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OCTOBER  TERM,  2022 

17 

Syllabus 

CRUZ  v.  ARIZONA 

certiorari to the supreme court of arizona 

No. 21–846.  Argued November 1, 2022—Decided February 22, 2023 

Petitioner  John  Montenegro  Cruz  was  found  guilty  of  capital  murder  by 
an  Arizona  jury  and  sentenced  to  death.  Both  at  trial  and  on  direct 
appeal,  Cruz  argued  that  under  Simmons  v.  South  Carolina,  512  U. S. 
154, he should have been allowed to inform the jury that a life sentence 
in  Arizona  would  be  without  parole.  The  trial  court  and  Arizona  Su-
preme Court held that Arizona's capital sentencing scheme did not trig-
ger application of Simmons.  After Cruz's conviction became fnal, this 
Court held in Lynch v. Arizona, 578 U. S. 613 (per curiam), that it was 
fundamental error to conclude that Simmons “did not apply” in Arizona. 
578  U. S.,  at  615.  Cruz  then  sought  to  raise  the  Simmons  issue  again 
in a state postconviction petition under Arizona Rule of Criminal Proce-
dure 32.1(g), which permits a defendant to bring a successive petition if 
“there has been a signifcant change in the law that, if applicable to the 
defendant's case, would probably overturn the defendant's judgment or 
sentence.”  The  Arizona  Supreme  Court  denied  relief  after  concluding 
that Lynch was not “a signifcant change in the law.” 

Held: The Arizona Supreme Court's holding that Lynch was not a signif-
cant change  in the law is  an exceptional case where  a state-court judg-
ment rests  on such  a novel and  unforeseeable interpretation of  a state-
court  procedural  rule  that  the  decision  is  not  adequate  to  foreclose 
review of the federal claim.  Pp. 25–32. 

(a)  This Court does not decide a question of federal law in a case if the 
state-court  judgment  “rests  on  a  state  law  ground  that  is  independent 
of  the  federal  question  and  adequate  to  support  the  judgment.”  Cole-
man  v.  Thompson,  501  U. S.  722,  729.  In  this  case  the  Court  focuses 
on  the  requirement  of  adequacy;  whether  Arizona's  “state  procedural 
ruling is adequate is itself a question of federal law,” Beard v. Kindler, 
558  U. S. 53,  60.  A  state procedural  ruling  that  is “ `frmly  established 
and regularly followed' ” will ordinarily “be adequate to 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 Crimi-

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