The vote was 7-2.

The high court case against Daniel Siebert only involved the 1986 murder of Linda Jarman, for which he was sentenced to death. But Siebert was also sentenced separately for the strangulation deaths of a woman and her young children. He met all the victims after he volunteered under an assumed name to teach art at the Alabama Institute for the Deaf and Blind in Talladega, Ala.

The U.S. Supreme Court first denied review of the Siebert-Jarman case in 1990, and Siebert filed a state appeal. However, the state courts rejected it because it was filed after a two-year statutory deadline. Siebert then filed a petition in the federal courts asking for an original review of whether his constitutional rights were violated.

The Anti-terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 sets a one-year deadline for filing such petitions but the deadline is figured from the end of his direct state appeal. Since the law was enacted after his conviction, his deadline was one year after the law was enacted in 1996. That still meant that his federal habeas petition was filed four years late.

However, a federal appeals court ruled that the state courts had the authority to hear his appeal because their rejection of the case was statutory, not jurisdictional.

Monday, without hearing argument, the U.S. Supreme Court reversed the appeals court. The seven-justice majority, in an unsigned opinion, said the high court's Pace vs. DiGuglielmo in 2005 meant that when a state court appeal is ruled untimely -- because of the time limit -- "that is the end of the matter" in terms of the federal law.

The ruling sent the case back down to the lower court for a verdict consistent with the high court opinion.

The case is Allen vs. Siebert, No. 06-1680.