Two habeas cases of note were denied certiorari today, and two were conspicuously absent from the orders list.
In Quarterman v. Chambers, No. 07-1329, the court denied review of a Fifth Circuit decision overturning the sentence Ronald Chambers, who has been on death row for 32 years. The AP story is here. In this case, the State of Texas committed the outrageous constitutional violation of believing that the Supreme Court meant what it said in Jurek v. Texas, 428 U.S. 262 (1976).
The Court also denied certiorari in the child-rape case of Bockting v. Bayer, No. 07-9512. Last year, the Court held in Whorton v. Bockting that Crawford v. Washington, 541 U.S. 36 (2004), rewriting the rules on admission of hearsay, did not apply retroactively to overturn cases already final. On remand, applying the prior standard, the Ninth Circuit denied relief 2-1.
Update Tuesday morning: The online docket shows that the Cone and Mirzayance cases, described below, have both been relisted for this Thursday's conference.
Cone v. Bell, No. 07-1114, was distributed for this conference but is missing from the orders list. This means it will be considered again at another conference. Sixth Circuit decisions in favor of Cone have been reversed twice by the Supreme Court. See Bell v. Cone, 535 U.S. 685 (2002); Bell v. Cone, 543 U.S. 447 (2005). Now he wants the Supreme Court to take a third crack at his case, this time to reverse the Sixth Circuit's denial of relief.
Also missing is Knowles v. Mirzayance, No. 07-1315. This is another down-and-back-again case, previously remanded by the Supreme Court last year to reconsider in light of Carey v. Musladin. Ninth Circuit opinion here; cert. petition (via SCOTUSblog) here.
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