Supreme Court AEDPA Development

On May 17, 2021, the Supreme Court granted the certiorari petition of the Arizona Director of the Department of Corrections, Rehabilitation and Reentry in Shinn v. Ramirez, 20-1009.  The case below is Ramirez v. Ryan, 937 F.3d 1230 (9th Cir. 2019).

The question presented is:

     The Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act (AEDPA), 28 U.S.C. § 2254(e)(2), precludes a federal court from considering evidence outside the statecourt record when reviewing the merits of a claim for habeas relief if a prisoner or his attorney has failed to diligently develop the claim’s factual basis in state court, subject to only two statutory exceptions not applicable here. In the cases below, the Ninth Circuit concluded that AEDPA’s bar on evidentiary development does not apply to a federal court’s merits review of a claim when a court excuses that claim’s procedural default under Martinez v. Ryan, 566 U.S. 1 (2012), because the default was caused by post-conviction counsel’s negligence. The question presented, which drew an eight-judge dissent from the denial of en banc rehearing in each case, is:

     Does application of the equitable rule this Court announced in Martinez v. Ryan render 28 U.S.C. § 2254(e)(2) inapplicable to a federal court’s merits review of a claim for habeas relief?