What Is All This Holloway Stuff About?
Then U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York, Loretta Lynch, agreed to dismiss two of the 924(c) convictions which allowed the Court to refashion the sentence in the case to a total of 30 years. Holloway went home. You can read more in this opinion. United States v. Holloway, 68 F. Supp. 3d 310 (E.D.N.Y. 2014).
A few other courts have agreed to allow the Government to dismiss charges, like what happened in Holloway, to create a new, more lenient sentence for the defendant.
New York, Southern: United States v. Washington, No. 11-cr-605 (RJS) (S.D.N.Y. July 31, 2014) (Sullivan, J.)
Oklahoma, Eastern: United States v. Rivera, No. 83-00096-01-CR (E.D. Okla. Sept. 15, 2015) (Seay, J.)
Pennsylvania, Eastern: United States v. Ezell, No. 02-815-01 (E.D. Pa. Aug. 18, 2015) (DuBois, J.); United States v. Trader, No. 04-680-06, 2015 WL 4941820 (E.D. Pa. Aug. 18, 2015) (DuBois, J.).
In each instance, the Government AGREED to dismiss one or more counts, and the Court allowed the Government to do so.
The net effect of all of this is that the only way a defendant can get relief from his or her sentence this way is IF the Government goes along with it AND the court does so too. If the Government is unwilling to dismiss any of the counts in the defendant's case, or if the defendant only has one count of conviction, there can be no "Holloway" relief. Keep in mind that for all of these things to fall into place would be TRULY EXTRAORDINARY. Not to say people should not try, but they should do so with eyes wide open about the possibility of relief.
Recommended for you
Ex Parte Communications By Judge With Jury Required Reversal Of Convictions
At Martin Bradley III’s trial for racketeering, mail fraud, wire fraud, and money laundering, the district court had two ex parte communications with the jury. Bradley’s defense lawyers did not become aware of notes until after his appeal. Bradley filed a 2255 motion arguing, in addition to other things, that the court had violated Rule…
Supervised Release Cannot Be Revoked After Supervision Term Ends
Anthony Holman’s supervised release was revoked for failing to pay restitution and picking up a new charge. However, the violation petition was not submitted until after Holman’s term of supervision had already expired. No summons was pending at the time either. Generally, whenever a U.S. Probation Officer believes that a defendant has violated his or…
Burrage Applies Retroactively To Cases On Collateral Review
In Burrage v. United States, 134 S. Ct. 881 (2014), the Supreme Court held that “at least where use of the drug distributed by the defendant is not an independently sufficient cause of the victim’s death or serious bodily injury, a defendant cannot be liable under the penalty enhancement provision of 21 U.S.C. § 841(b)(1)(C)…