It is well established that once the one-year deadline is up for a movant filing to vacate their conviction in federal court under 28 U.S.C. § 2255, no new claims can be raised unless they “relate back” to the original claims in the motion. However, this rule is liberally applied to pro se litigants, and...Read More

Here are some favorable cases in the federal courts this last week of August that may help out some people in federal prison. United States v. Thomas-Mathews, No. 21-1824, 2023 U.S. App. LEXIS 22464 (6th Cir. Aug. 25, 2023) Some judges can’t get out of the erroneous “crack is worse” way of thinking that got...Read More

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit, sitting en banc, joined three other circuits and held that a federal conviction for conspiracy to commit a federal drug offense did not qualify under the career offender guideline as a third strike to impose the harsh career offender penalty. See United States v. Dupree, 57...Read More