Adams v. United States
- Alvin Hellerstein
- 1:23-cv-07918
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 1
In Adams v. United States, Judge Hellerstein declined a certificate of appealability after denying Adams’s motion to vacate his sentence.
Melvon Adams, whose request for a certificate of appealability from the denial of his sentence-vacatur motion was declined.
What happened
Adams v. United States involved Melvon Adams’s request to vacate his sentence. On September 12, 2023, the court denied that request. The court later reduced his sentence by several months under Amendment 821 of the United States Sentencing Guidelines.
The court declined to issue a certificate of appealability, which is required to appeal the denial of certain sentence challenges. It found that Adams had not substantially shown that a constitutional right was denied and had not identified a constitutional issue that reasonable judges could debate.
Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein entered the January 17, 2024 order declining the certificate of appealability.
The detailed version
- Adams v. United States · No. 1:23-cv-07918
- Alvin Hellerstein
- Jan. 17, 2024
Background
On September 12, 2023, the court entered an order denying Melvon Adams’s motion to vacate his sentence. The opinion also states that the court separately granted Adams’s motion for a sentence reduction under Amendment 821 of the United States Sentencing Guidelines, reducing his sentence by several months.
Ruling
The court declined to issue a certificate of appealability. A certificate of appealability is required for an appeal from certain sentence challenges. The court relied on Adams’s failure to make a substantial showing that he had been denied a constitutional right and his failure to identify a claim on which reasonable judges could debate whether such a denial occurred.
Disposition
The court declined to issue a certificate of appealability. The opinion does not describe the underlying grounds of Adams’s sentence-vacatur motion or provide additional details about the separate sentence reduction. The order was signed by Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein.
Read the full 1-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.