TRAC-Reports
December 2016 Prisoner Petitions to Vacate Sentences
(20 Jan 2017) The latest available data from the federal district courts show that during December 2016 the number of new civil actions filed to vacate federal sentences appear to have fallen back to more typical levels since actions spiked in June 2016.

A surge in these prisoner petitions occurred following the U.S. Supreme Court's April 2016 decision that provided a new basis for challenging sentences of some individuals who had been convicted under the Armed Career Criminal Act.

Federal court records compiled by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse at Syracuse University show that during June 2016, filings of motions to vacate sentence peaked at 13,254.

During December 2016, these filings had dropped to a total of 541. This number is around the same number as the 587 petitions that had been filed one year earlier in December 2015.

For the full report, including a monthly time line, go to:

http://trac.syr.edu/tracreports/civil/456/

Each month, TRAC offers a report focused on one area of civil litigation in the U.S. district courts. In addition, subscribers to the TRACFed data service can generate custom reports by district, office, nature of suit or federal jurisdiction. To start, go to:

http://trac.syr.edu/interpreter?tab=civil

If you want to be sure to receive notification whenever updated data become available, sign up at:

http://tracfed.syr.edu/cgi-bin/tracuser.pl?pub=1

or follow us on Twitter @tracreports or like us on Facebook:

http://facebook.com/tracreports

TRAC is self-supporting and depends on foundation grants, individual contributions and subscription fees for the funding needed to obtain, analyze and publish the data we collect on the activities of the US Federal government. To help support TRAC's ongoing efforts, go to:

http://trac.syr.edu/cgi-bin/sponsor/sponsor.pl

Customized queries of TRAC's data TRAC FBI Web Site TRAC DEA Web Site TRAC Immigration Web Site TRAC IRS Web Site TRAC ATF Web Site TRAC Reports Web Site FOIA Project Web Site
Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, Syracuse University
Copyright 2017
TRAC What's New TRAC