Three Texas death row appeals considered during the past year by the U.S. Supreme Court have resulted in sharp reversals, perhaps indicating an increasing impatience with two of the courts that handle death penalty cases from Texas: the Court of Criminal Appeals, and the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. In one of the Supreme Court opinions, the Court concluded that the Fifth Circuit was only “paying lip service to principles” of appellate law in issuing rulings with “no foundation in the decisions of this court,” and in another opinion it found that the Court of Criminal Appeals “relied on a test we never countenanced and now have unequivocally rejected.” This year’s rulings continue a pattern that has emerged over the past decade. In the last 10 years, the Supreme Court has ruled against prosecutors in all six appeals brought by inmates on death row in Texas. It is anticipated that a fourth case before the Court this year is poised to result in yet another rebuke. On December 6, Texas death row inmate Thomas Miller-El’s appeal was heard by the Supreme Court for the second time in two years. The Justices took up the case again after an earlier 8-1 ruling that instructed the Fifth Circuit to rethink its prior dismissal of evidence that prosecutors systematically excluded blacks from Miller-El’s jury. (New York Times, December 5, 2004). See Supreme Court and DPIC’s page on Miller-El.