Two distinct SCOTUS dissents from the denial of cert in capital federal habeas cases

Though a forthcoming opinion from the Supreme Court in Glossip v. Gross concerning executions methods is likely to highlight the Justices' distinct views on capital punishment, another example of this reality appears in this morning's SCOTUS order list.  At the end, one can find two lengthy dissents from the denial of cert: one, authored by Justice Thomas (and joined by Justice Alito), laments the Court's failure to take up a case from the Fourth Circuit that required further review of a North Carolina death sentence; the other, authored by Justice Sotomayor (and joined by Justices Ginsburg and Kagan), laments the Court's failure to take up a case from the Fifth Circuit that upheld a Mississippi death sentence.

Based on a quick read of both opinions, I must say I am generally content that the full Court did not bother to take up these cases as a prelude to seemingly inevitable 5-4 split capital decisions.  More generally, with so many interesting and important non-capital criminal law and procedure issues churning in lower courts, I hope the majority of Justices persistently resist what I see as a too-common tendency to get too-deeply engaged in what too often ends up as one-case-only, deeply-divided capital case error-correction (as I think we saw this term in Brumfield v. Cain and Davis v. Ayala).