The US Supreme Court sided with an Arizona death-row inmate in a procedural dispute over when a state court ruling can cut off federal review of a death sentence.
The 5-4 ruling on Wednesday by Justice Sonia Sotomayor said the Arizona Supreme Court got it wrong when it found that one of its previous rulings hadn’t changed the law enough to allow John Cruz to challenge his punishment.
The Arizona ruling couldn’t serve as an “adequate and independent state-law ground” that would preclude federal review, Sotomayor said.
Emphasizing how rare it is for the justices to make such a finding, ...
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