Johnny L. Marshall v. Secretary, Florida Department of Corrections

Johnny Marshall has already spent seventeen years in jail for a $261 robbery that he very well may not have committed. And after our decision today, he may spend the rest of his life there. But Marshall’s attorney almost certainly could have prevented Marshall’s conviction, had he done what any other competent attorney would have on this record: pursued a motion to suppress the illegally obtained sole eye-witness’s identification of Marshall, an identification that the same witness’s earlier description of Marshall squarely contradicted.

I write separately because I believe that Marshall was…