Farmer v. United States

Background

In 2014, the court sentenced Dee Farmer to 72 months in prison after Farmer pleaded guilty to charges involving conspiracy to commit mail fraud, conspiracy to commit an offense against the United States, and aggravated identity theft. The charges arose from a forged subpoena sent to Experian Credit Agency seeking information about 37 people.

Before sentencing, the parties disputed the intended loss amount used to calculate Farmer’s sentencing-guidelines range. The Government relied on an earlier identity-theft incident and argued that the intended loss was $7,000 for each of the 37 people, or $259,000. The court accepted that calculation. Farmer later filed a petition under 28 U.S.C. § 2255 seeking to vacate his conviction and sentence. The court denied that petition and later denied a motion to reconsider.

Farmer’s Later Filings

Farmer subsequently filed several documents, including a motion for relief from final judgment and another motion for appropriate relief. Because Farmer was representing himself, the court treated the filings as one motion under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 60(b) to reconsider the earlier denial of § 2255 relief.

Farmer relied on what he described as newly discovered evidence concerning an earlier forged court order allegedly sent to Experian by his brother. He argued that this information showed Experian could not have produced usable credit reports for all 37 people listed in Farmer’s forged subpoena. Farmer contended that the intended-loss calculation was therefore wrong and that his lawyer’s failure to find the evidence amounted to a constitutional disclosure violation and ineffective assistance of counsel.

Legal Standard

Rule 60(b) allows a court to grant relief from a final judgment in limited circumstances, including mistake, newly discovered evidence, fraud, a void judgment, satisfaction of the judgment, or another reason justifying relief. The court explained that this relief is extraordinary and generally requires exceptional circumstances.

The court also explained that a Rule 60(b) motion in a post-conviction case can count as a second or successive petition if it raises a substantive challenge to the underlying conviction or sentence. A motion instead remains a Rule 60(b) motion when it attacks a defect in the earlier post-conviction proceeding itself. When a motion is actually a successive § 2255 petition, the district court may transfer it to the court of appeals for possible authorization or deny the portion that falls outside Rule 60(b).

Ruling

The court concluded that Farmer was challenging the underlying conviction based on newly discovered evidence. It therefore treated the motion as a successive § 2255 petition. The court determined that transfer to the Second Circuit for possible certification was appropriate, but said it could not transfer the matter immediately without first informing Farmer and giving him an opportunity to avoid the transfer.

The court ordered Farmer, within one month of the opinion, to tell the court whether he wished to withdraw the motion, refile it as a new collateral challenge, or proceed in another manner. The opinion does not decide whether Farmer’s newly discovered-evidence, loss-calculation, or ineffective-assistance arguments have merit.

Separately, the court certified under 28 U.S.C. § 1915(a)(3) that any appeal from the order would not be taken in good faith and denied permission to appeal without paying filing fees. Judge Alison J. Nathan also directed the clerk to mail Farmer a copy of the opinion because he was representing himself.