Alaska v. Sean Wright

Sean Wright fully served his Alaska sexual-abuse-of-a-minor convictions as of September 17, 2016. After moving from Alaska, Wright was convicted, under federal law, of failure to register as a sex offender in federal court in Tennessee. In February 2018 Wright filed a habeas petition under 28 U.S.C. § 2254 in federal court in Alaska, challenging his sexual-abuse-of-a-minor convictions on speedy trial grounds. The district court dismissed the petition on the basis that Wright was not in custody on the Alaska convictions. The Ninth Circuit reversed. Relying on Zichko v. Idaho, 247 F.3d 1015, 1019-20 (9th Cir. 2001), it held that Wright’s incarceration and supervised release term for the federal failure-to-register conviction rendered him in custody for purposes of challenging his fully-served Alaska convictions. Wright v. Alaska, 819 Fed.Appx. 544, 545-46 (9th Cir., Sept. 2, 2020). This petition for a writ of certiorari presents the following question: When an offender has fully served the sentence imposed pursuant to a state conviction, does a federal habeas court have jurisdiction to consider a § 2254 challenge to that conviction merely because it served as a predicate for an independent federal conviction under which the offender is now in custody?