Scott v. United States
- Loretta Preska
- 1:16-cv-05132
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 4
In Scott v. United States, Judge Preska denied the Government’s request to delay Scott’s proceedings and set deadlines for further briefing.
Antonio Scott and the United States, whose briefing deadlines were set after the court denied the Government’s request to pause the proceedings.
What happened
In Scott v. United States, the court addressed the Government’s request to pause Antonio Scott’s challenge to his conviction under a federal post-conviction law. The request followed a Supreme Court decision concerning whether attempted Hobbs Act robbery can support a firearm conviction under 18 U.S.C. § 924(c). The court had previously denied Scott’s challenge, but the Court of Appeals vacated that decision and sent the matter back for further proceedings.
The Government asked the court to wait 60 days while related proceedings continued in another case. The court denied that request because the Court of Appeals had already authorized Scott to pursue the challenge and had ordered further proceedings. The court also noted that Scott was expected to leave prison in June 2023, less than a year after the order.
Judge Preska ordered Scott to file any additional supporting submission within 30 days. The Government then had 30 days to respond, and Scott had 14 days to reply. The order set the schedule but did not decide whether Scott’s conviction would ultimately be vacated.
The detailed version
- Scott v. United States · No. 1:16-cv-05132
- Loretta Preska
- Aug. 19, 2022
Background
Antonio Scott challenged his conviction under 18 U.S.C. § 924(c), a law that imposes penalties for using or carrying a firearm in connection with a crime of violence. He brought the challenge under 28 U.S.C. § 2255, which allows a federal prisoner to seek relief from a conviction or sentence in certain circumstances.
On December 2, 2021, the court denied Scott’s challenge. It relied on then-binding Court of Appeals precedent holding that attempted Hobbs Act robbery qualified as a crime of violence supporting his § 924(c) conviction. While Scott’s appeal was pending, the Supreme Court decided United States v. Taylor, addressing whether attempted Hobbs Act robbery is a crime of violence. The Supreme Court then vacated the Court of Appeals decision on which the district court had relied.
The Court of Appeals granted Scott a certificate of appealability on whether his § 924(c) conviction remained supported by any valid crime-of-violence predicate. It vacated the district court’s earlier order and sent the matter back for further proceedings. The Court of Appeals’ mandate required the district court to consider Scott’s challenge in light of Taylor.
Request to Pause the Proceedings
The district court asked the parties how they wished to proceed. The Government requested that the court hold Scott’s matter in abeyance, meaning temporarily pause it, for 60 days while it pursued possible rehearing in a separate case, Savoca v. United States.
Ruling
The court denied the Government’s request to hold the matter in abeyance. It explained that the Court of Appeals had already authorized Scott to file a second or successive § 2255 petition and that this authorization remained binding. The court also stated that the Court of Appeals had ordered it to conduct further proceedings. In addition, the court considered its understanding from publicly available Bureau of Prisons records that Scott was due to be released in June 2023, less than a year after the order. The court also noted that the Government’s response deadline in Savoca had been extended, contrary to the timing described in the Government’s request.
The court directed Scott to file any supplemental submission supporting his § 2255 petition within 30 days. The Government had 30 days to respond, and Scott had 14 days to reply. The court allowed the parties to notify it by a letter of no more than two pages if the record later needed supplementation because of a change in law affecting Scott’s petition.
The order did not decide the merits of Scott’s challenge or whether his § 924(c) conviction should be vacated.
Read the full 4-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.