Fredrick Johnson v. United States

When a criminal defendant in the middle of a direct appeal seeks relief that first becomes available as a result of an intervening decision from this Court, he gets the benefit of the new analytical framework; "the failure to raise the claim in an opening brief reflects not a lack of diligence, but merely a want of clairvoyance." Joseph v. United States, 574 U.S. 1038, 1039. (2014) (Kagan, J., concurring in denial of certiorari); see also Griffith v. Kentucky, 479 U.S. 314, 322 (1987); United States v. Smithers, 92 F.4th 237, 247 (4th Cir. 2024). But the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit summarily refused to consider Petitioner Fredrick Johnson's asapplied Second Amendment challenge to his convictions, which he raised after his opening brief to that court on the strength of this Court's intervening decision in United States v. Rahimi, 602 U.S. 680 (2024), and the Sixth Circuit's application of Rahimi in United States v. Williams, 113 F.4th 637 (6th Cir. 2024). So the question presented is: Must a federal circuit court address the merits of a defendant's Second Amendment as-applied challenge to a firearm-possession charge under Rahimi and intervening circuit precedent when those precedents first became available while the defendant's federal appeal was in the pipeline?