Dickerson v. Vaughn

OPINION OF THE COURT

WEIS, Circuit Judge.

In these habeas corpus cases, petitioners allege that they would not have pleaded nolo contendere if they had known that their pleas would prevent them from appealing a pretrial ruling. The state’s intermediate appellate court found that the pleas were induced by faulty legal advice by trial counsel and that petitioners were entitled to new trials. The state Supreme Court reversed, holding that the petitioners’ responses during a plea colloquy in the state trial court barred them from challenging the voluntariness of their pleas. Because established…