Courtesy of Sentencing Law and Policy, I see that the Supreme Court denied cert. in those relisted cases that raised a challenge to the "prior conviction" exception to the Apprendi rule. Darn. I was really hoping that that issue would be re-opened.
One other relist matter. One case that had been relisted a bunch of times was Sheets v. Simpson. I had mentioned in my previous post on relists that I am guessing that the relisting would stop and it was now being held in light of the cert. grant in Howes v. Fields. Just to follow up, it was not relisted for this past conference. While it is impossible to know, it appears that the non-relist does appear to mean that it is simply being held by the Court.
If I hear more relisting news, I'll pass it along.
UPDATE: According to SCOTUSblog, there is currently one habeas case among the current group of relists. It's called Felkner v. Jackson. The question presented is:
Whether the Ninth Circuit failed to follow the deferential standard under 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d) when it found that a prosecutor’s proffered race-neutral bases for striking two African-American jurors was insufficient?
As a relisted case, I wonder if this is going to eventually be a GVR under the recent decision in Harrington v. Richter, which criticized the Ninth Circuit for failing to properly apply the deferential standard. Worth watching.
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