The Supreme Court in Davis v. Ayala held, 5-4, that the Ninth Circuit erred in granting habeas to a California triple murderer.  The case is most notable, in my view, for its disciplined application of the harmless error doctrine and its respect for the AEDPA.  I also can't help thinking that the Court is becoming impatient with interminable delays fostered by years of procedural disputes long past the time, and having next to nothing to do with, the ascertainment of the defendant's factual guilt. Thus the majority opinion, written by Justice Alito, begins:

A quarter-century after a California jury convicted Hector Ayala of triple murder and sentenced him to death, the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit granted Ayala's application for a writ of habeas corpus and ordered the State to retry or release him. The Ninth Circuit's decision was based on the procedure used by the trial judge in ruling on Ayala's objections under Batson v. Kentucky, 476 U.S. 79 (1986), to some of the prosecution's peremptory challenges of prospective jurors. The trial judge allowed the prosecutor to explain the basis for those strikes outside the presence of the defense so as not to disclose trial strategy.  On direct appeal, the California Supreme Court found that if this procedure violated any federal constitutional right, the error was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt.  The Ninth Circuit, however, held that the error was harmful.

The Ninth Circuit's decision was based on the misapplication of basic rules regarding harmless error.  Assuming without deciding that a federal constitutional error occurred, the error was harmless under Brecht v. Abrahamson, 507 U.S. 619 (1993), and the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (AEDPA), 28 U. S. C. §2254(d).