Barrett, J., dissenting
familiar, it should—federal habeas law draws the same line. Take everything about this case and transplant it to federal court: A federal defendant is wrongfully denied a Simmons instruction, the Court of Appeals’s understanding of Simmons is later summarily reversed in Lynch, and the defendant (now a prisoner) then tries to obtain the benefit of Lynch through a successive or delayed motion for postconviction relief.[1] In this scenario, the federal prisoner faces the same dilemma that Cruz faces in Arizona. Pre-Lynch, the Court of Appeals was unreceptive to the Simmons claim. Post-Lynch, the prisoner’s claim is procedurally barred: Lynch is not “a new rule of constitutional law” or a “newly recognized” right because it merely applies an old rule, Simmons. 28 U. S. C. §§2255(f)(3), (h)(2). If federal law limits a prisoner’s Simmons claim to an initial, timely motion, we should not be surprised that Arizona has made a similar choice. And we have cautioned before that “[f]ederal habeas courts must not lightly ‘disregard state procedural rules that are substantially similar to those to which we give full force in our own courts.’ ” Johnson v. Lee, 578 U. S. 605, 609 (2016) (per curiam) (quoting Kindler, 558 U. S., at 62).
The Court makes a case for why the Arizona Supreme Court’s interpretation of its own precedent is wrong. If I were on the Arizona Supreme Court, I might agree. But that call is not within our bailiwick. Our job is to determine whether the Arizona Supreme Court’s decision is defensible, and we owe the utmost deference to the state court in making that judgment. Cases of inadequacy are extremely rare, and this is not one. I respectfully dissent.
- ↑ This hypothetical is inapposite to Cruz’s pending federal habeas action, which appears to be a timely, initial federal filing. See Cruz v. Ryan, 2018 WL 1524026, *3 (D Ariz., Mar. 28, 2018), appeal docketed sub nom. Cruz v. Credio, No. 21–99005 (CA9, Apr. 22, 2021).
