Purvis v. U.S.

In habeas petition challenging, among other things, defendant's career offender sentence where defendant had subsequently sought and received state-court vacatur of guilty plea to conviction that had been used to support said status, Dist. Ct. erred in failing to stay consideration of habeas petition pending resolution of state court proceedings on vacated conviction and in finding that: (1) defendant's career-offender status claim was untimely; and (2) defendant's only remedy was filing of request to seek authorization to file successive habeas petition once state-court proceeding regarding said conviction was resolved. While State argued that career-offender status claim was untimely since defendant waited 12 years from date of state-court conviction to seek vacatur, defendant acted diligently where he attacked state-court conviction only 15 months after Dist. Ct. imposition of subject career-offender status. Moreover, although defendant had filed instant habeas petition prior to seeking vacatur of state-court conviction, Dist. Ct. had authority to stay resolution of habeas petition in order to allow defendant to seek said vacatur in state court. Accordingly, remand was required for determination of career-offender status claim given fact that state-court conviction has now been vacated.