Linares v. United States
- Laura Swain
- 1:22-cv-04032
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 7
In Linares v. United States, Judge Swain ordered Yassar J. Linares to explain why his sentence challenge should not be denied as untimely and lacking custody.
Yassar J. Linares, who must file a declaration within 60 days to address whether he remains in custody and whether his motion is timely. The United States is the respondent, but no response was required at this stage.
What happened
In Linares v. United States, Yassar J. Linares, representing himself, challenged his federal sentence under a law allowing prisoners to attack certain convictions and sentences. He relied on a 2019 Supreme Court decision about a firearm statute. The opinion says Linares pleaded guilty and received 70 months in prison followed by three years of supervised release.
The court said Linares appeared no longer to be under custody for the conviction because his sentence appeared to have expired in early 2021. The court also said his motion appeared late: he had until June 24, 2020, to file based on the 2019 Supreme Court decision, but filed on May 20, 2022. The court gave him 60 days to submit a declaration explaining why he is still in custody and why the filing deadline should be extended.
Judge Laura Taylor Swain did not finally deny the motion in this order. Instead, she ordered Linares to show why it should not be denied on those grounds; if he does not comply, the motion will be denied. The court also refused to issue a certificate allowing an appeal and denied permission to proceed without paying appeal fees.
The detailed version
- Linares v. United States · No. 1:22-cv-04032
- Laura Swain
- June 27, 2022
Background
Yassar J. Linares filed a self-represented motion under 28 U.S.C. § 2255 challenging the legality of his federal sentence. The motion concerns a 2012 criminal judgment under which Linares pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit robbery and using and carrying a firearm during and in relation to a robbery. He received 70 months in prison and three years of supervised release.
Linares based his challenge on the Supreme Court’s 2019 decision in United States v. Davis. That decision held that the residual-clause definition of a violent felony in 18 U.S.C. § 924(c)(3)(B) was unconstitutionally vague. Linares acknowledged that his sentence was completed and said he had not filed earlier because Davis had not yet been decided.
Custody requirement
A person generally must be in custody under the conviction or sentence being challenged when filing a § 2255 motion. The court explained that supervised release can qualify as custody, but a person is no longer in custody once the sentence has completely expired.
The court stated that Linares’s entire sentence—70 months of imprisonment and three years of supervised release—appeared to have expired. Calculating from the January 27, 2012 judgment, the court said the sentence appeared to have ended in early 2021. The court therefore directed Linares to submit facts showing that he is currently in custody under that conviction.
Timeliness
The court also concluded that the motion appeared to be barred by the one-year filing deadline for § 2255 motions. Because Linares relied on Davis, the relevant deadline was one year after the Supreme Court decided that case, or June 24, 2020. The opinion states that Linares filed the motion on May 20, 2022.
The court directed Linares to explain why the deadline should be extended. It said he would need to allege facts showing that he pursued his rights diligently and that an extraordinary circumstance prevented timely filing. This refers to possible equitable tolling, which is an extension of a filing deadline in exceptional circumstances.
Order and disposition
The court ordered Linares to file a declaration within 60 days showing why the motion should not be denied because he was not in custody and because it was time-barred. If he files a declaration, the court will review it and, if appropriate, order that the motion be served on the United States. If he does not comply, the § 2255 motion will be denied for the reasons stated in the order. No answer from the United States was required at that time.
The court also stated that Linares had not made a substantial showing that a constitutional right was denied, so it would not issue a certificate of appealability. It further certified that an appeal would not be taken in good faith and denied permission to proceed without paying appeal fees for purposes of an appeal.
Classification
This is a procedural order. The court did not decide the merits of Linares’s Davis-based challenge; it addressed whether he could proceed because of the custody requirement and filing deadline.
Read the full 7-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.