Stone v. Huett

Background

Robert Stone filed a petition under 28 U.S.C. § 2241, a federal law allowing a person in federal custody to challenge the execution of a sentence. He filed the petition without a lawyer while he was incarcerated at the Federal Correctional Institution in Otisville, New York. The court understood the petition and its supplement as seeking a change in how the Bureau of Prisons carried out the remainder of his federal sentence, including release to a halfway house, home confinement, or supervised release.

The opinion states that Stone was then in Bureau of Prisons custody through its Residential Reentry Management Field Office in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Based on that change, the court said it appeared that the Bureau of Prisons may have granted the relief Stone sought after he filed the petition.

Court’s Action

The court directed Stone to show cause, by declaration and within 30 days, why it should not deny the petition as moot. A matter is moot when the requested relief may already have occurred, leaving no live dispute for the court to resolve. The court stated that it would deny the petition as moot if Stone failed to file the declaration within the required time or failed to show good cause.

This order did not itself deny the petition. It required Stone to respond before the court decided whether mootness required denial.

Appeal-Related Rulings

The court ruled that a certificate of appealability would not issue because the petition made no substantial showing that a constitutional right had been denied. It also certified under 28 U.S.C. § 1915(a)(3) that an appeal would not be taken in good faith and denied permission to appeal without paying the filing fee. The opinion does not state what happened after the 30-day response period.