Laurence Sessum v. United States

Whether this Court’s contemporaneous-evidence requirement from Lee v. United States, 582 U.S. 357 (2017), applies only to accepted-plea cases and is therefore inapplicable to rejected-plea ineffective-assistance claims governed by Lafler v. Cooper, 566 U.S. 156 (2012), and Missouri v. Frye, 566 U.S. 134 (2012).

Whether the Fourth Circuit violated the Sixth Amendment and the Certificate-ofAppealability standard in Buck v. Davis, 580 U.S. 100 (2017), by denying a COA despite (a) factual disputes requiring an evidentiary hearing, (b) evidence supporting deficient performance and prejudice under Strickland, Lafler, and Frye, and (c) a ruling conflicting with United States v. Brown, No. 22-7105 (4th Cir. May 20, 2025), and the sister-circuit precedents relied on in Brown, creating a Rule 10(a) conflict.