Simmons v. United States
- Colleen McMahon
- 1:18-cv-00843-CM
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 3
In Simmons v. United States, Judge McMahon appointed counsel and set filing deadlines while stating Count Seventeen would be vacated under Davis.
Justin Simmons, whose Count Seventeen conviction was to be vacated and whose remaining § 2255 claims were to be reviewed with appointed counsel; Lorraine Gauli-Rufo, who was appointed to represent him; and the United States, which was given time to respond to any supplemental filing.
What happened
In Simmons v. United States, Justin Simmons asked the court to vacate his conviction and sentence under 28 U.S.C. § 2255. He made several arguments, including that his firearm conviction on Count Seventeen was invalid after the Supreme Court’s decision in Davis.
The United States agreed that Count Seventeen should be vacated and that Simmons should be resentenced on his remaining convictions. It argued that Simmons’s other arguments lacked merit or were barred by procedure.
Chief District Judge Colleen McMahon appointed Lorraine Gauli-Rufo to represent Simmons and set deadlines for counsel’s report and any supplemental filings. The order stated that Count Seventeen would be vacated, but it did not rule on the merits, timeliness, or procedural correctness of Simmons’s filings.
The detailed version
- Simmons v. United States · No. 1:18-cv-00843-CM
- Colleen McMahon
- Feb. 25, 2021
Background
Simmons 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 conviction or sentence. The motion challenged several aspects of his convictions and sentence, with most arguments concerning Count Seventeen.
A jury found Simmons guilty of several offenses, including firearm offenses connected to a narcotics conspiracy and racketeering counts. The court sentenced him to the mandatory minimum of 50 years in prison, followed by 10 years of supervised release, a $10,000 fine, and a $400 special assessment.
Simmons later argued that Count Seventeen should be vacated because it treated a racketeering conspiracy as a crime of violence under the firearm statute. He relied on the Supreme Court’s decision in United States v. Davis, which held that the statute’s risk-of-force clause was unconstitutionally vague. The United States consented to vacating Count Seventeen and resentencing Simmons on his remaining convictions. The government maintained that the remaining arguments were either substantively meritless or procedurally barred.
Order
Judge McMahon stated that the court was going to vacate Simmons’s conviction on Count Seventeen. Because Simmons would need representation for resentencing and the rest of his § 2255 motion, the court appointed Lorraine Gauli-Rufo, an attorney from the Criminal Justice Act panel, to represent him.
The court directed counsel to review Simmons’s filings and the government’s response, speak with Simmons, and report within 30 days about how counsel intended to proceed. If counsel chose to supplement the motion, those papers were due within 60 days, and the government would have 30 days afterward to respond.
The order specifically stated that it was not a ruling on the merits, timeliness, or procedural correctness of Simmons’s filings. It therefore appointed counsel and established a schedule while indicating that Count Seventeen would be vacated; the text provided does not state that the remaining challenges were resolved.
Read the full 3-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.