The problem with summary judgment is that it is not summary enough. It generally follows discovery, and in modern practice discovery is a very long and expensive process. Today's decision recognizes that, noting "that discovery accounts for as much as 90 percent of litigation costs when discovery is actively employed." (p. 12)  The difference between disposing of a claim before rather than after discovery can be greater than the difference between disposing of it without trial rather than after trial. This is particularly true in habeas, where there are no jury trials. The Court discusses at 12-13 the notion that the judge will manage discovery to keep the costs down, and concludes in understated terms that it's hopeless.

Here are a few nuggets on pleading requirements, with slip opinion pages in parentheses:

...a plaintiff’s obligation to provide the “grounds” of his “entitle[ment] to relief” requires more than labels and conclusions, and a formulaic recitation of the elements of a cause of action will not do.... (8)

(“[T]he pleading must contain something more . . . than. . . a statement of facts that merely creates a suspicion [of] a legally cognizable right of action”),³ on the assumption that all the allegations in the complaint are true (even if doubtful in fact), (8-9)

While, for most types of cases, the Federal Rules eliminated the cumbersome requirement that a claimant “set out in detail the facts upon which he bases his claim,” Conley v. Gibson, 355 U. S. 41, 47 (1957) (emphasis added), Rule 8(a)(2) still requires a “showing,” rather than a blanket assertion, of entitlement to relief. (8, n.3)

Asking for plausible grounds to infer an agreement does not impose a probability requirement at the pleading stage; it simply calls for enough fact to raise a reasonable expectation that discovery will reveal evidence of illegal agreement.⁴. (9)

...reflects the threshold requirement of Rule 8(a)(2) that the “plain statement” possess enough heft to “sho[w] that the pleader is entitled to relief.” (10)

Thus, it is one thing to be cautious before dismissing an antitrust complaint in advance of discovery, ... , but quite another to forget that proceeding to antitrust discovery can be expensive.... “[A] district court must retain the power to insist upon some specificity in pleading before allowing a potentially massive factual controversy to proceed.” (11)

Perhaps most importantly, the Court today backed away from Justice Black's expansive statement in Conley, 355 U.S. at 45-46, of “the accepted rule that a complaint should not be dismissed for failure to state a claim unless it appears beyond doubt that the plaintiff can prove no set of facts in support of his claim which would entitle him to relief.” (14, emphasis added) “The phrase is best forgotten as an incomplete, negative gloss on an accepted pleading standard: once a claim has been stated adequately, it may be supported by showing any set of facts consistent with the allegations in the complaint.” (16)

So what kind of “heft” is required in habeas? In theory, the habeas rules have always required more in the way of facts than civil complaints under the FRCP. See, e.g., Mayle v. Felix, No. 04-563 (2005). Even so, federal judges tend to fall back to their more familiar rules under the FRCP. When a claim has been adjudicated on the merits in state court, a plausible claim to entitlement to relief requires a plausible claim that the state court decision is not merely wrong but unreasonable. If the state court factual findings are clearly reasonable based on the record before the state court (§2254(d)(2)), and if the conclusion of law based on those facts is clearly not contrary to or an unreasonable application of Supreme Court precedent (§2254(d)(1)), then it is not plausible that discovery would turn up any grounds for relief.

Congress intended AEDPA to shorten the habeas process in many or most capital habeas cases. For the deference standard to actually do that, it must result in more claims being dismissed earlier, preferably before discovery. The Bell Atlantic case may be useful in changing the mindset of federal judges regarding early dismissal.