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

2 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.

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)