Whether a lower court can apply a default rule or ignore precedent on actual innocence and ineffective assistance of counsel claims

QUESTIONS FOR REVIEW In McCleskey v. Zant, 499 U.S. 467, 111 S.Ct. 1454 (1991), the Supreme Court held that if a criminal defendant fails to raise a claim at a time when it otherwise should have been raised, and “if he cannot show cause, the failure to earlier raise the claim may nonetheless be excused if he can show that a fundamental miscarriage of justice—the conviction of an innocent person—would result from a failure to entertain the claim.” McCleskey, 499 U.S. 478-497. In petitioner's case, the district court refused to address the merits of his ineffective assistance of counsel claims raised in a postconviction motion dealing with petitioner’s actual innocence to overcome any alleged procedural default. Does this Court’s holding in McCleskey—when applied in the context of Martinez v. Ryan, 566 U.S. 1, 132 S.Ct. 1309, 182 L.Ed. 2d 272 (2012) (procedural default will not bar a federal court from hearing substantial claim of ineffective assistance at trial if default results from ineffective assistance of the prisoner’s counsel in the collateral proceeding) and Trevino v. Thaler, 569 U.S. 413, 133 S.Ct. 1911, 1921, 185 L.Ed. 2d 1044 (2018) (clarifying ; ii that the Martinez exception applies whether a claim could have been but was not raised earlier)—allow a lower court(s) to apply a default rule, or ignore petitioner’s reliance on this Court’s precedents, in failing to address the merits of what this Court has regarded as a miscarriage of justice resulting into the conviction of one who is actually innocent of the crime? II. In Brecht v. Abraham, 507 U.S. 619 (19938), and Rose v. Clark, 487 U.S. 70 (1986), the Supreme Court held that “a defective reasonable doubt jury instruction infects the entire trial process and necessarily renders a trial fundamentally unfair” and thus “subject to automatic reversal of the conviction{s].” See Sullivan v. Louisiana, 508 U.S. 275 (1993). Additionally, this Court held that “a jury instruction which equated reasonable doubt with a grave uncertainty and an actual substantial doubt,” and stated that what was required was a “moral certainty that the defendant was guilty, suggested a higher degree of doubt than is required for acquittal under the reasonable doubt standard” in violation of ii the Fifth Amendment Due Process Clause. See Cage v. Louisiana, 498 U.S. 39 (1990). In this case, each of the trial, appellate, and postconviction counsels failed to raise the defective reasonable doubt jury instruction which is clearly in the record. Did the Court err in affirming the District Court’s summary denial, without addressing the merits or granting relief, of petitioners coram nobis _ ineffective assistance of trial, appellate, and/or postconviction counsel claims for failing to raise the structural error reasonable doubt jury instruction claim? III. This Court, in In re Winship, 397 U.S. 358 (1970), held that “in every criminal case the government must each and every element of a charged offense ; beyond a reasonable doubt” before he/she may be convicted, under the Due Process Clause, as a matter of law. Moreover, in Richardson v. United States, 526 U.S. 813 (1999), this Court reasoned and held that “[a] jury in a [criminal] case must unanimously agree not only that the defendant committed some ... violations, but also about which specific “violations” make up that [crime].” Pp. 817-824. In this case, the jury iv charge instructed the jurors not only on the specific elements upon which they must find, beyond a reasonable doubt, before the petitioner may be found guilty, but also informed the jurors that their verdict must be unanimous as to the same_theory of guilt. However, the jury failed to follow the trial court’s mandatory instruction regarding the unanimity provision of the “same theory of guilt” which effectively resulted into the jury not finding each and every element of the charged offense “beyond a : reasonable doubt,” and, as such, the jury failed to render a verdict at all unde