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SCOTUS grants cert on another AEDPA habeas issue

By Douglas A. Berman

SCOTUSblog is reporting this morning that the Supreme Court has granted cert in Walker v. Martin, Docket No: 09-996, which presents this complicated federal habeas issue emerging from the Ninth Circuit (explained here): Whether, in federal habeas corpus proceedings, a state law under which a prisoner may be barred from collaterally attacking his conviction when the prisoner ?substantially delayed? filing his habeas petition is ?inadequate? to support a procedural bar because (1) the federal court believes that the rule is vague and (2) the state failed to prove that its courts ?consistently? exercised their discretion when applying the rule in other cases. For quite some time in recent cert grants, the Justices seemed more interested in reviewing meatly substantive federal criminal law issues...continue to full post

Full post as published by Sentencing Law and Policy on June 21, 2010 (boomark / email).