McNally v. Hill
Is it still good law? What later courts have actually done to this case.
Status
More on how this was screened
Peyton v. Rowe then expressly overruled McNally and held that a prisoner serving consecutive sentences is in custody under any one of them for federal habeas purposes. In re Bashaw separately held that Vermont's post-conviction statute displaced the McNally release-only rule for Vermont petitions by expanding the available remedies. The remaining post-Peyton opinions merely repeated the Supreme Court's history and did not create additional treatments. Where CourtListener lists the same opinion more than once, it appears here only once.
582 later cases cite McNally v. Hill; 112 of those citations sat close to treatment language and were flagged for reading, and all of them have been read. Citations that did not sit near treatment language were not flagged and were not read one by one, so a court that weakened this case without using any of that language would not appear here.
Relying on McNally v. Hill?
This page shows what later courts did to it. Ask about your specific facts and see whether it still carries your argument, with citations you can check.
Treatments
Overruled
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The Supreme Court expressly overruled McNally's prematurity rule and held that a prisoner serving consecutive sentences is in custody under any one of them for federal habeas purposes.
Peyton v. Rowe · Supreme Court of the United States · filed
We overrule McNally and hold that a prisoner serving consecutive sentences is “in custody” under any one of them for purposes of § 2241 (c)(3).
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Superseded by Statute
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The Vermont Supreme Court held that the state's post-conviction relief statute displaced McNally's release-only rule for Vermont petitions because the statute authorized release, retrial, or resentencing.
In re Bashaw · Supreme Court of Vermont · filed
But the McNally rule is no longer applicable. First, the enactment of the post conviction relief statute, 13 V.S.A. § 7133, enlarged the remedy beyond mere release. The prisoner may be released, retried or resentenced, as is appropriate under the facts and law applicable to his petition.
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Declined to Follow
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The Fourth Circuit declined to follow McNally's rule against habeas review of an unserved sentence, concluding that intervening Supreme Court decisions had eroded the rule where other convictions restricted the prisoner's parole prospects.
Williams v. Peyton · Fourth Circuit · filed
We noted that McNally v. Hill, supra, decided that a sentence which a prisoner had not begun to serve did not satisfy the statutory requirement of "custody," even though a result of the challenged sentence was to thwart the prisoner's eligibility for parole. It was our view, however, that Jones v. Cunningham, 371 U.S. 236, 83 S.Ct. 373, 9 L.Ed.2d 285 (1963), and Fay v. Noia, 372 U.S. 391, 83 S.Ct. 822, 9 L.Ed.2d 837 (1963), had eroded the apparently flat holding in the McNally case to the extent that we concluded that Martin's two subsequent convictions, barring his eligibility for parole, rendered him "in custody" within the meaning of 28 U.S.C.A. § 2241.
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