Williams v. United States
- Laura Swain
- 1:23-cv-08338
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 2
In Williams v. United States, Judge Swain dismissed Williams’s duplicate challenge to his conviction and sentence without prejudice to his pending case.
John T. Williams’s duplicate application was dismissed, while his pending related case under docket number 23-CV-8300 was not dismissed by this order. The United States of America was the respondent.
What happened
John T. Williams filed an application challenging his conviction and sentence, calling it a motion to vacate a void judgment for lack of jurisdiction. The application was filed against the United States in the Southern District of New York.
The court explained that Williams had already filed a substantially similar application, which had been transferred from the Western District of New York and opened under docket number 23-CV-8300. Because the new application raised the same claims as that pending case, the court found that filing and litigating a duplicate lawsuit would serve no useful purpose.
Judge Laura Taylor Swain dismissed this action without prejudice to Williams’s pending case under docket number 23-CV-8300. She also denied permission to proceed without paying fees on appeal, certified that an appeal would not be taken in good faith, and directed the Clerk of Court to enter judgment.
The detailed version
- Williams v. United States · No. 1:23-cv-08338
- Laura Swain
- Sept. 28, 2023
Background
John T. Williams filed an application challenging his conviction and sentence in an earlier criminal case. He styled the new filing as a “Petition Rule 60(b)(4) Motion to Vacate for Lack of Jurisdiction Void Judgement.” Rule 60(b)(4) is a procedure for seeking relief from a judgment claimed to be legally void.
The opinion states that Williams had recently filed a substantially similar application in a prior related proceeding in the Western District of New York. That court transferred the matter to the Southern District of New York, where it was opened under docket number 23-CV-8300. The court also noted that Williams had previously been barred from filing new actions in that court without paying filing fees unless he first obtained permission, and that he had not sought permission for this action.
Court’s Analysis
The court determined that the new application raised the same claims already pending under docket number 23-CV-8300. It concluded that no useful purpose would be served by filing and litigating this duplicate lawsuit. The court therefore dismissed this action as duplicative, without reaching the merits of Williams’s challenge to his conviction, sentence, or jurisdiction arguments.
Disposition
Judge Laura Taylor Swain dismissed the action without prejudice to Williams’s pending case under docket number 23-CV-8300. The court certified under 28 U.S.C. § 1915(a)(3) that any appeal would not be taken in good faith and denied permission to proceed without paying appellate filing fees. The Clerk of Court was directed to enter judgment.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.