Matthew Johnson v. Oklahoma

Whether the Oklahoma courts’ categorical refusal to grant evidentiary hearings on colorable claims of ineffective assistance of counsel, actual innocence, and disproportionate sentencing conflicts with this Court’s precedents and violates the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment? Specifically, whether a state court may summarily deny factual development and evidentiary hearings when a petitioner presents detailed affidavits and credible evidence supporting constitutional claims, in direct tension with decisions such as Machibroda v. United States, 368 U.S. 487 (1962), Townsend v. Sain, 372 U.S. 293 (1963), and Blackledge v. Allison, 431 U.S. 63 (1977).

Whether the Eighth Amendment prohibits the