Source: https://cbaclelegalconnection.com/tag/habeas/
Timestamp: 2019-04-20 14:35:58+00:00

Document:
The Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals issued its opinion in In re Jones on Friday, February 10, 2017.
The Tenth Circuit had to determine if a secondary habeas petition was permissible where the first petition failed. Julius Darius Jones petitioned the court, seeking authorization to file a second capital habeas petition under 28 U.S.C. § 2254 to assert a claim for relief under the Supreme Court ruling in the case of Hurst v. Florida. The court evaluated Jones’ petition under the gatekeeping requirements of 28 U.S.C. § 2244(b) and rejected his petition.
Jones was convicted in 2002 of felony murder and sentenced to death. After Jones’ subsequent appeals were rejected, he filed his first habeas petition in 2007 on the grounds of ineffective assistance of trial and appellate counsel, which was denied by the court in 2013, and which denial was affirmed in 2015. In the present matter, Jones wishes to assert that his sentence violates his Fifth, Sixth, Eighth, and Fourteenth Amendment rights because the jury was not instructed that for the death sentence to be appropriate, the jury must find beyond a reasonable doubt that the aggravating circumstances of his crime outweighed any mitigating factors.
The court evaluated if Jones was entitled to a secondary habeas petition under § 2244(b)(2)(A), which states that the court may only authorize successive claims when the claim relies on a new constitutional rule of law that was made retroactive to cases on collateral review by the Supreme Court, which was not previously available to the claimant.
In rejecting Jones’ petition, the court determined that the case upon which Jones was relying, Hurst v. Florida, (where the court ruled the decision underlying the sentence of death must be found beyond a reasonable doubt) did not warrant retroactivity. The court stated that for a procedural rule of law to be retroactive, the Supreme Court must have explicitly held it to be. Because the Supreme Court has not held the Hurst ruling to be retroactive, the court determined Jones had not met the gatekeeping requirements under § 2244(b).
The Tenth Circuit denied the Motion for Authorization.

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