On Monday, the Supreme Court took the remarkable action of requesting that the Ninth Circuit—yes, the court itself—respond to the state of Arizona’s pending petition for a writ of mandate that would compel the Ninth Circuit to terminate further proceedings in a capital habeas case.

The procedural background is long and complicated, so please pardon this oversimplification:

Graham Henry was convicted of capital murder in 1987 and was sentenced to death, first in 1988 and then on resentencing in 1995. His 12-year-long saga of federal habeas corpus proceedings appeared to come to an end when the Supreme Court denied his certiorari petition in June 2014. But the Ninth Circuit, instead of issuing the mandate to terminate the case, voted to rehear en banc Henry’s motion to reconsider a Ninth Circuit panel’s November 2013 order denying his petition for panel rehearing.

Judge Richard Tallman, joined by Judges O’Scannlain, Callahan, Bea, and Ikuta, publicly dissented from the grant of rehearing en banc. (See link above beginning at p. 19.) Here’s the memorable opening to Tallman’s dissent:

If one is remembered for the rules one breaks, then our court must be unforgettable. By taking this capital habeas case en banc now—after certiorari has been denied by the Supreme Court and well after the deadline for en banc review by our court has passed—we violate the Federal Rules of Appellate Procedure and our own General Orders. We also ignore recent Supreme Court authority that has reversed us for doing the same thing in the past. No circuit is as routinely reversed for just this type of behavior. We ought to know better.

The Ninth Circuit’s response is due January 7, 2015.