Floyd v. United States
- Lorna Schofield
- 1:25-cv-03302
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 5
In Floyd v. United States, Judge Schofield denied Rudy Floyd’s motion to challenge his sentence because it was late and denied a certificate of appealability.
Rudy Floyd; his sentence challenge was denied as untimely, no certificate of appealability will issue, and permission to appeal without paying filing fees was denied.
What happened
In Floyd v. United States, Rudy Floyd, representing himself, asked the court to set aside or correct his sentence, alleging that his lawyer had provided ineffective assistance. Floyd had pleaded guilty to robbery and using a firearm during a violent crime, and the court sentenced him to 144 months in prison.
Floyd’s conviction became final on June 15, 2020, so the one-year deadline for filing his motion expired on June 15, 2021. He filed the motion in April 2025. He argued that the deadline should be extended because his lawyer failed to explain that his plea agreement preserved ineffective-assistance claims and because the agreement was confusing.
Judge Schofield denied the motion as untimely. She found that Floyd had not shown that he diligently pursued his rights or that an extraordinary circumstance prevented timely filing. The court also said that no certificate allowing an appeal would issue and denied permission to appeal without paying filing fees.
The detailed version
- Floyd v. United States · No. 1:25-cv-03302
- Lorna Schofield
- July 9, 2025
Background
Rudy Floyd, proceeding without a lawyer, filed a motion under 28 U.S.C. § 2255, a procedure allowing a federal prisoner to ask the sentencing court to vacate, set aside, or correct a sentence imposed in violation of federal law or the Constitution. He alleged ineffective assistance of counsel.
In 2018, Floyd pleaded guilty to one count of Hobbs Act robbery and one count of brandishing a firearm during and in relation to a crime of violence. The court later sentenced him principally to a total of 144 months’ imprisonment, below the applicable Sentencing Guidelines range of 262 to 326 months. The Second Circuit dismissed his appeal based on the appeal waiver in his plea agreement. The agreement separately preserved his right to assert ineffective-assistance claims.
Timeliness and Equitable Tolling
The court held that Floyd’s conviction became final on June 15, 2020, 90 days after the Second Circuit’s judgment, when the period for seeking review by the Supreme Court expired. Under § 2255(f)(1), the one-year filing period therefore ended on June 15, 2021. Floyd filed his motion on or about April 7, 2025, and it was docketed on April 16, 2025, nearly four years after the deadline.
Floyd argued that equitable tolling should extend the deadline. Equitable tolling is a limited extension of a filing deadline when the petitioner shows both diligent pursuit of his rights and an extraordinary circumstance that prevented timely filing. The court found neither requirement satisfied. Floyd offered no timeline or evidence of steps he took during the four years after the deadline and did not explain when he learned that he could file the motion. The court also found that the plea agreement’s language clearly preserved ineffective-assistance claims and that any failure by counsel to explain that provision did not constitute the extraordinary circumstance required for equitable tolling.
Ruling
The court denied Floyd’s § 2255 petition as untimely. Because the court resolved the motion on the filing deadline, it did not decide whether counsel was actually ineffective. The court also ruled that a certificate of appealability would not issue because Floyd had not made a substantial showing that a constitutional right was denied. It denied permission to appeal without paying filing fees, directed the clerk to close the listed motion entries, and directed the clerk to close the civil case.
Read the full 5-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.