Barnes v. United States
- Denise Cote
- 1:15-cv-04437
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 2
In Barnes v. United States, Judge Cote stayed proceedings on Barnes’s post-conviction petition while related appeals consider the legal issue.
Barnes’s federal post-conviction petition and the United States as respondent; the proceedings are paused while the related appellate issue remains pending.
What happened
Barnes asked to challenge his conviction under a federal law involving firearms, arguing that later Supreme Court decisions made the conviction invalid. The Second Circuit allowed him to file the petition.
The appeals court noted that it was considering the legal question in several other cases and authorized this court to decide whether to pause Barnes’s case. The district court ordered that the petition’s proceedings be stayed unless either side objected by October 23, 2020.
Judge Cote also ordered Barnes to promptly notify the court when the appeals court decides the legal issue, so the stay can be lifted. The order did not decide whether Barnes’s conviction is valid.
The detailed version
- Barnes v. United States · No. 1:15-cv-04437
- Denise Cote
- Oct. 7, 2020
Background
Barnes sought permission to file a second or later petition under 28 U.S.C. § 2255, a procedure used to challenge or correct a federal conviction or sentence. His petition challenges a conviction under 18 U.S.C. § 924(c), based on attempted Hobbs Act robbery under 18 U.S.C. § 1951. He argued that the conviction is no longer valid after Johnson v. United States and United States v. Davis.
On October 1, 2020, the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit granted Barnes’s request to file the petition. The appellate court returned jurisdiction to the district court on October 5, 2020. Its mandate stated that the validity of § 924(c) convictions based on attempted Hobbs Act robbery was pending in several appeals and noted that the district court could decide whether to pause Barnes’s proceedings.
Ruling
The court ordered that proceedings on the petition be stayed unless either party objected by October 23, 2020. It further ordered Barnes to promptly notify the court when the Second Circuit rules on the legal issue raised by the petition, so the stay can be lifted. The order did not resolve the validity of Barnes’s conviction or the merits of his petition.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.