There was a cert. grant yesterday in a habeas case entitled Maples v. Thomas (used to be called Maples v. Allen). The issue in the case is (and this is quoted from the cert. petition):
Whether the Eleventh Circuit properly held--in conflict with the decisions of this Court and other courts--that there was no "cause" to excuse any procedural default where petitioner was blameless for the default, the State’s own conduct contributed to the default, and petitioner’s attorneys of record were no longer functioning as his agents at the time of any default.
There were two issues in the petition, but the court only granted cert. on this issue. The other issue in the case, which focused on the adequacy of a state procedural rule, was no longer viable after the Court's decision in Walker v. Martin.
Maples was one of the relisted cases. And my prediction that this particular case would end in nothing more than a dissent from the denial of cert. was wrong. Way wrong. And I am very happy to write that. Maples is a really interesting case factually, which I have previously discussed here. Also see my last post about relisted cases for more.
Actually, the Court decided both of the relisted habeas cases yesterday. The other one was Felkner v. Jackson. I'll talk about it in a separate post. At this point, there does not appear to be any current relisted habeas cases (at least according to SCOTUSblog).
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