Dwayne Earl Bartholomew v. Tana Wood, Superintendent of the Washington State Penitentiary

Dwayne Bartholomew, a Washington State prisoner, was convicted of aggravated first degree murder. Although he was originally sentenced to death, the Washington Supreme Court reversed his sentence, and after a sentencing retrial he received a sentence of life without possibility of parole. Upon exhausting his remedies in the state courts, he brought this habeas corpus petition, which the district court denied. On appeal, Bartholomew claims that the state violated due process by failing to disclose that its crucial witness on the issue of premeditation had failed a polygraph test. He contends that, if the prosecution had disclosed the information, he would likely have been convicted of simple rather than aggravated first-degree murder. Had Bartholomew been convicted of the lesser murder charge, he would, at an elderly age, become eligible for parole. Instead, because of the degree of his conviction, he is ineligible for release from prison at any time during his lifetime.

Because the state has admitted that it did not disclose the adverse results of the polygraph test administered to its key witness, and because that failure undermines confidence in Bartholomew’s conviction of the…