William Thompkins, J v. Randy Pfist

How courts have described this case

Verbatim parenthetical descriptions written by other courts when citing this decision. Ranked by citation-network relevance.

• holding that state court’s rejection of ineffective assistance of counsel claim because of failure to provide required affidavit in support of postconviction petition resulted in procedural default of claim in federal court
• noting that the affidavit rule is established by state statute and is regularly followed by Illinois courts
• recognizing Illinois’s affidavit rule as an independent and adequate state law ground for denying relief
• “A state law ground is independent when the court actually relied on the procedural bar as an independent basis for its disposition of the case.”
• “The state court’s factual determinations are entitled to a presumption of correctness, and the petitioner has the burden of overcoming this presumption by clear and convincing evidence.”
• “The state court’s factual determinations are entitled to a presumption of correctness, and the petitioner has the burden of overcoming this presumption by clear and convincing evidence.”

Source: CourtListener parenthetical corpus (CC0).