Alireza Bakhtiari v. United States

This Court holds a defendant’s right to plead guilty knowingly, voluntarily and intelligently in highest regard and comes back to it once every decade. Bousley v. US, 523 U.S. 614 (1998) is a monumental case in those series. Yet, district courts and federal circuits are split as to whether a district court has “discretion” to grant, or withhold from, a criminal defendant the very fundamental due process rights discussed in Bousley. Does a district court - or any court to that matter - have such discretionary authority?

After this Court’s decision in US v. Morgan, 346 U.S. 502 (1954), the circuits diverge in defining and applying the Coram Nobis jurisdictional requirement of “civil disability.” Some circuits say even the need to clear one’s name satisfies this requirement. Others require substantially more. And in some courts, as in this petitioner’s case, the district court acknowledged existence of a genuine on-going “civil disability” but denied jurisdiction under Coram Nobis per its discretion. Which one of these three approaches is correct determination of “civil disability” for Morgan and Coram Nobis purposes.

In Bousley, this Court instructed that in order to show “actual innocence” after a retroactive substantive ruling from this Court, a former criminal defendant has to show they are actually innocent of “more serious charges.” Post Bousley, the circuits have diverged drastically; some circuits have expanded this plain text to both “equally serious” and “more serious” charges. In some others, such as the petitioner’s case, the district court entirely refused to take on Bousely’s analysis (comparison of seriousness of forgone charges) and called it discretionary. Which one of these three approaches is correct application of Bousley! ■ii‘