Len Davis v. United States

THIS IS A CAPITAL CASE The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals denied Petitioner’s Application for a Certificate of Appealability (COA) following the district court’s denial of his Section 2255 Motion without an evidentiary hearing. It denied a COA for an ineffectiveassistance-of-counsel claim on the grounds that prejudice could not be shown, despite the fact that the COA determination is a “threshold” inquiry and is not coextensive with a merits analysis, and even though a circuit court judge had previously found the underlying claim of error to be meritorious. It also held that because it had not granted a COA on any constitutional claims, it was without jurisdiction to review whether the district court improperly denied the request for an evidentiary hearing. The questions presented here are:

1. Whether this Court should grant certiorari and exercise its supervisory authority to bring uniformity to the circuit courts’ COA practice so as to avoid arbitrary results in habeas petitioners’ access to federal appellate review?

2. Whether this Court should grant certiorari and exercise its supervisory authority to bring uniformity to the circuit courts’ review of the denial of an evidentiary hearing?

3. Whether this Court should summarily reverse the Circuit Court’s denial of COA where the underlying issues were clearly debatable by jurists of reason?