Graham Schiff v. Warden

I. First Amendment and Certificate of Appealability Standard Whether this Court should grant certiorari—or exercise its supervisory authority—to directly issue habeas relief where Petitioner was denied a Certificate of Appealability (“COA”) despite being entitled to one as a matter of law, in a case where the record establishes that Petitioner was knowingly prosecuted and imprisoned for protected, content-based speech, in direct violation of controlling Firsf Amendment precedent (Stevens), and where such denial was deliberately used to preserve false judicial findings that undermine both appellate jurisdiction and the integrity of 28 U.S.C. § 2254 review. II. Deliberate Judicial Inversion and Fraud on the Court * - Whether this Court should exercise its inherent constitutional and supervisory authority to remedy fraud on the court where state and federal judges—including the Maryland Appellate Court in Schiffv. State, No. 725 (Md. Ct. Spec. App. 2022), and the District Court in Schiffv. Maryland, No. TDC-22-3332 (D. Md.)—knowingly misapplied or fabricated First Amendment doctrine by falsely labeling Petitioner’s speech “integral to criminal conduct,” despite the absence of any criminal conduct, thereby transforming judicial proceedings into instruments of censorship and retaliation, in violation of the First and Fifth Amendments and Article III. III. Alternative Grounds for Vacatur: Statutory Repeal and Jurisdictional Collapse Whether, independent of the First Amendment violations, Petitioner’s convictions must be vacated as void ab initio because (a) Maryland’s stalking statute, Md. Code, Crim. Law § 3-802, was repealed by 2024 Md. Laws Ch. 772 (effective Oct. 1, 2024) while Petitioner was still serving probation; and (b) harassment jurisdiction under £ 3-803—limited to offenses carrying a 90-day maximum penalty—resides exclusively in the Maryland District Court, rendering Petitioner’s 2021 Circuit Court conviction void for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction because it was only able to be prosecuted in that court due to attachment of now repealed 3-802.