Opinion ID: 814829
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Nature and Availability of the Writ

Text: Coram nobis is an ancient writ that was originally intended to allow courts to correct technical errors in their past judgments. Its present, limited use in the American legal system is to correct fundamental errors of fact or law. United States v. George, 676 F.3d 249, 253 (1st Cir. 2012). The Federal Rules of Civil Procedure abolished the use of the writ in civil cases, see Fed. R. Civ. P. 60(e), but it has survived for use in criminal cases. The Supreme Court has held that, under the All Writs Act, 28 U.S.C. § 1651, federal courts are authorized to issue writs of error coram nobis to correct criminal judgments, and that the 5 During the course of the coram nobis proceedings, the district court held a hearing at which it attempted to determine how Murray would be sentenced today if his 1984 offense were not included in the guideline calculations, in order to determine whether the inclusion of that offense had prejudiced Murray for purposes of the coram nobis analysis. The court concluded that Murray's criminal history category would be reduced by two levels and thus that his guidelines range would be 235 to 293 months, i.e., a maximum of about 24.4 years. We do not pass judgment on whether this was the correct approach for the district court to take; we simply note it for an indication that the 1984 conviction affected Murray's 1994 sentence. -8- enactment of 28 U.S.C. § 2255 did not eliminate the availability of coram nobis relief. See United States v. Morgan, 346 U.S. 502, 503-04, 506-13 (1954) (holding petitioner entitled to bring action seeking writ of coram nobis to show constitutional error in prior federal conviction, which caused him to receive longer sentence as a second offender in later state criminal case). However, coram nobis is an extraordinary remedy, which is available only under circumstances compelling such action to achieve justice. Id. at 511. It is meant to correct errors of the most fundamental character; that is, such as render[] the proceeding itself irregular and invalid. United States v. Mayer, 235 U.S. 55, 69 (1914). As an extraordinary remedy, coram nobis may not issue when other remedies, including habeas corpus, are available. United States v. Denedo, 556 U.S. 904, 911 (2009). The Supreme Court has noted that, given other statutes and rules of criminal procedure, it is difficult to conceive of a situation in a federal criminal case today where [a writ of coram nobis] would be necessary or appropriate. Carlisle v. United States, 517 U.S. 416, 429 (1996) (alteration in original) (quoting United States v. Smith, 331 U.S. 469, 475 n.4 (1947)) (internal quotation marks omitted). This court has described coram nobis as the remedy of last resort. George, 676 F.3d at 253. This case does not involve the more common situation of a petitioner seeking coram nobis relief on an argument that, -9- pursuant to a Supreme Court decision that post-dates his conviction, the conduct for which he was convicted is no longer criminal. See, e.g., id. at 252; United States v. Sawyer, 239 F.3d 31, 34 (1st Cir. 2001); DeCecco v. United States, 485 F.2d 372, 373 (1st Cir. 1973). Nor is there any claim that Murray is actually innocent of the 1984 marijuana conspiracy charge. Still, this is not the first time that this circuit has dealt with a coram nobis petition claiming that the government failed to meet its disclosure obligations. See United States v. Barrett, 178 F.3d 34, 40, 54 (1st Cir. 1999) (claiming that government failed to disclose evidence under the Jencks Act).