Today's Supreme Court Opinions

The following opinions were issued in the Supreme Court today:

Fowler - The federal witness tampering statute applies only if it was likely the information would have been communicated to a federal officer.

Camreta - The Fourth Amendment case about seizing and interviewing suspected child victim of abuse without warrant - mooted out due to child's current age, but lots of justiciability and qualified immunity procedure.

Tinklenberg - Speedy Trial Act - time for disposition of motions is excluded, irrespective of whether motion might actually cause delay in proceedings, but over ten days for transport for competency excluded. Weekends and holidays are counted in calculating the ten days. Affirmed dismissal.

En Banc Relief Denied by Eleventh Circuit

Today, the Court of Appeals issued a 105 page opinion in Ezell Gilbert v. United States of America, No. 09-12513, overruling the original panel's decision granting habeas relief to Mr. Gilbert. Mr. Gilbert, who has served more than fourteen years in prison, sought release from custody because one of the convictions that made him a Career Offender was ruled not to be a "crime of violence". United States v. Archer, 523 F.3d 1347 (11th Cir. 2008). As a result of that ruling, his sentencing guideline range was substantially reduced from 292 - 365 months down to 151 - 188 months. Mr. Gilbert raised this issue years earlier in his direct appeal, but failed to allege it in his pro se Section 2255 petition filed in 1999. The en banc panel ruled that the Savings Clause of Section 2255 (e) does not permit a defendant to bring a Section 2241 petition to remedy a guidelines miscalculation that would be barred by the "second or successive motions" prohibition of Section 2255(h).
Senior Judge James C. Hill stated in his dissenting opinion that "[t]oday, this court holds that we may not remedy such a sentencing error. This shocking result - urged by a department of the United States that calls itself, without a trace of irony, the Department of Justice - and accepted by a court that emasculates itself by adopting such a rule of judicial impotency - confirms what I have long feared. The Great Writ is dead in this country . . . The majority spends an enormous amount of time arguing that Gilbert is not a nice man. Perhaps. But neither, I expect, was Clarence Gideon, the burglar, or Ernesto Miranda, the rapist. The Supreme Court managed to ignore this legal irrelevancy in upholding the constitutional principle under attack in those cases. Would that we could have also."
Mr. Gilbert, who was released from custody pending en banc review, has been ordered to immediately surrender.

- RCS