Page:Cruz v. Arizona (2023).pdf/2

Syllabus

foreclose review of a federal claim.” Lee v. Kemna, 534 U. S. 362, 376. This case is an exception, however, implicating this Court’s rule that “an unforeseeable and unsupported state-court decision on a question of state procedure does not constitute an adequate ground to preclude this Court’s review of a federal question.” Bouie v. City of Columbia, 378 U. S. 347, 354.

At issue here is the Arizona Supreme Court’s decision that Cruz’s motion for postconviction relief failed to satisfy Arizona Rule of Criminal Procedure 32.1(g) because Lynch did not result in “a significant change in the law.” That court reasoned that Lynch was not a significant change in the law because it relied on Simmons, which was clearly established law at the time of Cruz’s trial. It so held even though Lynch overruled binding Arizona precedent foreclosing Simmons relief for Arizona capital defendants, and even though the Arizona Supreme Court had previously explained that the “archetype” of a “significant change in the law” is the overruling of “previously binding case law.” State v. Shrum, 220 Ariz. 115, 118, 203 P. 3d 1175, 1178. While the court reasoned that a significant change in the application of a law is not the same as a significant change in the law itself, Arizona can point to no other Rule 32.1(g) decision supporting that distinction. This interpretation of Rule 32.1(g) is entirely new and conflicts with prior Arizona case law. The novelty arises from the way in which the Arizona Supreme Court disregarded the effect of Lynch on Arizona law. Ordinarily, Arizona courts applying Rule 32.1(g) focus on how a decision changes the law that is operative in the State. Here, however, the Arizona Supreme Court disregarded the many state precedents overruled by Lynch, focusing instead on whether Lynch had wrought a significant change in federal law. Because the Arizona Supreme Court’s interpretation is so novel and unforeseeable, it cannot constitute an adequate state procedural ground for the challenged decision.

Arizona’s interpretation generates a catch-22 for Cruz and other similarly situated capital defendants that only serves to compound its novelty. To obtain relief under Rule 32.1(g), a defendant must establish not just a significant change in the law but also that the law in question applies retroactively under Teague v. Lane, 489 U. S. 288. Prior to the Arizona Supreme Court’s decision below, it was possible to show that Lynch both was a “significant change in the law” and satisfied retroactivity because it merely applied Simmons. On the interpretation adopted below, however, the argument that Lynch applied “settled” federal law for retroactivity purposes also implies that Lynch does not represent a “significant change in the law.” Earlier Rule 32.1(g) decisions did not generate this catch-22. Given the Court’s conclusion that the Arizona Supreme Court’s application of Rule 32.1(g)