The Supreme Court ruled along ideological lines Monday against two Arizona death row inmates who had argued that their lawyers did a poor job representing them in state court. The ruling will make it harder for certain inmates sentenced to death or long terms in prison who believe their lawyers failed them to bring challenges on those grounds.
The ruling involves cases brought to federal court after state court review. Justice Clarence Thomas wrote for the court's six-justice conservative majority that the proper role for federal courts in these cases is a limited one and that federal courts are generally barred from taking in new evidence of ineffective assistance of counsel that could help prisoners. He wrote that “federal courts must afford unwavering respect to the centrality” of state criminal trials.
