Greetings Court fans!
One more cert grant from yesterday. (Oddly, the grant was tucked away on a miscellaneous order instead of placed on the regular orders list.) This case will be argued/decided next Term:
Castro v. United States (02-6683): The Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (AEDPA) imposes severe restrictions on the filing of second or successive habeas petitions by prisoners. After Castro was convicted in 1994, he filed a Rule 33 motion for a new trial, which the district court recharacterized as a habeas petition. That petition was denied. In 1997, Castro filed a habeas petition, and the Eleventh Circuit held that his petition was a successive. This holding conflicts with decisions from other appellate courts and the Supreme Court will now resolve the split. The Court also asked the parties to brief whether it (the Supreme Court) has jurisdiction to review the Eleventh Circuit’s decision affirming dismissal of the habeas petition as second or successive.
That’s all. Thanks for reading.
Sandy