Vitrano v. U.S.

Dist. Ct. erred in treating defendant's motion to amend his habeas petition as improper successive petition and then dismissing his original habeas petition under circumstances where none of claims made in defendant's original habeas petition were contained in proposed amended petition. While Dist. Ct. has broad discretion to construe proposed amended petition as disguised successive petition under circumstances where defendant had abandoned his original petition, Dist. Ct. could not make instant ruling where there had been no final ruling with respect to defendant's original habeas petition. Accordingly, remand was required for determination as to whether motion to amend was filed in bad faith, and if so, whether defendant should be required to proceed solely on allegations contained in original petition.