Petitions to watch | Conference of April 13
on Apr 11, 2018 at 5:11 pm
In its conference of April 13, 2018, the court will consider petitions involving issues such as whether, pursuant to United States v. Munsingwear Inc., the Supreme Court should vacate the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit’s judgment and instruct that court to remand the case to the district court with directions to dismiss all claims for prospective relief regarding pregnant unaccompanied minors; whether, following Johnson v. United States, in which the Supreme Court invalidated the Armed Career Criminal Act’s residual clause as unconstitutionally vague, identical language in the residual clause of the previously-mandatory sentencing guidelines is likewise unconstitutional; and whether—when the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit found that the new mitigating evidence discovered on federal habeas review was “double-edged” and could not outweigh the substantial aggravating evidence, and when it misapplied the standard for evaluating prejudice in a Wiggins claim—it denied the petitioner due process.
Issues: (1) Whether the petitioner’s mandatory guidelines sentence, which was enhanced under the residual clause of U.S.S.G. § 4B1.2, is unconstitutional in light of the Supreme Court’s decision in Johnson v. United States, and, if so, whether a conviction for burglary of a dwelling under Florida law qualifies as a “crime of violence” under U.S.S.G. § 4B1.2’s elements clause; and (2) whether published orders issued by a circuit court of appeals under 28 U.S.C. § 2244(b)(3), and in the context of applications to file second or successive 28 U.S.C. § 2255 motions, constitute binding precedent outside of that context.
Issue: Whether, pursuant to United States v. Munsingwear Inc., the Supreme Court should vacate the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit’s judgment and instruct that court to remand the case to the district court with directions to dismiss all claims for prospective relief regarding pregnant unaccompanied minors.
Issue: Whether the Indiana procedure that allows trial-counsel Strickland v. Washington claims on direct appeal in one of two ways–defendants may assert the claims in their brief on direct appeal if they choose to make no further record in support of their claims or, if they wish to develop a record, defendants may suspend their direct appeal while they develop the factual record in the trial court–satisfies the Martinez–Trevino doctrine, which allows a federal habeas court to hear a substantial claim of ineffective assistance of trial counsel if a state denies a meaningful opportunity to raise the claim on direct appeal.
Issues: (1) Whether a certificate of appealability should be issued to determine whether a predicate conviction that requires merely “physical force that overcomes reasonable resistance” satisfies the force clause of the Armed Career Criminals Act; and (2) whether a certificate of appealability should be issued to determine whether a Missouri burglary conviction from 1969 is a violent felony because, like the contemporary Missouri burglary statute, it is a fatally overbroad and indivisible statute.
Issue: Whether the death penalty, in and of itself, violates the Eighth Amendment in light of contemporary standards of decency and the geographic arbitrariness of its imposition.
Issue: Whether, under the Supreme Court’s opinions in United States v. Booker, Johnson v. United States and Beckles v. United States, which depended heavily upon the distinction between advisory and mandatory sentencing schemes, the residual clause of the mandatory sentencing guidelines is unconstitutionally vague.
Issue: Whether, under the Supreme Court’s opinions in United States v. Booker, Johnson v. United States and Beckles v. United States, which depended heavily upon the distinction between advisory and mandatory sentencing schemes, the residual clause of the mandatory sentencing guidelines is unconstitutionally vague.
Issue: Whether, following Johnson v. United States, in which the Supreme Court invalidated the Armed Career Criminal Act’s residual clause as unconstitutionally vague, identical language in the residual clause of the previously-mandatory sentencing guidelines is likewise unconstitutional.
Issue: Whether the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit’s holding—granting qualified immunity to law-enforcement officers who stopped the petitioner from praying silently in her own home because there was no prior case law involving similar facts—conflicts with Hope v. Pelzer, which “expressly rejected a requirement that previous cases be ‘fundamentally similar’” or involve “‘materially similar’ facts.”
Issue: Whether Missouri’s second-degree burglary statute is divisible into two offenses with separate elements for the purpose of analyzing whether a conviction under that statute qualifies as a conviction for a “violent felony” as defined in the Armed Career Criminal Act of 1984, 18 U.S.C. § 924(e)(2)(B)(ii).
Issue: Whether—when the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit found that the new mitigating evidence discovered on federal habeas review was “double-edged” and could not outweigh the substantial aggravating evidence, and when it misapplied the standard for evaluating prejudice in a Wiggins claim—it denied the petitioner due process.
