SCOTUS summarily reverses Sixth Circuit's reversal of state conviction based on ineffective assistance
The Supreme Court generally does not view itself as in the business of error correction, but it still sometimes finds a few criminal cases in which it just cannot resist fixing what looks like an incorrect ruling below. Today's order list, for example, brings a per curiam summary reversal in Mays v. Hines, No. 20–507 (S. Ct. Mar. 29, 2021) (available here), in which the Court corrects the work of the Sixth Circuit via an eight-page opinion that starts and ends this way:
A Tennessee jury found Anthony Hines guilty of murdering Katherine Jenkins at a motel. Witnesses saw Hines fleeing in the victim’s car and wearing a bloody shirt, and his family members heard him admit to stabbing someone at the motel. But almost 35 years later, the Sixth Circuit held that Hines was entitled to a new trial and sentence because his attorney should have tried harder to blame another man. In reaching its conclusion, the Sixth Circuit disregarded the overwhelming evidence of guilt that supported the contrary conclusion of a Tennessee court. This approach plainly violated Congress’ prohibition on disturbing state-court judgments on federal habeas review absent an error that lies “‘beyond any possibility for fair-minded disagreement.’” Shinn v. Kayer, 592 U.S. ___, ___ (2020) (per curiam) (slip op., at 1); 28 U.S.C. §2254(d). We now reverse....
The Sixth Circuit had no reason to revisit the decision of the Tennessee court, much less ignore the ample evidence supporting that court’s conclusion. We grant the petition for a writ of certiorari and respondent’s motion to proceed in forma pauperis, and we reverse the judgment of the Court of Appeals.
Notably, Justice Sonia Sotomayor dissented from this per curiam ruling, but without any opinion, so this was technically an 8-1 error correction.
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