The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit released its en banc opinion today in Moore v. Quarterman. The seventeen-judge en banc panel issued a per curiam opinion (Jones, C.J., King, Jolly, Davis, Smith, Wiener, Barksdale, Garza, Benavides, Stewart, Dennis, Clement, Prado, Owen, Elrod, Southwick, Haynes, JJ.). The Court held that, regardless of the reasonable arguments on either side of the issue as to whether the petitioner exhausted his state court remedies, under the Court’s case- and fact-intensive inquiry here he made a showing of cause and prejudice sufficient to clear any bar due to lack of exhaustion. The Court held that the uncertainty of Texas law as to requisite showing of an Atkins claim at the time of his second state petition provided sufficient cause, while the “mass of evidence, taken at face value, present[ing] a substantial Atkins claim” showed the prejudice from application of the exhaustion doctrine. Accordingly, the Court returned the matter to the original panel for review of the district court’s grant of habeas relief under the plain error standard.