The transcript of yesterday's argument in Renico can be found here.
I've read through the argument. Doesn't look good for petitioner. If he doesn't lose on "clearly established law" grounds, then he will probably lose on "presumption of correctness" grounds.
But talk about abstract. Here's petitioner's statement of the issue:
I believe that the case ultimately comes down to whether the Michigan Supreme Court unreasonably applied this Court's precedent in finding that the trial judge exercised -- that there was manifest necessity in the absence of the trial judge exercising sound discretion.
I think I know what that means, but I'm not entirely sure.
But one thing I will note is this phenomenon: during a habeas argument, the Judges will debate with the attorneys the underlying substantive law, only to have Scalia crash the intellectual party: "It doesn't matter what we think the law should be. This isn't direct review. It's habeas. It means -- hands off!" He then guides the State's attorney to answers like: "I don't know or care what the law should be. I only have to say it's not clearly established and I win!!!" The AEDPA literally allows the State to win by playing dumb.
By the way, still on vacation.
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