United States v. Hamid

On the facts of this case, appellee Hamid had a right to appointment of counsel as a matter of due process under the Fifth Amendment. Thus, we must reach the merits of his ineffective assistance claim. However, because counsel pursued the Rule 35 motion in accordance with the law of this jurisdiction at the time — treating the 120-day limit as a filing deadline, not as a jurisdictional limit on the trial court’s authority to act — he cannot be held constitutionally ineffective. Accordingly, I too, would reverse.

I

I agree with my colleagues that, given Wainwright v. Torna, 455 U.S. 586, 102…