Laford v. United States
- Paul Engelmayer
- 1:16-cv-04686
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 2
In Laford v. United States, Judge Engelmayer moved a filing into Laford’s earlier case and administratively closed the new case without prejudice.
Alfred Laford’s later § 2255 filing was transferred into his earlier civil case, and the newly assigned civil case was administratively closed; the United States’ response deadline remained unchanged.
What happened
In Laford v. United States, Alfred Laford challenged his federal conviction and sentence under a law allowing prisoners to seek relief from unlawful convictions or sentences. His earlier motion relied on Supreme Court decisions concerning the law used for his conviction.
Laford later filed another motion raising related arguments based on those decisions. The Clerk assigned that filing a new civil case number because it did not identify Laford’s earlier civil case or state that it amended the earlier motion.
Judge Engelmayer ordered the Clerk to docket the filing as an amended motion in the earlier civil case and to administratively close the new case without prejudice to the pending motion. The deadline for the United States to respond remained in effect.
The detailed version
- Laford v. United States · No. 1:16-cv-04686
- Paul Engelmayer
- Nov. 15, 2019
Background
Alfred Laford filed an earlier motion under 28 U.S.C. § 2255, a procedure allowing a federal prisoner to challenge a conviction or sentence, on June 20, 2016. He challenged his conviction and sentence under 18 U.S.C. § 924(c), relying on the Supreme Court’s decision in Johnson v. United States. The court stayed that case while the Supreme Court considered Sessions v. Dimaya and later extended the stay while it considered United States v. Davis.
On November 8, 2019, Laford filed another § 2255 motion seeking to vacate his conviction based on Johnson and Davis. The motion was docketed in the criminal case, but the Clerk did not file it in Laford’s earlier civil case because Laford did not include the earlier civil case number or identify the filing as an amended motion. Instead, the Clerk assigned the filing a new civil case number, 19 Civ. 10514.
Court’s Action
Judge Paul Engelmayer directed the Clerk to docket the motion as an amended motion in Laford’s earlier civil case, No. 16 Civ. 4686. The judge also directed the Clerk to administratively close No. 19 Civ. 10514 without prejudice to the pending motion. The court clarified that the United States’ existing deadline to respond to Laford’s latest § 2255 motion remained in effect. The order did not decide whether Laford was entitled to relief from his conviction or sentence.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.