Woods v. United States
- Vincent Briccetti
- 7:23-cv-11002
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 1
In Woods v. United States, Judge Briccetti granted Woods’s request to dismiss his premature sentence challenge without prejudice while his appeal was pending.
Tishawn Woods, whose federal sentence challenge was dismissed without prejudice while his conviction appeal was pending.
What happened
In Woods v. United States, Tishawn Woods asked the court to remove his federal motion challenging his sentence from the record because he considered it premature. The court treated that request as a request to voluntarily dismiss the motion.
Woods had filed the motion under a federal law allowing a person to challenge, set aside, or correct a sentence. His conviction appeal was still pending in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, so the court said it should not decide the sentence challenge while that appeal remained pending.
Judge Vincent L. Briccetti granted Woods’s request and dismissed the sentence challenge without prejudice. Woods may refile it after the Second Circuit issues its formal mandate, and the court ordered the case closed.
The detailed version
- Woods v. United States · No. 7:23-cv-11002
- Vincent Briccetti
- Mar. 21, 2024
Background
Tishawn Woods filed a motion under 28 U.S.C. § 2255 on December 18, 2023. That law permits a federal prisoner to ask the sentencing court to vacate, set aside, or correct the sentence. In an undated letter received on March 20, 2024, Woods asked the court to “strike the premature Section 2255 from the record.”
The opinion states that Woods had a direct appeal of his conviction pending before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. The court explained that, for reasons of judicial economy, it should not decide the § 2255 motion while the direct appeal was pending.
Ruling
The court construed Woods’s request as an application to voluntarily dismiss his § 2255 motion and granted that application. The court dismissed the § 2255 motion without prejudice, meaning the dismissal did not bar Woods from refiling it. The court stated that Woods may refile after the Second Circuit issues its mandate. It also instructed the Clerk to close case number 23-cv-10022 and mail Woods a copy of the order.
Classification
This is a procedural order because the court did not decide the substance of Woods’s sentence challenge. It granted voluntary dismissal and dismissed the motion without prejudice while the direct appeal was pending.
Read the full 1-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.