Noel Judas Hills v. Anthony Washington

In Nelson v. Schofeld, 371 F.3d 768 (11th Cir.2004), this Court applied O’Sullivan v. Boerckel, 526 U.S. 838, 119 S.Ct. 1728, 144 L.Ed.2d 1 (1999), to Georgia’s system of direct appellate review to conclude that a defendant must petition for certiorari to the Georgia Supreme Court in order to exhaust his state remedies and thereby avoid a procedural default. The O’Sullivan decision left open the possibility that a state’s highest court might, in effect, opt out of the rule of that case by clearly stating that it did not want the rule applied to eases from that state. See O’Sullivan, 526 U.S.…