SCOTUS back to work with no new cert grants, punting, and a per curiam AEDPA summary reversal

The Supreme Court this morning issued orders and a number of opinions after returning from a few weeks off, and the lead story seems to be primarily what the Justices did not do: the Court did not grant certiorari on any new cases, did not conclusively resolve (but essentially punted issues back to lower courts) a couple high-profile argued cases, and did not split 4-4 (or even 5-3) on any merits opinions.

The one thing the Court did do that might interest criminal justice fans involves a per curiam ruling in a federal habeas case coming from the Ninth Circuit. The ruling in Kernan v. Hinojosa, No. 15-833 (S. Ct. May 16, 2016) (available here), gets started this way:

The Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (AEDPA) requires a state prisoner seeking federal habeas relief first to “exhaus[t] the remedies available in the courts of the State.” 28 U. S. C. §2254(b)(1)(A). If the state courts adjudicate the prisoner’s federal claim “on the merits,” §2254(d), then AEDPA mandates deferential, rather than de novo, review, prohibiting federal courts from granting habeas relief unless the state-court decision “was contrary to, or involved an unreasonable application of, clearly established Federal law,” §2254(d)(1), or “was based on an unreasonable determination of the facts,” §2254(d)(2). The Ninth Circuit in this case decided that the Supreme Court of California’s summary denial of a habeas petition was not “on the merits,” and therefore AEDPA’s deferential-review provisions did not apply. We summarily reverse.

Notably, Justice Sotomayor issued a dissenting opinion, which Justice Ginsburg joined, to explain why she thought the Ninth Circuit was in the right when refusing to apply AEDPA’s deferential-review provisions in this case.