WELSH & RECKER SECURES HABEAS RELIEF FOR PRO BONO CLIENT IN PRECEDENTIAL THIRD CIRCUIT OPINION

Welsh & Recker is pleased to announce that on April 2, 2025, associate Abigail T. Burton and partner Bruce P. Merenstein secured a significant victory in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit on behalf of a pro bono client, Mr. Roy Moses, in an appeal from the dismissal of his petition for a writ of habeas corpus.

The case also raised an important question regarding the scope of the Supreme Court’s Martinez v. Ryan exception to the rule of procedural default in habeas corpus cases. Clarifying what was an unsettled question in the Third Circuit, the court held that “a prisoner who proceeds pro se in an initial-review collateral proceeding—at least when his lawyer abandons him—may invoke Martinez to excuse his procedural default” of an ineffective-assistance-of-trial-counsel claim. This holding will have implications beyond this case, ensuring that pro se habeas petitioners have a meaningful opportunity to pursue meritorious ineffectiveness claims in federal court when they were unrepresented or received ineffective assistance in state post-conviction proceedings.

In a precedential opinion issued following oral argument by Ms. Burton, the court held that Mr. Moses received ineffective assistance of counsel at sentencing and that the district court incorrectly found that Mr. Moses’s ineffectiveness claim was barred by procedural default. The court ordered that Mr. Moses’s habeas petition be granted and that he be resentenced.

The case is Moses v. District Attorney Philadelphia, No. 23-1403.