evidence: 2022 also saw the retirement of Justice Stephen Breyer, the Court’s most persistent death-penalty skeptic and the historic confirmation of Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, the first African American woman and first federal public defender to serve as a justice on the Court. [...] The decision also produced harsh reactions from legal scholars, who blasted it as "nightmarish" and "an abomination." [...] Several other capital cases that are awaiting Supreme Court decision at the end of 2022 may serve as bellwethers on how far the Court is willing to go to limit defendants’ access to federal review.