Court Opinion

ID: 9491036
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 14:02:01.550266+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:54:28.500382
License: Public Domain

DUHÉ, Circuit Judge,
with whom GARWOOD, Circuit Judge, joins specially concurring:
While recognizing that we are bound by our unpublished decision in Moya, supra, we write separately , to urge this Court to reconsider en banc Moya’s holding that a pending Fed.R.Crim.P. 35(c) motion will postpone running of the Fed. R.App. P. 4(b) time period for filing a notice of appeal until the judge disposes of the motion. We believe Moya was incorrectly decided for the following reasons.
Moya held that a defendant’s motion to correct his sentence under Fed.R.Crim.P. 35(c) was “one of the species of motions for reconsideration” that prevent running of the ten-day 4(b) time period until disposition of the motion. Moya, No. 94-10907, at 4. The Moya panel recognized that a Rule 35(c) motion was not one of those listed in Fed. R.App. P. 4(b) as postponing commencement of the ten-day period. Id. at 3. Nevertheless, the panel included Moya’s 35(c) motion within the class of “motions for reconsideration” which the jurisprudence has traditionally given suspensory effect. Id., citing United States v. Greenwood, 974 F.2d 1449, 1466 (5th Cir.1992). Finally, the panel found that the rule in Greenwood had survived the 1993 amendment to Rule 4(b). Moya, No. 94-10907, at 4, citing United States v. Brewer, 60 F.3d 1142, 1144 (5th Cir.1995).
We believe the en banc Court should overrule Moya because it disregarded the language and implications of Rule 4(b), and because it overlooked the effect of the 1991 amendment to Fed.R.Crim.P. 35 and Rule 35’s accompanying Advisory Committee Notes. We also urge the en banc Court to clarify the effect of a timely-filed Rule 35(c) motion on the running of the 4(b) period, in order to give appellants a “bright-line” standard for determining when the ten-day limitation on filing a notice of appeal begins to run. See, e.g., United States v. Morillo, 8 F.3d 864, 869 (1st Cir.1993).
Fed.R.Crim.P. 35 was amended in 19911 to codify a district court’s “inherent authority” to correct an erroneous sentence. <Sree Fed. R.Crim.P. 35(c), advisory committee notes (1991 amendment). The Advisory Committee Notes indicate that, while the Committee wanted to explicitly recognize such authority, it also “believed that the time for correcting such errors should be narrowed within the time for appealing the sentence to reduce the likelihood of jurisdictional questions in the event of an appeal....” Id. To that end, the Committee
contemplated] that the [district] court would enter an order correcting the sentence and that such order must be entered within the seven (7) day period so that the appellate process (if a timely appeal is taken) may proceed without delay and without jurisdictional confusion.
Id.2
In light of new Rule 35(c), Fed. R.App. P. 4(b) was amended to read, in pertinent part:
The filing of a notice of appeal under this Rule 4(b) does not divest a district court of jurisdiction to correct a sentence under Fed.R.Crim.P. 35(c), nor does the filing of a motion under Fed.R.Crim.P. 35(c) affect the validity of a notice of appeal filed before entry of the order disposing of the motion.
See Fed. R.App. P. 4(b)(amendment eff. Dec. 1, 1993) and advisory committee notes (1993 amendment). Rule 4(b), as discussed above, does not list a Rule 35(c) motion as one that postpones running of the ten-day period for filing a notice of appeal.
*1023Both of these statutory changes were in effect when Moya was decided in 1995. Nonetheless, Moya summarily decided that a defendant’s Rule 35(c) motion to correct his sentence, based on an asserted error in imposing supervised release under 18 U.S.C. § 3565(a)(2), was a “motion for reconsideration” that effectively postponed running of the 4(b) period until disposition of the motion. Moya, No. 94-10907, at 3-4. The Moya panel did not mention the Advisory Committee Notes to amended Rule 35(e), nor did it consider the combined effect of amended Rule 35(e) and amended Rule 4(b), except to observe that the Greenwood rule survived the 1993 amendments to Rule 4(b).3 Id., at 4.
Although we recognize that amended Rules 4(b), 35(c) and their accompanying notes are subject to more than one interpretation, we believe that the most reasonable construction is the one given by the First Circuit in United States v. Morillo, 8 F.3d 864, 867-70 (1st Cir.1993). There the First Circuit, guided by the erudite pen of Judge Selya, held that:
(1) a motion under Rule 35(e) interrupts the [4(b)] appeal period and renders a judgment nonfinal only if it is brought within seven days following the imposition of sentence; and (2) the appeal period is restarted when the district court decides a timeous 4 Rule 35(c) motion or at the expiration of seven days next following imposition of sentence, whichever first occurs.
Id. at 869. Morillo thus recognized two different aspects of the issue: first, that the Healy doctrine continued to apply to a Rule 35(c) motion, notwithstanding the absence of a 35(c) motion from the list of motions in Rule 4(b) that interrupt the ten-day appeal period;5 and second, that application of the Healy doctrine is, however, limited to the seven-day period imposed by amended Rule 35(c). After seven days, the 35(e) motion is deemed denied, even if still pending. Id.; see also United States v. Turner, 998 F.2d 534, 536 (7th Cir.1993). In our view, the First Circuit’s approach rationally effects the Advisory Committee’s desire to balance judicial efficiency with a concern that “the appellate process ... proceed without delay and without jurisdictional confusion.” Fed. R.Crim.P. 35, advisory committee notes (1991 amendment).
To the extent that Moya can be interpreted as holding that all Rule 35(c) motions indefinitely postpone running of the 4(b) period (that is, until the court disposes of the motion), we would urge the en banc Court either to overrule the decision, or at least to clarify its holding. The Supreme Court itself has observed, in refusing to accord suspenso-ry effect only to meritorious motions for reconsideration, that “[w]ithout a clear general rule litigants would be required to guess at their peril the date on which the time to appeal commences to run.” United States v. Ibarra, 502 U.S. 1, 7, 112 S.Ct. 4, 6, 116 L.Ed.2d 1 (1991). For the same reason, we would decline to adopt Judge DeMoss’s approach (see supra at 1018) that' a court accord suspensory effect only to those 35(c) motions that are more appropriately styled common-law “motions for reconsideration.” Such an approach, while it may find some support in case law antedating the amendments to Rules 4(b) and 35,6 would fail to accord to potential appellants (whom, after all, the “bright line” rule is here intended to protect) a sufficient yardstick by which to measure the time within which to file a notice of appeal.
For the moment, however, we bow our heads to Moya’s precedential force and find that Carmouche’s appeal was timely.

