What happened
Justice Sonia Sotomayor said the U.S. Supreme Court denied certiorari after the government acknowledged an error in invoking a timeliness defense against Michael Lairy's bid to undo a sentence that exceeded the statutory maximum.
The statement accompanying the denial said Lairy's prison sentence for unlawful handgun possession was five years longer than the applicable statutory maximum. Lairy sought relief under 28 U.S.C. § 2255, but the government argued, and the courts below held, that his motion was untimely.
That posture changed at the Supreme Court. Sotomayor wrote that the government told the justices its decision to invoke the statute-of-limitations defense below was an inadvertent error, and that it promised to "correct its oversight by waiving the limitations defense in district court."
The government also represented that it has a policy of waiving such defenses in cases involving undisputed legal ineligibility for an enhanced noncapital sentence — meaning a sentence above the applicable statutory maximum, according to the statement.
After that representation, the district court granted Lairy's Section 2255 motion and released him. Sotomayor said she concurred in the denial of certiorari in light of the government's policy and because Lairy had received all the relief he requested.
The matter appears significant less for a new merits ruling than for the Supreme Court-facing acknowledgment that the government should not have pressed a limitations defense against an undisputedly excessive noncapital sentence. The supplied record does not include the lower-court decisions or briefing needed to assess how broadly that policy may affect other prisoners.