All around scumbag Gregory Dean Banister committed an act of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, and got his dumb ass sent up the river for 30 years as a result. He struck and killed a bicyclist with his car.
He didn’t consent to a blood draw, but they did one anyway, and found cocaine in his system. So he’s arguing his rights were denied. But he also thought his attorney fucking sucked, because he failed to file a motion for this, as well as failed to investigate the weather at the time, presumably because he’s arguing the weather was shit, and that’s how he hit the guy.
He filed a habeas petition, which basically means, he feels he’s being unlawfully detained by the prison system.
So anyway, he was denied on the merits, which basically means they felt his argument was fucking garbage. This occurred on May 15, 2017. On June 12, 2017, Banister tried again, because according to Federal Rule 59(e) you have to file within 28 days of your judgement, and so he did. But here’s the rub. He filed an amendment to his first appeal, not a new one.
So he filed again on July 20, 2017. Eventually, they decided that he had passed the 28 day limit to file, because he filed an amended claim as opposed to a new one, which seems kinda shady if you ask me. Basically, they’re saying that the claims are more than 28 days apart, whereas Banister is like, “Fuck you, my amendment is effectively an appeal. I can’t file a new appeal until you asshole decided on my amended one.
I mean, fuck Banister, that piece of shit. But still, he kinda has a point.
Anyway, now SCOTUS has to decide if an amended habeas petiton counts as a successive habeaus petition.
Despite Banister being a total piece of shit, SCOTUS decided 7:2 in his favor. That a rule 59(e) motion is not a successive habeas petititon, and thus Banister’s appeal was within the time he’s given to do so.
Read about the case below for a more detailed analysis.
https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/habeas_corpus
The Logical Libertarian™ 