Important capital IAC and AEDPA rulings from SCOTUS

Though Lyle Denniston at SCOTUSblog details here that we are still awaiting the Supreme Court’s biggest decisions, a few of the big remaining criminal justice cases were handed down today.  Specifically, thanks to this post at How Appealing, I see that the Court has issued opinions concerning ineffective assistance of counsel in the capital case of Rompilla v. Beard, No. 04-5462 (syllabus here and full opinion here) and concerning statutes of limitation in the habeas case of Dodd v. United States, No. 04-5286 (syllabus here and full opinion here). 

Both Rompilla and Dodd are 5-4 decisions with “traditional” liberal/conservative splits on issues of great import for criminal justice administration.  Rompilla seems like a big win for defendants, and Dodd seems like a big a loss; I encourage readers to use the comments to help me fully appreciate which ruling is likely to be of the greatest import and impact.  (Since both cases have AEDPA wrinkles, I continue to hope someone will take up my recommendation in this post to start an AEDPA blog.)

Last but not least, the criminal justice work of the Supreme Court is never complete these days without at least a few more Booker-inspired GVRs. This morning I count a five such GVRs on this order list.

UPDATE: An AP report from Hope Yen on Rompilla is here, and a Reuters report from James Vinici is here, and a full SCOTUSblog report is here.