Henry v. Spearman

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The Ninth Circuit granted petitioner's motion to file a second or successive 28 U.S.C. 2254 habeas corpus petition, challenging California's second-degree felony murder rule as unconstitutionally vague under Johnson v. United States. Determining that petitioner had standing and his claim was not effectively moot, the panel held that petitioner made a prima facie showing that his claim relied on the new and retroactively applicable rule in Johnson. The panel concluded that there was a plausible position that Johnson did not limit its constitutional rule to certain features of the Armed Career Criminal Act's residual clause that the State contends was absent from California's second-degree felony murder rule. View "Henry v. Spearman" on Justia Law