In an idle moment this afternoon, I had the notion to see what's happening with Mr. C______, who's three years into his ten-year sentence.
It turns out he's going forward with his "motion under 28 U.S.C. §2855 to vacate, set aside, or correct sentence by a person in judicial custody".
I am not a lawyer, but my reading of the motion is that Mr. C______ is recycling the same arguments that were rejected as frivolous in 2007 when he appealed his conviction.
Good luck with that, sir.
Had the notion last night to poke around a bit in the District Court's electronic case files, to see whether there'd been any activity on Mr. C______'s case. I didn't expect any, since his appeal was denied a few months ago, but I was surprised: Mr. C______ is working on a §2255 motion.
The Cornell University Law School's Legal Information Institute has a nice web site which describes the §2255 motion thusly:
A prisoner in custody under sentence of a court established by Act of Congress claiming the right to be released upon the ground that the sentence was imposed in violation of the Constitution or laws of the United States, or that the court was without jurisdiction to impose such sentence, or that the sentence was in excess of the maximum authorized by law, or is otherwise subject to collateral attack, may move the court which imposed the sentence to vacate, set aside or correct the sentence.
I'm not a lawyer, but I can't see how this could possibly end any differently than the appeal did, i.e., with the judge(s) taking a few pages of citations & legal reasoning to say, Go away, kid, you bother me.
But it means I can continue my unhealthy obsession with Mr. C______'s legal problems, instead of finding something more productive to do with my time.
Had the notion this evening to check on the progress of Mr. C______'s appeal. Bad news, I'm afraid:
Counsel's motion to withdraw is GRANTED, and the appeal is DISMISSED.
...and that's the end of it, unless Mr. C______ can come up with new (and nonfrivolous) grounds for appeal (which seems unlikely).
I guess there's nothing left for me to do but wait for another jury duty summons.
Checked the Court of Appeals docket sheet just now, to see how Mr. C______'s appeal is going. Not well, it seems:
Alas, the ORDER isn't available for download, so the exact reasoning behind it must remain a mystery.
I paid a visit to the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals web site just now, hoping to see what's going on with Mr. C______'s appeal. It turns out that a new brief was filed on September 14th; alas, the court won't let me see it:
In accordance with policy initiatives promulgated by the Judicial Conference of the United States, public access to view or download documents for this type of case will be unavailable on the Internet. Unless sealed by court order, documents will continue to be available for physical inspection in the office of the Clerk of the Court.
Well, that's a little frustrating. I'm not going to drive all the way up to Chicago just to read a few pages of legalese (and rather doubt the clerk of the court would let me read them if I did).
However: the docket sheet - which is still available online - describes the brief as a '15c Anders brief'. Hm, thought I. What's an Anders brief?
The name comes from an 1967 case, Anders v. California 386 U.S. 738 (available online at the amusingly-named www.fedworld.gov), in which the U.S. Supreme Court said:
If counsel conscientiously decides that the appeal is wholly frivolous he should so advise the court and request permission to withdraw, at the same time furnishing the court and the indigent with a brief of anything in the record arguably supporting the appeal.
I'd say that's a bad sign for Mr. C______'s appeal.
Later entries in the docket sheet suggest that Mr. C______ is now in the process of arguing that his appeal isn't frivolous, even though his own lawyer says it is. He has until mid-November to submit his response to the Anders brief; I must remember to check back next month and see how things turned out.
Every since my one-day stint of jury duty last October, I've been using the U.S. District Court's electronic case filing system to follow the defendant's progress through the legal system.
It's been fascinating, though at times a bit troubling to think of how messed up this fella's life is.
Alas, document #65, 'Judgment Returned Executed', was posted to his case file a few weeks ago. That might sound like he was put to death or something, but it's just a one-page note from the U.S. Marshals reporting that he's been delivered to the federal penitentiary in Manchester, Kentucky to serve his sentence. And that's the end of it: the case is closed.
The appeal is still active, but I'm sure it'll be months before anything happens with that. So my days of stalking the unfortunate Mr. C______ are effectively over.
The Federal Bureau of Prisons Inmate Locator page reports that Mr. C______ has been moved to the Federal Correctional Institution in Manchester, Kentucky.
Manchester is about 400 miles from here, so Mr. C______'s friends & family are going to have a hard time getting there to visit him.
An update on Mr. C______'s appeal:
The Court of Appeals has granted his attorney's motion to withdraw, and appointed a new attorney for him. The new one is based in St. Louis, which can't be very convenient to handle an appeal that's being heard in Chicago.
The remainder of the year will be devoted to briefs (documents, not underpants). According to the docket sheet: Appellant's brief due 8/8/07; Appellee's brief due 9/7/07; Appellant's reply brief, if any, is due 9/21/07.
I am not a lawyer, but I expect the end result of all this legal foolery will be: Appeal denied, go finish your sentence & stop pestering the Court.
The US Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit , where Mr. C______'s appeal is being heard, uses the PACER online case filing system, but in a disappointingly incomplete way: only the docket sheet is available. The actual court papers - the endlessly fascinating motions, responses, letters, orders, opinions, etc., etc. - are nowhere to be found.
It appears that Mr. C______'s attorneys have filed a motion to withdraw from the case, and Mr. C______ has filed a response to his attorneys' motion. But I can't read either of them. It's very frustrating.
I suppose if I drove to the courthouse, up in Chicago, they might let me take a look at the case file. (Probably not.) But while I'm willing to spend 8¢/page for PACER downloads, I'm not willing to spend $60 on a tank of gas or waste a vacation day driving to Chicago & back, just to spy on some poor yutz who's trying to avoid a lengthy stay in the federal rest home.
I suppose the docket sheet will have to suffice, until the Court of Appeals gets themselves properly computerized.
Interesting: http://www.vinelink.com/ is an aggregator of all the various state & local inmate locator databases.
It tells me that Mr. C______ is still cooling his heels in the Ford County Jail, up in Paxton; but I'm not sure I believe that. Surely he's either on his way to a facility closer to Chicago for his appeal, or to a federal prison to begin serving his sentence.
It seems unlikely that they'd leave him in Paxton.
