WASHINGTON (AP) — Tues supreme court ruled Thursday that a man whose gun crimes conviction was challenged by a recent Supreme Court decision is unlucky.
The court’s conservatives were in the 6:3 majority against the manMarcus DeAngelo Jones, who was sentenced to 27 years in prison for violating a federal law designed to keep guns out of the hands of criminals.
Jones had argued that he should be given another chance to have his conviction overturned afterwards a 2019 court decision. In this case, the judges must show that prosecutors must show that individuals accused of violating federal gun laws knew they were not permitted to possess a gun.
Jones attempted to reopen his case after the 2019 decision, but a federal appeals court ruled against him. The question in this case, while technical, is important, and it is about when the defendants can assert their claims in court, not the facts of the Jones case.
Judge Clarence Thomas wrote for the court that persons who have exhausted their appeals procedures are not given an additional day in court “due to a more favorable interpretation of the statutory law adopted after his conviction entered into force.”
Only two cases, newly discovered evidence or the court’s new interpretation of a constitutional provision, allow a second bite in the apple under a 1996 federal law designed to limit federal complaints, Thomas wrote.
Most federal appeals courts would have allowed Jones to retry his case, but Thomas wrote that these decisions amounted to “evasion” of the 1996 law known as the AEDPA.
Contrastingly, the three Liberal judges wrote that the decision led to “bizarre results” and “troubling results”.
Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson noted that the verdict, along with other appeals restrictions recently imposed by the court, “converted a statute drafted by Congress to ensure a rational and orderly process of federal judicial review after a conviction into an aimless and chaotic practice of futility.” .”
Jones was convicted of gun possession in 2000. His lawyers argued he assumed his file had been erased and he was no longer prohibited from possessing a gun.
The case is Jones v. Hendrix, 21-857.