Boyd: Latest 2255 motion not second or successive

In Boyd v. U.S., No. 11-15643 (June 18, 2014), the Court (Tjoflat, J. & Moore & Schlesinger, b.d.), the Court reversed the dismissal of a federal inmate’s motion under 28 U.S.C. § 2255. Boyd had filed several prior motions under § 2255, but the Court explained that his latest one was not “second or successive” and therefore limited by AEDPA, because they were filed after one of his prior state convictions was vacated, and therefore raised an argument he could not have raised before. In addition, two of Boyd’s prior § 2255 motions were not reviewed on the merits, but dismissed (erroneously) for being second or successive. These prior § 2255 motions therefore did not make the latest one second or successive.