What § 2255(f)(2) Asks Beyond a Missing Library

A missing set of federal law books does not, by itself, open a new year to file a motion under 28 U.S.C. § 2255. On September 11, 2020, the Sixth Circuit applied that limit in Simmons v. United States, No. 19-1757 (Read the decision (PDF)). The court assumed a thin library could count as a government impediment. It still affirmed the dismissal, because Ronrico Simmons, Jr., did not allege facts showing that the gap is what kept him from filing on time.

The deadline he missed

Simmons pleaded guilty in the Eastern District of Michigan. The judgment was entered on September 8, 2016. He did not file a notice of appeal. The parties did not dispute the district court's finding that the judgment became final on September 22, 2016, fourteen days later. Fed. R. App. P. 4(b)(1)(A).

Under § 2255(f)(1), the ordinary deadline was one year after that date: September 22, 2017. He filed the motion on August 13, 2018. The same day, he asked the court to treat the filing as timely under § 2255(f)(2).

What the statute requires

Section 2255(f)(2) starts the year on "the date on which the impediment to making a motion created by governmental action in violation of the Constitution or laws of the United States is removed, if the movant was prevented from making a motion by such governmental action."

The Sixth Circuit read that sentence as three allegations the prisoner has to make:

• an impediment to making the motion
• governmental action, in violation of the Constitution or laws of the United States, that created the impediment
• a causal connection: the impediment prevented the filing

A later trigger does not apply on its own. The default start date is still § 2255(f)(1). The person who wants a later date has to allege the facts that move it.

What Simmons alleged

He said the Michigan Department of Corrections and the Wayne County Jail had no federal materials, no § 2255 form, and no copy of the limitations rules. He said he did not get those materials until September 27, 2017, when he entered Bureau of Prisons custody. He later admitted that he had arrived at Federal Detention Center Milan on August 29, 2017.

He attached affidavits from himself and from a jailhouse law clerk. The clerk wrote that he could understand why Simmons waited until he reached FCI Milan to ask a law clerk for help. The court read that comment as a suggestion that the state-library claim was not what stopped an earlier filing.

Why the allegations failed

The court did not decide the outer bounds of a library claim. For this case, it assumed that a lack of federal materials to challenge a conviction or confinement, together with no legal-assistance program, was an unconstitutional impediment under § 2255(f)(2). It pointed to Lewis v. Casey, 518 U.S. 343 (1996), and Bounds v. Smith, 430 U.S. 817 (1977). Lewis holds there is no freestanding right to a law library. The access right is a right to the tools to attack a sentence or the conditions of confinement.

An assumed impediment still did not move the clock. Simmons had to allege why that gap prevented an earlier filing. A bare statement that the lack of access "prevented" the motion was not enough. The court asked whether he had tried to use the library, or to get help, before the ordinary deadline. Because the papers did not allege that connection, the court held that an evidentiary hearing was unnecessary and affirmed.

What to check before using (f)(2)

• Write down the ordinary date under § 2255(f)(1) first. The limitations page covers the appeal period and the time to seek review in the Supreme Court. Simmons had no appeal, so the court used the fourteen-day deadline and then one year.
• Section 2255(f)(2) is not the newly discovered facts rule in § 2255(f)(4). It is also not equitable tolling. Each path has its own facts.
• If the excuse is a government roadblock, say what the government did, why that conduct violated the Constitution or a federal law, and how that specific roadblock stopped the filing before the ordinary deadline.
• This is Sixth Circuit law. The opinion discussed other circuits, including the Seventh Circuit's statement that a missing library is an impediment only if the person wanted or needed it. A court outside the Sixth Circuit follows its own cases.
• The Rules Governing Section 2255 Proceedings still control how the motion is filed. A missing form matters under (f)(2) only when the papers connect that gap to the missed deadline.

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