Moore v. United States
- Loretta Preska
- 1:19-cv-04112
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 3
In Moore v. United States, Judge Preska denied reconsideration but granted more time to amend Moore’s Section 2255 motion.
Tyrone Moore, the movant, must file a concise supplemental Section 2255 motion within 60 days to continue presenting his claims; the United States is the responding party.
What happened
In Moore v. United States, Tyrone Moore, acting without a lawyer, challenged his conviction and sentence through a motion asking the court to vacate them. The court had ordered him to file an amended motion because his original 64-page filing did not clearly state his claims and supporting facts. The case was later dismissed for failing to follow that order, then reopened.
Moore asked the court to reconsider the order requiring an amended motion. He also asked for a copy of his original motion and access to a typewriter. The opinion does not decide whether his conviction or sentence was lawful.
Judge Loretta A. Preska denied reconsideration, but granted Moore 60 days to file a short supplemental motion. The court granted his request for a copy of the original motion, denied his request for a typewriter, and declined to issue a certificate allowing an appeal; it also denied permission to appeal without paying filing fees.
The detailed version
- Moore v. United States · No. 1:19-cv-04112
- Loretta Preska
- July 16, 2020
Background
Tyrone Moore, who was incarcerated and proceeding without a lawyer, filed a motion under 28 U.S.C. § 2255, a procedure for challenging the legality of a federal conviction or sentence. The motion challenged the conviction and sentence entered in an earlier criminal case. The court had previously ordered Moore to file an amended motion because his original filing was 64 handwritten pages, included unnecessary and excessive detail, and did not clearly and plainly identify the grounds for relief or the facts supporting each ground.
The court dismissed the matter after Moore did not comply with that order. It later reopened the matter at Moore’s request and granted several extensions of time. Moore then asked the court to reconsider the order requiring an amended motion. He also requested a copy of his original motion and access to a typewriter at his correctional facility.
Rulings
The court denied Moore’s motion for reconsideration. After reviewing the original motion, the court concluded that it was unwieldy and obscured the nature of Moore’s grounds for relief and the supporting facts. The court stated that the government should not have to examine 64 handwritten pages to determine Moore’s claims and the facts supporting them.
The court granted Moore an extension of time to comply with the earlier order. It directed him to submit, within 60 days of the order, a supplemental motion briefly stating his grounds for relief and only the facts relevant to those grounds. If he complied, the court would consider the supplemental motion together with the original motion as the operative pleading. The court stated that it would grant no further extensions.
The court granted Moore’s request for a copy of the original motion and directed that it be mailed to him separately. It denied his request for a typewriter because the court said it lacked authority to order prison officials to provide one. The court also stated that a certificate of appealability would not issue because Moore had not then made a substantial showing that a constitutional right had been denied. Finally, it certified that an appeal would not be taken in good faith and denied permission to appeal without paying filing fees.
Classification
This is a procedural order. The court addressed the form and handling of Moore’s Section 2255 filing and did not decide the merits of his challenge to his conviction or sentence.
Read the full 3-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.