Two notable opinions from SCOTUS on vagueness and habeas review

The US Supreme Court handed down two big opinions this morning that criminal justice fans will want to check out. Here are the basics with links from How Appealing:

Justice Elena Kagan announced the judgment of the Court and delivered the opinion of the Court in large measure in Sessions v. Dimaya, No. 15-1498. Justice Neil M. Gorsuch issued an opinion concurring in part and concurring in the judgment. Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr. issued a dissenting opinion, in which Justices Anthony M. Kennedy, Clarence Thomas, and Samuel A. Alito, Jr. joined. And Justice Thomas issued a dissenting opinion, in which Justices Kennedy and Alito joined in part.

Justice Stephen G. Breyer delivered the opinion of the Court in Wilson v. Sellers, No. 16-6855.  Justice Gorsuch issued a dissenting opinion, in which Justices Thomas and Alito joined. 

The Dimaya opinion, which runs nearly 100 pages in total, starts this way:

Three Terms ago, in Johnson v. United States, this Court held that part of a federal law’s definition of “violent felony” was impermissibly vague. See 576 U. S. ___ (2015). The question in this case is whether a similarly worded clause in a statute’s definition of “crime of violence” suffers from the same constitutional defect. Adhering to our analysis in Johnson, we hold that it does.

The Wilson opinion is much shorter, but its start is much longer:

The Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (AEDPA) requires a prisoner who challenges (in a federal habeas court) a matter “adjudicated on the merits in State court” to show that the relevant state-court “decision” (1) “was contrary to, or involved an unreasonable application of, clearly established Federal law,” or (2) “was based on an unreasonable determination of the facts in light of the evidence presented in the State court proceeding.” 28 U.S.C. §2254(d).  Deciding whether a state court’s decision “involved” an unreasonable application of federal law or “was based on” an unreasonable determination of fact requires the federal habeas court to “train its attention on the particular reasons — both legal and factual — why state courts rejected a state prisoner’s federal claims,” Hittson v. Chatman, 576 U.S. ___, ___ (2015) (GINSBURG, J., concurring in denial of certiorari) (slip op., at 1), and to give appropriate deference to that decision, Harrington v. Richter, 562 U.S. 86, 101–102 (2011).

This is a straightforward inquiry when the last state court to decide a prisoner’s federal claim explains its decision on the merits in a reasoned opinion. In that case, a federal habeas court simply reviews the specific reasons given by the state court and defers to those reasons if they are reasonable. We have affirmed this approach time and again. See, e.g., Porter v. McCollum, 558 U.S. 30, 39–44 (2009) (per curiam); Rompilla v. Beard, 545 U. S. 374, 388–392 (2005); Wiggins v. Smith, 539 U. S. 510, 523–538 (2003).

The issue before us, however, is more difficult.  It concerns how a federal habeas court is to find the state court’s reasons when the relevant state-court decision on the merits, say, a state supreme court decision, does not come accompanied with those reasons.  For instance, the decision may consist of a one-word order, such as “affirmed” or “denied.” What then is the federal habeas court to do?  We hold that the federal court should “look through” the unexplained decision to the last related state-court decision that does provide a relevant rationale.  It should then presume that the unexplained decision adopted the same reasoning.  But the State may rebut the presumption by showing that the unexplained affirmance relied or most likely did rely on different grounds than the lower state court’s decision, such as alternative grounds for affirmance that were briefed or argued to the state supreme court or obvious in the record it reviewed.