Date: 07-03-2025

Case Style:

David M. Smith v. Cynthia Davis

Case Number: 5:20-cv-00438

Judge: j. Philip Calabrese

Court: United States District Court for the Northern District of Ohio

Plaintiff's Attorney: Kimberly Kendall

Defendant's Attorney: Office of the Attorney General of Ohio

Description: Cleveland, Ohio civil rights lawyer represented the Plaintiff seeking a writ of habeaus corpus.

A jury convicted David Smith in state court of attempted murder and other crimes based on the victim’s identification of Smith as her assailant. We later determined the state violated Smith’s due process rights because the victim’s identification was obtained through unduly suggestive means and lacked any strong indicia of reliability. See Smith v. Davis, No. 23-3604, 2024 WL 3596872, at *1 (6th Cir. July 31, 2024), cert. denied, 145 S. Ct. 93 (2025). Accordingly,
we ordered the district court to release Smith on a writ of habeas corpus unless the state proceeded to prosecute him within 180 days without utilizing the suggestive identification. Id. at *12. Smith proceeded to trial a second time, and again, a jury convicted him. After retrial, Smith moved to enforce the conditional writ, and the district court concluded that the state failed to comply with our order not to utilize the suggestive identification and issued an absolute writ of habeas corpus. The district court also denied the government’s motion for a stay pending appeal but imposed an “administrative stay” delaying Smith’s release to permit us time to decide whether a stay is warranted. The warden appealed and moved to stay the district court’s order granting Smith an unconditional writ. Smith moved to vacate the district court’s administrative stay. For the following reasons, we deny the warden’s motion, grant Smith’s motion, order the district court to dissolve the administrative stay, and instruct the district court to implement its order releasing
Smith from custody, effective immediately.

Outcome: Warden's motion to stay denied. Smith ordered released.

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