Whether the Eleventh Circuit imposed an erroneously high standard when it denied a COA to address the petitioner's claims

QUESTIONS PRESENTED A district court’s denial of a habeas petition brought under 28 U.S.C. § 2254 may only be reviewed on appeal if a federal judge issues a claim-specific certificate of appealability, which requires the petitioner to make “a substantial showing of the denial of a constitutional right.” 28 U.S.C. § 2253(c)(2). The petitioner need only demonstrate “that reasonable jurists could debate whether (or, for that matter, agree that) the petition should have been resolved in a different manner or that the issues presented were ‘adequate to deserve encouragement to proceed further.” Slack v. McDaniel, 529 U.S. 473, 484 (2000) (quoting Barefoot v. Estelle, 463 U.S. 880, 893 and n.4 (1983)). Through this process, courts “‘screen[] out issues unworthy of judicial time and attention and ensure[] that frivolous claims are not assigned to merits panels.” Gonzalez v. Thaler, 565 U.S. 134, 145 (2012). The COA requirement thus provides the “primary means of separating meritorious from frivolous appeals . . . .” Barefoot, 463 U.S. at 892-93. This standard is not especially burdensome. Miller-El v. Cockrell, 537 U.S. 322, 326 (2003). Nonetheless, as a steady stream of certiorari petitions filed in this Court suggests, the Eleventh Circuit is frequently overly demanding in its application. This case presents a prime example. Although granting a limited COA on issues it later rejected, the court denied a COA to address the following claims, even though they presented complicated and novel legal issues warranting review: @ Whether the district court erred in rejecting Mr. Heidler’s claim that trial counsel’s simultaneous representation of another criminal defendant with conflicting interests created an actual conflict of interest at sentencing, a claim first raised in district court pursuant to Martinez v. ii Ryan, 566 U.S. 1 (2012) and Trevino v. Thaler, 569 U.S. 413 (2013), an issue challenging the district court’s arguable misapplication of this Court’s precedent and presenting a res nova question in the Eleventh Circuit regarding the application of Martinez and Trevino to habeas cases arising out of Georgia state courts. M@ Whether the district court, in rejecting the claim that Mr. Heidler was incompetent at trial, erred in refusing to consider compelling evidence introduced in state habeas proceedings documenting Mr. Heidler’s lifelong history of severe mental illness and his dramatic mental deterioration while he awaited trial (which included recurrent suicide attempts and a psychiatrist’s diagnosis of psychosis), because this evidence had not been presented to the trial court when it found Mr. Heidler competent several months before trial began. @ Whether the district court, in its order denying the habeas petition, erred in dismissing numerous claims on the grounds they were insufficiently pled and/or unexhausted, only after many years of litigation and without providing Mr. Heidler notice and an opportunity to contest or cure any purported defects. Although the Eleventh Circuit had granted a COA to address the district court’s dismissal of just two of the dismissed claims, it ultimately did not reach the procedural issues it had found warranted a COA, but nonetheless refused to expand the COA to address the remaining dismissed claims. These facts give rise to the following questions: 1. Whether the Eleventh Circuit imposed an erroneously high standard when it denied a COA to address any or all of the above claims and, if so, whether the Court should docket the case for briefing and argument, or summarily reverse? 2. Whether the Court should hold this case pending the Eleventh Circuit’s ruling in Williams v. Warden, GDCP, No. 22-10249 (11th Cir.), a capital habeas case addressing some of the same procedural issues presented here, which has been briefed and argued, and awaits adjudication. Mr. Heidler had asked the Eleventh Circuit on rehearing to hold the case pending its decision in Williams, but the Eleventh Circuit inst