Opinion ID: 544291
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Standing of the Walker Estate

Text: 15 One of the petitioners, however, cannot meet the standing requirements to have a case heard in federal court. Accordingly, we do not have jurisdiction to hear that part of the appeal. In United States v. Kerner, 895 F.2d 1159 (7th Cir.1990), we held that a decedent's estate lacked standing to bring a coram nobis petition on behalf of the decedent, and that holding is dispositive of the Walker estate's appeal. 16 In Kerner, the estate of a late governor of Illinois brought a coram nobis petition to expunge his convictions for mail fraud, perjury, false statements, and tax fraud. Although we determined that the estate met the article III standing requirements, we found that the estate failed to satisfy the court-imposed prudential limitations on the exercise of jurisdiction. See Valley Forge Christian College v. Americans United for Separation of Church and State, 454 U.S. 464, 102 S.Ct. 752, 70 L.Ed.2d 700 (1982). First, we believed that the estate's interests fell outside of the zone of interests protected by the writ of error coram nobis. 895 F.2d at 1162-63. Second, we held that the estate was impermissibly trying to assert the rights of a third party, namely the rights of the decedent to seek a writ of error coram nobis. Id. at 1163. 17 Predictably, the Walker estate attempts to distinguish its situation from that of the Kerner estate. The Walker estate argues that unlike Kerner, Walker's widow is still alive and would be entitled to pension benefits if Walker's conviction is expunged. This argument misses the point. By refusing to hear an estate's petition for a writ of error coram nobis, Kerner implicitly holds that the right to seek the writ belongs to the wrongfully convicted individual and dies with that individual. Only one entity could have sought a writ of error coram nobis for Jack Walker, and that entity was Jack Walker himself, before his death. 18 Furthermore, the Walker estate's petition for a writ of error coram nobis presents standing problems that even go beyond those considered in Kerner. The Kerner estate was at least trying to remedy a cognizable injury to itself: it claimed $90,000 worth of injury in the form of fines, penalties, back taxes, and pension forfeiture it lost as a result of the felony conviction. 895 F.2d at 1161-62. The Walker estate is not even trying to remedy an injury to itself; it wants to expunge Walker's felony conviction so that Walker's widow can receive pension benefits. Not only is the Walker estate trying to assert legal rights that belonged to Jack Walker the individual, but it is also trying to assert the rights of Walker's widow. If Mrs. Walker has been wrongfully deprived of her own vested pension benefits, her right to recover those benefits is in a forum different than a petition for a writ of coram nobis by her late husband's estate.