Home      Login

Abstract: 

Our regular review of appellate court rulings surveys four appellate decisions involving Brady/habeas review, the continuing-tort doctrine, sovereign immunity, and survivor sentencing. The U.S. Supreme Court held that AEDPA’s highly deferential standard barred federal habeas relief based on Maryland’s failure to disclose potentially impeaching computer-forensic evidence, finding that a fair-minded jurist could conclude the evidence was not material under *Brady* given the strong remaining evidence of guilt; the ruling leaves the defendant’s conviction and life sentence intact after 18 years of litigation (*Klein v. Martin*, 607 U.S. 213 (2026)). In Washington, the Court of Appeals held that the continuing-tort doctrine applies to intentional infliction of emotional distress claims arising from an ongoing course of domestic violence, allowing survivors to present the full pattern of abuse rather than only incidents within the limitations period and potentially expanding civil remedies where no specific domestic-violence tort exists (*Vuth v. Tavakoli*, 2026 WL 1799215, No. 60445-1-II (Wash. Ct. App. 2026)). A federal district court in Virginia held that sovereign immunity barred domestic violence survivors’ Federal Tort Claims Act claims challenging the military’s investigation and charging decisions because those decisions fall within the discretionary-function exception, illustrating the continuing limits of civil remedies despite subsequent military-justice reforms (*Johnson et al. v. U.S.*, Civil Action No. 1:25-cv-651 (E.D. Va. 2026)). New York’s highest court held that a domestic violence survivor defendant cannot waive, as a condition of a plea bargain, her right to seek a sentencing hearing under the Domestic Violence Survivors Justice Act; although the decision preserves judicial consideration of abuse as a mitigating factor, nonwaivability may complicate plea negotiations and does not guarantee a reduced sentence (*People v. N.H.*, 2026 WL 1096314 (N.Y. 2026)).

Keywords: Domestic Violence Survivors; Federal Habeas Corpus; Continuing Tort Doctrine; Sovereign Immunity; Domestic Violence Survivors Justice Act; Survivor Sentencing

Affiliations:  1: Contributing Editor; 2: Associate Editor.