Eleventh Circuit panel finds federal prisoner can file a second or successive § 2255 based on SCOTUS Davis ruling
A helpful reader made sure I did not miss that an Eleventh Circuit panel issued an intricate ruling yesterday in In Re: Wissam Hammoud, No. 19-12458 (11th Cir. July 23, 2019) (available here), concerning the potential retroactive application of the Supreme Court's recent important vagueness ruling in Davis. Here is part of the opinion that highlight what it is intricate:
In his present application, Hammoud contends that his § 924(c) conviction in Count 5 is no longer constitutionally valid. Specifically, Hammoud asserts that § 924(c)(3)(B)’s residual clause is unconstitutional, in light of the new rule of constitutional law set forth in Davis, Dimaya, and Johnson, and that his companion solicitation conviction in Count 3 could have qualified as a “crime of violence” only under § 924(c)’s now-defunct residual clause.
To determine whether Hammoud’s proposed Davis claim meets the statutory criteria, we must first address three preliminary issues: (1) whether Davis announced a new rule of constitutional law; (2) if so, whether Davis has been made retroactively applicable to cases on collateral review by the Supreme Court; and (3) whether Hammoud’s Davis claim is barred under our precedent in In re Baptiste, 828 F.3d 1337 (11th Cir. 2016). Only after addressing these issues may we consider the merits of Hammoud’s claim
This prisoner makes it through all of these hoops, so that this opinion ends: "Accordingly, because Hammoud has made a prima facie showing of the existence at least one of the grounds set forth in 28 U.S.C. § 2255, his application for leave to file a second or successive motion is hereby GRANTED as to his Davis claim regarding his § 924(c) conviction in Count 5."
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