Willie Dennis v. United States

abeyance and leave to supplement once the Second Circuit orders a supervised, indexed, certified turnover of his appellate file. PRELIMINARY STATEMENT (Record Denial, Counsel Abandonment, and Resulting Prejudice) Petitioner cannot file a substantive Rule 14-compliant petition by the August 18, 2025 deadline (extended June 24, 2025 in Application No. 24A1258) because he has been constructively denied access to the appellate record through a combination of appointed counsel's abandonment and the court of appeals' non-ruling on a pending motion to terminate counsel and compel a supervised, indexed, certified file turnover. On June 12, 2025, appointed appellate counsel David Cohen told Petitioner: "You should file any request for an extension yourself, Willie." This forced Petitioner to proceed pro se before this Court—on one of the most consequential filings of his life. On June 23, 2025, Petitioner moved in the Second Circuit to terminate Mr. Cohen and to compel a supervised, indexed, certified return of his appellate files. That motion remains unruled. On June 26, 2025, with full knowledge of the Supreme Court deadline, Mr. Cohen, in response to a request to turnover the files, wrote: "I am traveling now through most of July... You can expect an answer... toward the beginning of August." He also instructed Petitioner not to contact anyone in his office, including personnel who had worked on the case. That same day, Petitioner made a written demand for return of his appellate records. Mr. Cohen did not return them. For the next six weeks, no production occurred. On August 12, 2025—six days before the Rule 13 deadline— Mr. Cohen sent an unsupervised partial production without an index, certification of completeness, or chainof-custody, and it appears to omit categories of material necessary for a Rule 14-compliant petition. Given the timing and the inability to verify completeness, that delivery did not, and could not, enable preparation of a meaningful petition and therefore does not moot the need for an immediate, supervised turnover. Counsel mitigation request (no response). Petitioner asked Mr. Cohen to mitigate the prejudice by submitting a short letter to this Court accepting responsibility for the delay in record access. He has not responded to that request, and he has not communicated with Petitioner in any way following the August 12 partial production. June 25 Statement (underscoring need for supervision). On June 25, 2025, Mr. Cohen wrote: "Once I return, I will review your file and get back to you with the appropriate documents, if any." Given his representation at sentencing and his filing of an appeal, the suggestion there might be no documents "if any" confirms why a court-supervised, inventoried, certified turnover is necessary. To Petitioner's knowledge, since June 23, 2025, Mr. Cohen has not responded to the Second Circuit's inquiries regarding the motion (and, if he has, Petitioner was not notified), leaving Petitioner in procedural limbo and compounding prejudice as the deadline approached. Petitioner submitted supplements on July 9, July 30, August 9, August 12/15, and August 17 (Sunday); he also filed in SDNY on July 30 to compel turnover. No ruling has issued.