Writ of Certiorari.

Byline: Derek Hawkins

United States Supreme Court

Case Name: Alaska v. Sean Wright

Case No.: 20-940

Focus: Writ of Certiorari

In 2009, an Alaska jury convicted Sean Wright of 13 counts of sexual abuse of a minor. See State v. Wright, 404 P. 3d 166, 170 (Alaska 2017). Wright finished serving his sentence in Alaska in 2016, and shortly thereafter he moved to Tennessee. Once there, he failed to register as a sex offender as required by federal law. See Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act, 120 Stat. 591, 593, 34 U. S. C. 20911, 20913. Wright pleaded guilty to one count of failure to register, see 18 U. S. C. 2250(a), and ultimately received a sentence of time served along with five years of supervised release. See Judgment in United States v. Wright, No. 1:17cr00112, ECF Doc. No. 66 (ED Tenn.).

During the course of those federal proceedings, Wright filed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus in the United States District Court for the District of Alaska pursuant to 28 U. S. C. 2241 and 2254. He argued that the Alaska Supreme Court had unreasonably applied clearly established federal law when it denied his Sixth Amendment claims and affirmed his 2009 state conviction and sentence. The District Court denied the motion on the threshold ground that Wright was not "in custody pursuant to the judgment of a State court." 2254(a). Noting that a proper motion under 2254(a) requires more than merely being "in custody" somewhere, the court reasoned that "the proper procedure for Wright to challenge his current federal custody would be a motion filed in the Eastern District of Tennessee pursuant to 28 U. S. C. 2255." App. to Pet. for Cert. 16a.

The Court of Appeals reversed. In its view, Wright's state conviction was "'a necessary predicate'" to his federal conviction, 819 Fed. Appx. 544, 545 (CA9 2020) (quoting Zichko v. Idaho, 247 F. 3d 1015, 1019 (CA9 2001)), so Wright was in fact in custody pursuant to the judgment of a state court. The panel declined to assess the District Court's view that 2255, rather than 2254, provided the proper route for Wright to challenge his current custody. 819 Fed. Appx., at 546, n. 1. One judge concurred and asserted that 2254 was the proper mechanism "because Wright is not...