Allen v. LeMaster
Annotate this CasePetitioner Timothy Allen appealed the district court's dismissal of his petition for habeas relief. He alleged he received ineffective assistance of counsel after he was sentenced to death for the 1994 kidnapping, sexual assault and murder of a seventeen-year-old victim. The district court did not consider the merits of Petitioner's claims but instead dismissed the petition as a sanction for his refusal to answer court-ordered deposition questions, which Petitioner claimed violated his privilege against self-incrimination and attorney-client privilege. Upon review, the Supreme Court found that deposing Petitioner was improper, and that communications that were relevant to Petitioner's claims of ineffective assistance of counsel were excepted from the attorney-client privilege. The Court reversed the dismissal of Petitioner's petition for habeas corpus and remanded the case back to the district court to determine the merits of his ineffective assistance of counsel claim.
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