Bradley Lane Croft v. United States

Whether the Fifth Circuit contravened the threshold rule of Slack, Miller-El, Tennard, and Buck by denying a certificate of appealability on a preserved Strickland failure-to-investigate claim after the district court resolved disputed factual explanations on paper and assessed prejudice under a broad-deceit rationale without reconciling the post-Dubin identity-specific "who/crux" theory governing the count at issue.

Whether 28 U.S.C. § 2253(c)(1)(B) permits a court of appeals to require a certificate of appealability for an appeal from a separately adjudicated, noncustodial criminal-forfeiture order that the district court itself treated as outside the scope of § 2255.