Does a § 2255 motion filed within one year of Johnson, claiming that Johnson invalidates the residual clause of the mandatory career offender guideline, assert a 'right ... initially recognized' in Johnson within the meaning of 28 U.S.C. § 2255(f)(3), such that the motion is timely filed?

QUESTIONS PRESENTED Petitioner was convicted of federal kidnapping and sentenced as a career offender in 2000, under the then-mandatory Sentencing Guidelines, when the Guidelines’ definition of “crime of violence” included a residual clause in U.S.S.G. § 4B1.2 (Nov. 1998). In Johnson v. United States, 135 S. Ct. 2551 (2015), this Court held unconstitutionally vague the identically-worded residual clause in the Armed Career Criminal Act, 18 U.S.C. § 924(e). In Welch v. United States, 1386 Ct. 1257 (2016), the Court held that Johnson announced a new substantive rule of constitutional law that applies retroactively to cases on collateral review. Petitioner filed a § 2255 motion within one year of Johnson, asserting that his career offender sentence was unconstitutional because § 4B1.2’s residual clause was void for vagueness in light of Johnson. The district court held Petitioner’s motion untimely under 28 U.S.C. § 2255(f)(3) because this Court had not yet found the mandatory Guidelines’ residual clause unconstitutionally vague. But the court issued a certificate of appealability on the timeliness question after concluding that kidnapping may well not be a crime of violence absent the residual clause (a view recently confirmed by the Fourth Circuit). This case presents two questions: 1. Does a § 2255 motion filed within one year of Johnson, claiming that Johnson invalidates the residual clause of the mandatory career offender guideline, assert a “right ... initially recognized” in Johnson within the meaning of 28 U.S.C. § 2255(f)(3), such that the motion is timely filed? 2. In light of Johnson, is the residual clause of the mandatory career offender guideline unconstitutionally vague?