Adonijah Lindsay v. United States
HabeasCorpus
Does the Supreme Court's grant of writ of certiorari on the same question of law establish a per se ground for obtaining a certificate of appealability?
QUESTIONS PRESENTED Question 1 This Court provides that a certificate of appealability should issue whenever jurists of reason would find a district court's resolution of the § 2255 motion debatable. Adonijah Lindsay's challenges the validity of his 18 U.S.C. § 924(c) conviction. The Third Circuit identified that this Court granted certiorari on the same issue. Yet, the Third Circuit did not grant a certificate of appealability. Implicitly, finding that a grant of certiorari was ‘ insufficient to show that reasonable jurists could conclude that an issue . deserves encouragement to proceed further. Fut differently, despite this Court's Rule 10 that provides this Court primarily resolves conflicts in the law or questions of substantial importance, the Third Circuit does not find the question COA-worthy. Does the Supreme Court's grant of writ of certiorari on the same question of law establish a per se ground for obtaining a certificate of appealability? Question 2 In Dimaya v. Sessions, 138 S.Ct. 1204 (2018), this Court extended the vagueness rule announced in Johnson v. United States, 135 S.Ct. 2551 (2015) to statutes other than 18 U.S.C. § 924(e). Title 18 U.S.C. § 924(c) contains substantively identical language to that declared unconstitutional in Dimaya. The language contains multiple-layers of uncertainty, thus, like 18 U.S.C. §§ 16(b) and 924(e)(2), the twin text is unconstitutionally vague. Is the text of 924(c)(3)(B) unconstitutionally vague?