Opinion ID: 201456
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: The State Court Nunc Pro Tunc Order

Text: 44 As the district court's allowance of the § 2255 motion was consistent with the state's vacation of the state conviction, we find no need to examine the effect of the separate state court order terminating Mateo's probation nunc pro tunc to April 11, 1997. The district court thought it improper to inquire into the legal validity under state law of the nunc pro tunc order. See Mateo III, 276 F.Supp.2d at 194 (explaining that absent exceptional circumstances (like a state-court legerdemain with no colorable legal or factual rationale) not present here, this Court will not second-guess a state court's judgment on state criminal law). However, for purposes of Guidelines analysis, a federal court may and sometimes must, in appropriate circumstances, identify the reason for the state action in order to determine whether a prior sentence should be counted. See Carrasco-Mateo, 389 F.3d at 246 (stating that courts have delved into state law to resolve questions arising in the section 4A1.1(d) context). As discussed above, the Guidelines direct courts not to count [s]entences for expunged convictions, USSG § 4A1.2(j), and [s]entences resulting from convictions that (A) have been reversed or vacated because of errors of law ... or (B) have been ruled constitutionally invalid in a prior case, id. § 4A1.2, cmt. n. 6. In contrast, the Guidelines provide that convictions that have been set aside for reasons unrelated to innocence or errors of law should be counted. Id. § 4A1.2, cmt. n. 10. 45 Here, the reason behind the state court order terminating Mateo's probation nunc pro tunc to April 11, 1997 is unstated and unclear. While Mateo argued in his motion to terminate probation that, at the time the probation officer initiated process to surrender him, he had completed probation and the warrant was issued in error, the state court made no finding to this effect and, in particular, made no reference to the status of the warrant under its ruling. Compare Commonwealth v. Sawicki, 369 Mass. 377, 339 N.E.2d 740 (1975); Commonwealth v. Mitchell, 46 Mass.App.Ct. 921, 708 N.E.2d 961 (1999). A divided panel of the Eighth Circuit has held that the defendant's successful motion in state court to reduce a probation term from 365 to 364 days for the express purpose of avoiding a criminal history point in his federal drug sentencing was not a valid basis for not counting his original sentences for criminal history purposes. United States v. Martinez-Cortez, 354 F.3d 830, 831-32 (8th Cir.2004). In the present case, Mateo's counsel appears to have written a letter to the state probation officer, indicating that Mateo would be resentenced to a more lenient federal sentence if his probation was terminated to a time prior to the federal offenses of conviction. The relevance of this letter to the effect of the nunc pro tunc order, and the sufficiency of the provisions of the nunc pro tunc order themselves as a basis for reduction of the federal Guidelines sentence, give rise to delicate issues we need not address here given the fact that the state court's vacation order amply justifies the district court's judgment. Moreover, it may well be inappropriate for us to take into account the letter to the state probation officer, as the letter was not presented to the district judge. See supra note 4. Hence we do not determine the correctness of the district court's allowance of the § 2255 motion premised on the state court's nunc pro tunc termination of the term of probation.