United States v. Bryant

This post-conviction case involved a request under 28 U.S.C. § 2255 for relief from judgment and sentence after judgment and sentence had already been affirmed on direct appeal.  Section 2255 functions much like the writ of habeas corpus, though it applies only to those convicted in federal court.  Emmett’s clients were two pharmacists who also owned a medical clinic.  They were convicted at trial of three counts of health-care fraud and one count of conspiracy to commit health-care fraud.  The government alleged that the petitioners had defrauded Medicaid and several managed-care organizations in their billing for certain prescriptions, counselling sessions, and other services.

Success rates on § 2255 motions are low.  Statistics are hard to come by, but Department of Justice data for one year—1995—show that federal district courts dismissed 65% of all § 2255 motions.  For the 35% of § 2255 motions that were not dismissed, district courts entered judgment in favor of petitioning defendants only 13% of the time.  In other words, the overall success rate for petitioning defendants was just under 4.6%.  And that number is likely even lower today, given that Congress passed AEDPA—a statute that further restricts the availability of § 2255 relief—in 1996.  But here the district court, while keeping the convictions in place, vacated both petitioners’ sentences and ordered resentencing based on arguments that trial counsel provided ineffective assistance by failing to properly challenge certain aspects of the loss amount attributed to the petitioners.  This loss amount was key to calculating petitioners’ sentencing ranges under the United States Sentencing Guidelines.