United States of America v. Hosseini

Filing 23

MEMORANDUM ORDER Signed by the Honorable Milton I. Shadur on 4/21/2014. Mailed notice(cdh, )

IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE NORTHERN DISTRICT OF ILLINOIS
EASTERN DIVISION
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff,
v.
AMIR HOSSEINI,
Defendant.

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Case No. 13 C 2472
(05 CR 254)

MEMORANDUM ORDER
Amir Hosseini ("Hosseini") has earlier instituted a timely 28 U.S.C. § 2255 ("Section
2255") motion, claiming that his conviction and sentence had resulted from what he labels as the
constitutionally ineffective assistance provided by the counsel who had represented him. After
this Court had ordered, and the United States had filed, a response to that motion in accordance
with Rule 5(a) of the Rules Governing Section 2255 Proceedings for the United States District
Courts ("Section 2255 Rules"), this Court issued a brief June 25, 2013 memorandum order that
allowed Hosseini to file a reply (see Section 2255 Rule 5(d)). But although Hosseini did file
such a timely reply, no judge's copy was ever transmitted to this Court, nor was it apprised that
such a filing had been made.
Regrettably a combination of events caused an unprecedented breakdown in the systems
that this Court has long established to maintain order and continuity in the hundreds of cases on
its civil and criminal calendars. Internally this Court suffered the concurrent loss of its two
invaluable staff people who had always combined to carry out the administrative responsibility
for monitoring those calendars (its secretary of more than three decades' service succumbed to a
terminal illness and her ultimate death from a fatal disease that caused her, over an extended
period of time, to work only sporadically, with only temporary secretarial and office

management assistance available to fill in the gaps, while at the same time its courtroom deputy
of some two decades' service followed this Court's urging that she apply to work instead for a
newly-appointed colleague -- the risks of remaining with a superannuated senior judge are
obvious -- and that colleague was wise enough to choose her).
Those things alone would not have caused the breakdown that occurred. Unfortunately
the District Court's Clerk's Office has never established a procedure that might have been
expected in an organization such as this one: the automatic transmission to each district judge of
a judge's copy of every filing that has not been matched by a litigant's delivery as required by
this District Court's LR 5.2(f) -- a deficiency that is particularly troubling where a litigant is
acting pro se (as is the case with Hosseini) and cannot reasonably be expected to be aware of
such LR requirements.
As a result this Court was never delivered a copy of the August 14, 2013 filing by
Hosseini captioned as his "Supplemental Pleading Addressing Prejudice Under Strickland v.
Washington." It has only been through inquiries received from Hosseini's family that this Court
learned of, and has then obtained a copy of, that filing. In that filing Hosseini urges that an
evidentiary hearing is required to deal with the subject raised by this Court's earlier
memorandum order and his reply. That contention should clearly be addressed, and under the
circumstances this Court intends to do so as soon as is feasible. To that end the first step is to
obtain the government's statement of position on the matters raised by Hosseini's reply, and it is
ordered to do so on or before May 12, 2014. This Court will then determine what ensuing
procedures are called for.

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Milton I. Shadur
Senior United States District Judge
Date: April 21, 2014
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