Federal Habeas Corpus and Systemic Official Misconduct: Why Form Trumps Constitutional Rights

When Debra Milke learned her four-year-old son had been murdered, she was sitting in a medical office in the Pinal County Sheriff’s Department.1 At the end of her interview with Detective Armando Saldate, Jr., she supposedly confessed to having her son killed by two men: James Styers and Roger Scott.2 The prosecution’s case rested on the unwritten, unsigned, unrecorded, and unwitnessed confession based on Detective Saldate’s testimony.3 Despite her pleas of innocence, a jury convicted her, and a judge sentenced her to death.4 Thirteen years later, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals granted her a conditional writ of habeas corpus based on prosecutorial misconduct that occurred in her trial.5 While the Ninth Circuit found the actions of the Maricopa County Prosecutor’s Office and Phoenix Police Department constitutionally egregious, it could only grant her relief if it found the state court decisions failed to reasonably apply the Brady v. Maryland doctrine in all of its rulings.6 When the Arizona state courts reviewed Ms. Milke’s case on both direct appeal and post-conviction, both courts found Miranda7 and Brady8 challenges were without merit.9 All federal