On Point: OT '15 grants

Questions presented:

Johnson v. United States, 135 S. Ct. 2551 (2015) found the residual clause of the Armed Career Criminal Act, 18 U.S.C. § 924(e)(B)(ii)(defining “violent felony”) unconstitutionally vague. That clause is identical to the residual cause in the career-offender provision of the United States Sentencing Guidelines, U.S.S.G. § 4B1.2(a)(2)(defining “crime of violence”)

(1) Whether Johnson v. United States applies retroactively to collateral cases challenging federal sentences enhanced under the residual clause in United States Sentencing Guidelines (U.S.S.G.) § 4B1.2(a)(2) (defining “crime of violence”);

(2) whether Johnson‘s constitutional holding applies to the residual clause in U.S.S.G. § 4B1.2(a)(2), thereby rendering challenges to sentences enhanced under it cognizable on collateral review; and

(3) whether mere possession of a sawed-off shotgun, an offense listed as a “crime of violence” only in commentary to U.S.S.G. § 4B1.2, remains a “crime of violence” after Johnson.

Question presented:

Whether, in the bank-fraud statute, 18 U.S.C. § 1344, subsection (1)’s “scheme to defraud a financial institution” requires proof of a specific intent not only to deceive, but also to cheat, a bank, as nine circuits have held, and as petitioner argued here.

Question presented:

What are the jurisdictional prerequisites for appealing a deferred restitution award made during the pendency of a timely appeal of a criminal judgment imposing sentence, a question left open by the Court’s decision in Dolan v. United States, 560 U.S. 605 (2010)?

Woods v.  Etherton, USSC No. 15-723 (April 4, 2016) (per curiam), reversing Etherton v. Rivard, 800 F.3d 737 (6th Cir. 2015); SCOTUSblog page (including links to petition, response and reply)

This was a federal habeas action in which the petitioner claimed, among other things, that: (1) the state trial court’s admission of an anonymous tip violated his rights under the Confrontation Clause, (2) trial counsel was ineffective for failing to object to the admission of the tip; and (3) appellate counsel was ineffective for failing to raise claims (1) and (2).  The petitioner lost because, in SCOTUS’s view, his appellate counsel and the state habeas court deserved, but were not given, the benefit of the doubt.

Question presented:

Whether, under Ashe v. Swenson, 397 U.S. 436 (1970), and Yeager v. United States, 557 U.S. 110 (2009), a vacated, unconstitutional conviction can cancel out the preclusive effect of an acquittal under the collateral estoppel prong of the Double Jeopardy Clause?

Question presented:

Whether a predicate prior conviction under the Armed Career Criminal Act must qualify as such under the elements of the offense simpliciter, without extending the modified categorical approach to separate statutory definitional provisions that merely establish the means by which referenced elements may be satisfied rather than stating alternative elements or versions of the offense.

Question presented:

Whether, after a judge has discharged a jury from service in a case and the jurors have left the judge’s presence, the judge may recall the jurors for further service in the same case.

Question presented:

Is there a common law “special circumstances” exception to the Prison Litigation Reform Act that relieves an inmate of his mandatory obligation to exhaust administrative remedies when the inmate erroneously believes that he satisfied exhaustion by participating in an internal investigation?

Question presented:

Whether the Sixth Amendment’s Speedy Trial Clause applies to the sentencing phase of a criminal prosecution, protecting a criminal defendant from inordinate delay in final disposition of his case.

Question presented:

Whether 42 U.S.C. § 16913(a) requires a sex offender who resides in a foreign country to update his registration in the jurisdiction where he formerly resided.