On second remand, the court denied Rivas’s petition in its entirety. The Second Circuit reversed, finding that the state court’s denial of Rivas’s ineffective-assistance claim involved an unreasonable application of the Supreme Court’s decision, Strickland v. Washington.
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