eBook details
- Title: Montenegro v. United States
- Author : District of Columbia Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals
- Release Date : January 16, 2001
- Genre: Law,Books,Professional & Technical,
- Pages : * pages
- Size : 62 KB
Description
On October 24, 1995, a grand jury returned a one-count indictment against Horacio Montenegro and two others, charging them with conspiracy to distribute and possession with the intent to distribute more than 500 grams of cocaine, in violation of 21 U.S.C. sec.sec. 841(a)(1) and 846 and 18 U.S.C. sec. 2. Pursuant to a plea agreement with the government, Montenegro entered a plea of guilty, and was sentenced to 90 months imprisonment. The district court entered judgment on the conviction and sentence on April 19, 1996. On March 2, 1998, Montenegro filed a motion pursuant to 28 U.S.C. sec. 2255, which the district court dismissed on June 30, 1998. The court held that because Montenegro filed this motion 22 months after his conviction and sentence became final, it was barred by the one-year statute of limitations embodied in sec. 2255. The Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 added a limitations period to sec. 2255 motions, and required federal prisoners who wished to appeal final orders on sec. 2255 motions to obtain a certificate of appealability from the court of appeals. See 28 U.S.C. sec.sec. 2255, 2253. Following Montenegros petition to this court, we granted him a limited certificate of appealability on the questions of when the one-year time limit began to run and whether Montenegro had filed his sec. 2255 motion within that limit. Montenegro argued that the limitations period began to run in mid-1997, when he first discovered that his appeal had not been filed. Finding the record devoid of adequate information to determine the merits of the appeal, this court issued an order remanding the case to the district court for an evidentiary hearing on the issue of Montenegros diligence.