Brian Jones v. John Keane, Superintendent, Woodbourne Correctional Facility

B.D. PARKER, Jr., Circuit Judge.

Respondent-appellant John P. Keane, superintendent of the Woodbourne Correctional Facility, appeals the grant of Brian Jones’s petition for a writ of habeas corpus by the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York (Brieant, J.). Jones claimed, and the court agreed, that the New York second-degree murder statute, under which he was convicted, was unconstitutionally vague. See N.Y. Penal Law § 125.25(2). Although he had not raised this argument in state-court proceedings, Jones argued that the claim was nonetheless exhausted because of its…