United States v. Vialva

Defendants Bernard and Vialva were convicted of capital murder under federal law and sentenced to death. The Fifth Circuit denied a certificate of appealability (COA) pursuant to 28 U.S.C. 2253(c)(2). The court held that defendants cited unrelated misconduct by the judge and then sought to link this to their substantive attacks on the federal court's previous resolution of a claim on the merits. Therefore, jurists of reason could not debate that the district court was correct to construe petitioners' filings as successive motions under section 2255. View "United States v. Vialva" on Justia Law