Whether the Eleventh Circuit denied the petitioner due process by denying a certificate of appealability on alternative procedural grounds not considered by the district court

QUESTIONS PRESENTED CAPITAL CASE Petitioner, David Miller, Jr. “Miller”) filed his initial 28 U.S.C. § 2254 petition for writ of habeas corpus with the district court nearly thirteen years after it was due under 28 U.S.C. § 2224(d) of the Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act (CAEDPA”). Miller was represented by four different attorneys from the time the petition was due to the time it was filed and suffered and continues to suffer from severe mental illness. Miller asserted at the district court that he was entitled to the equitable tolling of his statute of limitations due to his severe mental illness that affected his ability to file, and also due to the abandonment and misconduct by each of his attorneys. The district court ordered the parties to address equitable tolling on a piecemeal basis beginning with the conduct of his first attorney, but denied attempts by both parties to expand the scope of the inquiry to include the conduct of additional attorneys and evidence of Miller’s mental status affecting his ability to file. Following a limited evidentiary hearing on the first attorney’s conduct, the petition . was dismissed as untimely based upon the district court finding that Miller was not entitled to tolling during his first attorney’s representation and not entitled to tolling due to mental illness. Miller sought a certificate of appealability from the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals on the ground that jurists of reason could debate whether the district court improperly denied Miller an opportunity to develop the factual record supporting his claim of equitable tolling due to his severe mental illness, and also on the ground that i jurists of reason could debate the district court’s ruling that Miller was not entitled to equitable tolling during his first attorneys’ representation. The Eleventh Circuit denied a certificate of appealability. The Eleventh Circuit assumed that Miller had established that jurists of reason could debate his entitlement to equitable tolling during his first attorney's representation, but denied the certificate on the alternative ground that Miller had not established his entitlement to tolling during subsequent periods of representation by the other three attorneys. Further, the Eleventh Circuit failed to address Miller’s argument that jurists of reason could debate whether the district court’s denied Miller an opportunity to develop a factual record regarding his entitlement to tolling based on his severe mental illness that affected his ability to timely file a petition. In light of the foregoing proceedings, the questions presented are: 1. Did the Eleventh Circuit depart from the accepted and usual course of judicial proceedings and deny Miller his due process rights under the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments when it denied a certificate of appealability on alternative procedural grounds not considered by the district court when the district court prevented Miller from developing a factual record regarding the alternative grounds? 2. Did the Eleventh Circuit depart from the accepted and usual course of judicial proceedings and deny Miller his due process rights under the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments when it did not address Miller’s claim in his request for a certificate of appealability that the district court erred when it refused to conduct an evidentiary hearing on Miller’s allegations that he suffered from severe mental illness during the period his 28 U.S.C. § 2254 petition was due to be filed and that that mental illness prevented him from effectively communicating with counsel and from timely filing his petition? ii ADDITIONAL