Whether a state court's surprise procedural-bar ruling that neither party requested is adequate to support procedural default

QUESTIONS PRESENTED In state postconviction proceedings, Mr. Flowers challenged his life-without-parole sentence as violating Miller v. Arizona, 567 U.S. 460 (2012), three different times. The third time, the superior court reached the merits of the claim, but denied it. He appealed the denial to the Arizona Court of Appeals. Although the state never argued that the claim was procedurally barred by virtue of prior litigation, the state appellate court surprised the parties with a ruling that prior litigation barred the claim in the third round of proceedings. The Arizona Supreme Court denied discretionary review, as did this Court. In federal habeas proceedings, the district court ruled that the procedural-bar ruling rested on an adequate and independent ground in state law, and that Mr. Flowers’s Miller claim was procedrually defaulted. The court of appeals affirmed, but neither addressed the adequacy question nor explained why doing so was unnecessary. This case thus presents the following questions: 1. When a state court surprises the parties with a procedural-bar ruling that neither party asks for and without notice or an opportunity to respond, is that ruling adequate to support procedural default? 2. In order to apply the prior-litigation procedural bar, an Arizona state court must determine whether the claim qualifies for an exception. Ariz. R. Crim. P. 32.2(b). Here, there is an exception for claims that rest on a “significant change in the law” and that “would probably overturn the conviction or sentence.” Ariz. R. Crim. P. 32.1(g). Is Rule 32.1(g) independent of federal law, thus making application of the prior-litigation procedural bar also independent of federal law?