Court Opinion

ID: 9447577
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-03 22:38:06.092995+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:31:05.968051
License: Public Domain

WOODROUGH, Circuit Judge
(dissenting) .
On Bistram’s prior appeals reported at 237 F.2d 243 we held in effect that where a second or successive motion under Section 2255 sets up grounds for relief within the third paragraph of the section and the motion and the records and files of the case do not conclusively show that the prisoner is entitled to no relief on those grounds, the Court should grant him a hearing on his motion. I am not persuaded we were wrong. The last paragraph of 2255 forbids the Court to 'entertain application for habeas corpus where a motion under Section 2255 has been denied by the sentencing Court and I am sure the section is intended to be as broad within its ambit as habeas corpus. I think it covers all situations where the sentence is open to collateral attack. There was no purpose to impinge upon prisoners’ rights of collateral attack upon their convictions. The limitation on the duty of federal judges to entertain successive applications for habeas corpus arises when it appears *4that “the petition [for the writ] presents no new ground not theretofore presented.” 28 U.S.C. § 2244 (1952). The words of that phrase must be read together so that the ground need not be new in the sense of having originated after some former hearing. It need be new only in the sense that it was not theretofore presented.
The motion denied here alleged that the prisoner was insane when he was tried and the Supreme Court unanimously declared in Massey v. Moore, 348 U.S. 105, 109, 75 S.Ct. 145, 147, 99 L.Ed. 135: “Any defense is hopelessly beyond reach for an accused who is insane.”
The Court erred in disposing of the motion without the findings on the issue presented required by the statute.