Whether the Eleventh Circuit's Prior-Precedent Rule violates due process

QUESTION PRESENTED FOR REVIEW I. Whether the Eleventh Circuit’s Prior-Precedent Rule violates due process when the precedent is based on a second or successive 28 U.S.C. § 2255 application usually filed pro se, that must be decided without meaningful briefing, without a record, without oral argument and within 30 days of filing? In the Eleventh Circuit, a prisoner must file an application with the Court of Appeals for permission to pursue a second or successive habeas or 2255 petition. Many of these applications are filed pro se. In the Eleventh Circuit, the petitioner must use a designated application form and cannot add attachments to it. The form has room for between 40 and 100 words of argument. Unlike many other circuits, the Eleventh Circuit treats a thirty day deadline for resolving such applications as mandatory. The government is not permitted to respond, and there is no avenue to appeal the denial of such application. Nevertheless, the Eleventh Circuit publishes many of its decisions ruling on these applications, and those published rulings are binding on i future merits panels deciding direct appeals and appeals of rulings on initial 2255 proceedings. Decisions granting or denying petitions to file second or successive (SOS) habeas petitions should not be binding on merits panels pursuant to the rule, because it violates due process and fundamental fairness. The rule is applied very differently from the practice of other circuits. It is also controversial within the Circuit. See In re Octavious Williams, 898 F.3d 1098 (11th Cir. 2018) (Judges Wilson, Martin and Jill Pryor, concurring). This Court should grant certiorari to determine the constitutionality of the Eleventh Circuit’s prior-precedent rule as applied to orders on petitions to file SOS applications because it effectively denies due process and access to the courts to persons like Mr. Alston, whose direct appeal was summarily denied because the Eleventh Circuit treated a published SOS order as binding precedent on his direct appeal. ii