Case Summary - Ex parte Billy George Reedy

Reedy plead guilty to an automatic life sentence for capital murder. Reedy agreed to waive any post-conviction relief including his right to file writs of habeas corpus in exchange for the State's waiver of its right to seek the death penalty. However, he filed a pro se post-conviction writ saying his plea was involuntary and his waiver of his right to file a writ of habeas corpus was not intelligently, knowingly, or voluntarily made.

The CCA held that Reedy could intelligently, knowingly, and voluntarily waive his right to habeas corpus on claims where those claims were not predicated on unknown facts. So, Reedy's claim that his plea was involuntary because the threat of the death penalty made his plea inherently coerced was intelligently, knowingly, and voluntarily made. It was not based upon facts unknown to Reedy at the time of his plea.

However, Reedy's claims that his plea was involuntary because his trial counsel had advised him to plead guilty based upon an incomplete investigation of the case was based upon facts unknown to him at the time of his plea. Here, trial counsel had, according to Reedy, lead him to believe for eight months that the State was not seeking the death penalty. Trial counsel, again according to Reedy, had not filed any pre-trial motions or sought psychological testing of Reedy despite Reedy's claims that he'd suffered head injuries as a child. The Court held that if these allegations were true might render the guilty plea involuntary and the level of ineffective assistance that would render a guilty plea involuntary would also render a waiver of the right to habeas corpus unenforceable. Consequently, the Court remanded the case to the trial court to consider the whether there were any previously contested issues of fact on this issue.

The Court also upheld Reedy's waivers of direct appeal and the right to file a writ of habeas corpus on his claims that his confession was involuntary and the indictment was fundamentally defective. None of these claims were predicated upon fact that would've been unknown to Reedy at the time of his waiver of his right to habeas corpus. Therefore, his waiver was enforceable to these issues. Presiding Judge Keller dissented without an opinion. There was no underlying case information.