Serious Appellate Review Can Make a Difference

If perfunctory or truncated review of Georgia's death sentences by the state Supreme Court would be likely to result in imposition of arbitrary and unconstitutional sentences, then, by similar logic truncated federal habeas review over state criminal proceedings would likely result in rising incidents of unfair and unconstitutional decisions at the state level.

At this link is the opinion by Justice Stevens in which he underscores the truncated Georgia Supreme Court mandatory review of its death penalty cases is not the kind of review represented to the US Supreme Court in Zant.