HabeasCorpus JusticiabilityDoctri
Whether a jury instruction on 18 U.S.C. § 924(c) charge based on invalid or valid predicate prejudiced the Petitioner
QUESTIONS PRESENTED 1. Whether, following this Court’s decision in United States v. Davis, 588 U.S. 445 (2019), a jury instruction permitting a finding of guilt on an 18 U.S.C. § 924(c) charge based on either an invalid or valid predicate prejudiced the Petitioner, resulting in a general verdict, requires reversal under Hedgpeth v Pulido, 555 U.S. 57 (2008). 2. Whether the District Court’s Pinkerton instruction makes it likely that the jury found Petitioner guilty of murder without finding that he committed the substantive offense of murder, making murder an invalid predicate for an 18 U.S.C. § 924(c) charge pursuant this Court’s holding in United States v. Davis, 588 U.S. 445 (2019). 3. Whether, to sustain a conviction for § 924(c) under a Pinkerton theory of liability, a defendant must have participated in the predicate offense with advance knowledge that a confederate would use or carry a gun during the crime's commission in order to be consistent with this Court’s holding in Rosemond v. United States, 572 U.S. 65 (2014). 4. Whether this Court should overrule Pinkerton v. United States, 328 U.S. 640 (1946), as judge-made federal criminal law in derogation of United States v. Hudson, 11 U.S. 32 (1812).