⚖ Oral Arguments, with Context

A nineteen-eighty-three California murder case reaches federal court over what a state jury already decided. Marsha Carter was killed with a knife. DNA testing years later helped bring Smothers to trial. In 2018, jurors convicted him of murder but rejected a separate allegation that he personally used a deadly weapon. The California Court of Appeal reversed the conviction in 2021 because his lawyer failed to present the identity of another man whose DNA was found beneath Carter's fingernails. The court found that omission prejudicial. But the reversal was not an acquittal of murder. The court expressly left open a new trial on a conspiracy theory: an agreement with another person to commit the killing. California now seeks to retry him. The weapon allegation was a sentencing enhancement, an additional finding that could increase punishment. Smothers will argue that rejecting it bars the state from presenting him as the actual killer in the new trial. California will respond that weapon use is a separate issue from murder liability, which may rest on more than one theory of responsibility. This raises collateral estoppel, also called issue preclusion: a fact necessarily resolved in the defendant's favor by a final judgment cannot be relitigated between the same parties. The difficult question is what the first verdict necessarily resolved here, not simply which interpretation seems most likely. Smothers has sought federal habeas corpus relief, a procedure for challenging unlawful custody, before the state's retrial. Younger abstention normally limits federal interference with ongoing state prosecutions. Smothers argues that his double jeopardy claim fits an exception. The appeal also requires a certificate of appealability, or C.O.A., based on a substantial showing that a constitutional right was denied. An earlier panel granted one. The judges will now ask whether its wording covers what needs to be decided, and whether it should be changed or withdrawn. Michael Burt will argue first for Smothers.

Smothers v. Bonta, et al. (No. 25-2161) — U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, argued October 23, 2026.