If this court granted Davis's request for a COA and reviewed the district court's order at this juncture, as Davis requests, we would effectively be restoring his remedies in federal court, in complete contradiction to the express intent of Congress. In effect, we would be nullifying our previous decision denying Davis leave to file a successive habeas petition. We decline to do that.

In October 2008, the Eleventh Circuit granted Davis a provisional stay of execution [JURIST report], directing the parties to address through briefs whether Davis can meet the stringent requirements of federal law that would permit him to file a second habeas corpus petition for federal review of his case. The Supreme Court had rejected [JURIST report] Davis' petition for certiorari appealing his death sentence earlier that month, lifting their own stay on his execution. The court had previously stayed [JURIST report] Davis' execution and had also previously denied a petition for certiorari in the case. Davis has been on death row since 1991 for allegedly murdering [Savannah Morning News report] an off-duty Savannah, Georgia, police officer in 1989.

Chen was found guilty on corruption charges and sentenced to life in prison [JURIST report] in September 2009. Chen's wife was also given a life sentence [Bloomberg report] after the pair were convicted on charges of embezzlement, receiving bribes, forgery and money laundering. Chen was also indicted [JURIST report] shortly after his September life sentence on additional corruption charges relating to funds he received while traveling abroad as president. Chen was initially detained in November 2008, and was formally indicted [JURIST report] a month later. In January 2009, he unsuccessfully appealed [JURIST report] his pretrial detention, after staging three hunger strikes in protest. Chen maintains that current Taiwanese President Ma Ying-jeou [official website; JURIST news archive] is using Chen's trial to distance himself from Chen's anti-China views. Chen served as president of Taiwan from 2000-2008.

Since the enactment of DADT in 1993, approximately 13,000 servicemen and women have been discharged from the armed forces as a result of the policy. In September, a federal judge for the US District for the Western District of Washington [official website] ordered [JURIST report] that a US Air Force officer be reinstated after being previously discharged under DADT. Also in September, the Senate [official website] rejected a cloture motion [JURIST report] on a defense appropriations bill that would have repealed the policy. In May, the House of Representatives and the Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC) [official websites] voted to repeal the policy after President Barack Obama and Defense Secretary Robert Gates agreed to a compromise [JURIST reports] that would prevent the repeal from taking effect until the completion of a review to determine what effects the repeal would have on military effectiveness, soldier retention and family readiness.

Berenson was originally granted parole [JURIST report] in May with the judge citing her good behavior, renunciation of violence and completion of rehabilitation. Judges for the court restored her sentence in August, however, after legal authorities failed to verify addresses of residence [JURIST report] provided by Berenson after her release. In 2005, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights [official website] denied an appeal to reinterpret its November 2004 ruling that upheld [JURIST reports] Berenson's conviction. Lawyers for Berenson claimed that her trial failed to meet international standards for fairness and sought to have her conviction and sentence overturned. In a 2000 CBS News interview [text], Berenson characterized her original trial proceedings as hostile and coercive, saying that she had faced a panel of hooded judges and that armed guards had aimed assault rifles at her and her lawyer's heads during the 10-minute proceeding. She was initially sentenced to life imprisonment by a military court, but the sentence was reduced to 20 years in a civil retrial in 2001.