Tony Barksdale v. Jefferson Dunn, Commissioner, Alabama Department of Corrections
DueProcess Punishment HabeasCorpus
Did the Eleventh Circuit misconstrue this Court's guidance in Buck v. Davis when it denied Petitioner a Certificate of Appealability?
QUESTIONS PRESENTED 1. Did the Eleventh Circuit misconstrue this Court’s guidance in, inter alia, Buck v. Davis, 580 U.S. __, 187 S. Ct. 759 (2017), when it denied Petitioner a Certificate of Appealability on the basis that a reasonable jurist might agree with the resolution of his constitutional claims in the court below, when the applicable test for “debatability” is whether any such judge could sensibly disagree with it? 2. Do the failures of defense counsel in a capital trial to perform any meaningful investigation, or to develop a defense case for reduced culpability or mitigation of sentence, satisfy this Court’s tests for effective assistance of counsel as articulated in Andrus v. Texas, 590 U.S. ___, 140 S. Ct. 1875 (2020); Rompilla v. Beard, 545 U.S. 374 (2005); Wiggins v. Smith, 539 U.S. 510 (2003); Williams v. Taylor, 529 U.S. 362 (2000); and Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668 (1984)? 3. Did the verbatim adoption by the State court judge of the prosecution’s proposed findings of fact and conclusions of law in Petitioner’s capital habeas corpus proceedings violate due process of law as guaranteed by the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments? 4. Is a State court’s imposition of a capital sentence following the recommendation of a non-unanimous jury, and relying on the trial judge’s independent assessment of aggravating and mitigating factors, consistent with this Court’s teachings in Ramos v. Louisiana, 590 U.S. __, 140 S. Ct. 1390 (2020), and Hurst v. Florida, 577 U.S. __, 136 S. Ct. 616 (2016)? 1