In re Tuilaepa

INTRODUCTION

In March 2016, Paul Palalaua Tuilaepa filed his third petition for a writ of habeas corpus in the California Supreme Court. Tuilaepa alleged he was intellectually disabled and his 1987 death sentence violated Atkins v. Virginia (2002) 536 U.S. 304 (Atkins), which held the Eighth Amendment prohibits execution of the intellectually disabled. He submitted declarations from two experts diagnosing him with an intellectual disability and another declaration from a third expert recanting flawed testimony about Tuilaepa’s intellectual capacity at his original trial. In November 2016, California voters enacted Proposition 66, the Death Penalty Reform and Savings Act of 2016 (as approved by voters, Gen. Elec. (Nov. 8, 2016), § 1). The initiative sought to limit the length of death penalty appeals and postconviction proceedings. To achieve this goal, it added section 1509 to the Penal Code, which barred untimely or “successive” capital habeas petitions “unless the court finds, by the preponderance of all available evidence . . . that the defendant is actually innocent . . . or is ineligible for the sentence.” (§ 1509, subd. (d).)1 This exception expressly provides that a court…