Court Opinion

ID: 9843217
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 02:30:52.222622+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:15:02.260346
License: Public Domain

BYE, Circuit Judge,
concurring in part and dissenting in part.
After the district court denied Mark Morgan’s 28 U.S.C. § 2255 motion, an administrative panel of this court certified two issues for review by a hearing panel. The administrative panel declined to certify a third issue that Morgan raised— whether 18 U.S.C. § 666 is facially unconstitutional. Because our prior cases explained that a hearing panel may not review uncertified issues, see, e.g., DeRoo v. United States, 223 F.3d 919, 923 (8th Cir.2000) (“Appellate review is limited to the issues specified in the certificate of ap-pealability.”), the hearing panel properly refused to consider Morgan’s facial constitutional challenge. United States v. Morgan, 230 F.3d 1067, 1069 (8th Cir.2000) (quoting DeRoo, supra). I joined in the panel opinion because of DeRoo’s binding effect.
Today’s order explains that DeRoo and its predecessors do not prevent a hearing panel from exercising its discretion to consider uncertified issues sua sponte. I agree fully with this approach, and I join in so much of the order as explains this principle.
At this juncture, then, we may finally consider Morgan’s facial constitutional challenge without procedural impediment. Because that challenge has merit, see Morgan, 230 F.3d at 1072-75 (Bye, J., specially concurring), and bears careful consideration by our court, I dissent from the decision to deny rehearing en banc.