Oakes v. United States

SELYA, Circuit Judge.

Petitioner-appellant David J. Oakes, a person incarcerated by reason of a previous conviction on federal child pornography charges, appeals from the dismissal of his petition to vacate his conviction and sentence. The district court based its decision on procedural default even though the government had failed to raise that defense in its response to Oakes’s petition. In a challenge that frames a question of first impression in this circuit, Oakes now posits, inter alia, that the district court lacked the authority to interject the question of procedural default into the…