By: Derek Hawkins//November 20, 2017//
United States Supreme Court
Case Name: Scott Kernan v. Michael Daniel Cuero
Case No.: 16-1468
Focus: Court Error – Sentencing Guidelines
The question here is whether the state-court decision “involved an unreasonable application o[f] clearly established Federal law, as determined by the Supreme Court of the United States.” Ibid. Did our prior decisions (1) clearly require the state court to impose the lower sentence that the parties originally expected; or (2) instead permit the State’s sentence-raising amendment where the defendant was allowed to withdraw his guilty plea? Because no decision from this Court clearly establishes that a state court must choose the first alternative, we reverse the Ninth Circuit’s decision.
Reversed and remanded
Dissenting:
Concurring: