SCOTUS adds a habeas case (with a sentencing spin) to its docket

As detailed in this new SCOTUSblog post, the Supreme Court has added yet another case to its docket that should interest sentencing fans.  The case is Magwood v. Culliver, and here is the question that the Court has taken up:

When a person is resentenced after having obtained federal habeas relief from an earlier sentence, is a claim in a federal habeas petition challenging that new sentencing judgment a “second or successive” claim under 28 U.S.C. § 2244(b) if the petitioner could have challenged his previous sentence on the same constitutional grounds?

Though a habeas case arising in a death penalty context, it seems quite possible that Magwood (which is has sentencing's old friend Jeff Fisher as counsel of record) could address some legal issues that could impact lots of other types of cases in lots of types of sentencing settings.

Reflecting a bit more broadly on this newest cert grant, it is becoming easier and easier to conclude that the addition of Justice Sotomayor to the Court has continued the trend of the early Roberts Court to take up many criminal justice cases and issues with important day-to-day implications for many criminal practitioners. 

Some related old and new posts on SCOTUS docket issues:

• Should we thank new Justices Alito and Sotomayor for all the big criminal law SCOTUS action?
• SCOTUS cert grants: Guns, sex offenders, and sentencing factors ... oh my!
• Is the "culture of death" slowly dying at the Supreme Court?
• How exactly do transitions impact the SCOTUS docket and cert grant decisions?
• A big SCOTUS oral argument week on tap for sentencing fans
• The 10 biggest cases to watch for sentencing fans in the new SCOTUS term
• Reflections on the politics of SCOTUS and personhood of its members
• Will the next SCOTUS nominee have any criminal law background?
• Brave New Justice and sentencing issues
• Roberts, the cert pool, and sentencing jurisprudence
• Can Roberts bring consensus to SCOTUS sentencing jurisprudence?
• Justice Alito jumping out of the cert pool!!
• Final version of my article on the SCOTUS death docket