Re: Can a Supreme Court order or action become case law?

On 17 Jul 2008, kristinvandoran@yahoo.com wrote:

> Below I have attached a Louisiana Supreme Court action*
> ordering a district court to review a defendants record
> . . .
     . . . not that "defendants record" as a general matter and,
instead, only the particular terms/condition of his 1998 sentence to
which the court refers . . .

> . . . and vacate an order to revoke his probation if the record
> shows he completed probation on a specified date.  So does that
> action become case law in similar cases?

Though I, too, interpret the court's ruling to be fairly summarized by
the above description, the decision itself is arguably somewhat
ambiguous because of how the court uses the word "and" in the court's
sentence beginning with, "If the . . ." (that is, whether there shall
be two conditions to relief, i.e., that "the transcript" referred to
"correlat[e] with the sentencing minutes" and also that the timing of
the probation revocation be determined to have been as stated, or
merely that the time of the probation revocation be determined to have
been as stated?).

In any case -- depending also, of course, on what you mean by "similar
cases" (i.e., presumably, relating to an La. state court sentence to
which La. CCRP 898 entitled "Satisfaction of suspended sentence and
probation" applies) -- the precedental value of the ruling appears to
be trivially cumulative at best since, other than to refer implicitly
to defendant/relator having presented enough facts in support of his
post-sentence writ of habeas corpus to entitle him to an evidentiary
hearing on the point, it appears merely to be enforcing an itself
quite clearly stated provision of the La. CCRP.  

The reader of your present posting can't tell, however,  whether (or
not) you mean by "similar cases" post-sentence proceedings in other
states which may or may not have rules similar to the La. one the La.
court enforced in the Holt case and yet the language of what appears
to be a related question you posted a few days ago appears to suggest
that you may not be referring to an La. state conviction and sentence

------------------------------------------------------------
> * SUPREME COURT OF LOUISIANA
>   No. 07-KH-1710
>   STATE OF LOUISIANA
>           v.
>   THOMAS E. HOLT
> On Writ of Certiorari to the
> Third Circuit Court of Appeal
> PER CURIAM:
> Writ granted in part; otherwise denied; case remanded to the
> district court.
>The district court is ordered to appoint counsel for relator for
> purposes of conducting an evidentiary hearing at which it will
> determine the terms of relator's 1998 aggravated battery
> sentence. If the transcript correlates with the sentencing minutes,
> and it appears that relator's probationary term following
> conviction and sentence for that offense expired on September 14,
> 2003, nearly two years before the court then revoked probation and
> made his suspended sentence executory, after his arrest and
> conviction for distribution of cocaine, the court shall vacate its
> previous order revoking probation and rendering the underlying
> sentence executory and shall modify his current term of incarceration
> accordingly. See La.C.Cr.P. art. 898 ("Upon completion of the period of
> suspension of sentence or probation . . . the defendant shall have
> satisfied the sentence imposed.").