Using unusually impatient language, the Supreme Court on Monday reversed a ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit that set aside two Kentucky murder convictions based on what the high court said were “the flimsiest of rationales.”
The Supreme Court’s per curiam decision in Parker v. Matthews also in effect pulled rank on the 6th Circuit, scolding it for “consulting its own precedents, rather than those of this Court” in assessing the reasonableness of the Kentucky Supreme Court’s decision in the case. The unsigned opinion said the 6th Circuit’s decision amounted to “plain and repetitive error.”
