As predicted, the Supreme Court has denied rehearing for Kennedy v. Louisiana. The Supreme Court had asked for additional briefing in early September, but today, the Court refused to rehear its June decision. Instead, the Court has modified the Kennedy decision by adding a footnote to both the majority and dissenting opinions. The result of June's decision is the same: in regular criminal matters, a death sentence still cannot be imposed for any crime in which the victim is not killed.

Another nonsurprise (see also this post): the Court has reiterated its statement from 12 years ago, declining to consider whether the military is different in the context of the "death is different" jurisprudence: "... we need not decide whether certain considerations might justify differences in the application of the Cruel and Unusual Punishments Clause to military cases (a matter not presented here for our decision). Cf. Loving v. United States, 517 U. S. 748, 755 (1996)."

Lyle Denniston has a post on SCOTUSblog discussing the Kennedy order. His post also discusses the ten ten cases the Court has agreed to hear this term. Of the ten, seven involve criminal law.