. Rule 35(c), eff. December 1, 1991, reads: "The Court, acting within 7 days after the imposition of sentence, may correct a sentence that was imposed as a result of arithmetical, technical or other clear error."

. We so recognized in United States v. Lopez, 26 F.3d 512, 518-19 (5th Cir.1994), where we also cited Morillo with approval. See also United States v. Early, 27 F.3d 140, 141-42 (5th Cir. 1994).

. Moya cited Brewer, supra, for the proposition that Greenwood was unaffected by the 1993 amendments to Rule 4(b). See Brewer, 60 F.3d at 1144. We merely observe here that Brewer did not deal with a Rule. 35(c) motion at all — instead, Brewer addressed the effects on the 4(b) period of a motion to set aside a conviction rather than a sentence. See id. at 1144-46.

. "timely” — Webster’s Third New World Dictionary 2395 (3d ed.1981). •

. See United States v. Healy, 376 U.S. 75, 78-80, 84 S.Ct. 553, 555-57, 11 L.Ed.2d 527 (1964). See also United States v. Ibarra, 502 U.S. 1, 6-7, 112 S.Ct. 4, 6-7, 116 L.Ed.2d 1 (1991); United States v. Dieter, 429 U.S. 6, 8, 97 S.Ct. 18, 19, 50 L.Ed,2d.8 (1976)(per curiam); Greenwood, 974 F.2d at 1470-71.

. See, e.g., Greenwood, 974 F.2d at 1464-1471.