Case Citator › In Re James Davenport and Sherman Nichols

In Re James Davenport and Sherman Nichols

Is it still good law? What later courts have actually done to this case.

Overruled
Court
Seventh Circuit
Citation
147 F.3d 605
Decided
Confirmed treatments
2
Flagged citations read
55 of 55
Citing cases (total)
55
Treatment dates
2011–2023
Overruled
A reviewed court has overruled this case. In re Davenport's rule allowing a federal prisoner to use a § 2241 petition after an intervening change in statutory interpretation has been overruled; all 55 flagged citations have been read, and the 2 confirmed treatments are listed below. The Tenth Circuit earlier declined to follow Davenport's approach to prior circuit precedent.
More on how this was screened

The Supreme Court then rejected the saving-clause approach in Jones v. Hendrix. Later district courts described and applied Jones; their accounts of the Supreme Court's ruling do not add separate treatments.

Every treatment on this page is written from the citing opinion itself, with a verbatim quote, never copied from a commercial citator. A citation flagged by our screen but not shown here was read and found not to weaken this case.

55 later cases cite In Re James Davenport and Sherman Nichols; 55 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 In Re James Davenport and Sherman Nichols?

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

  • The Supreme Court rejected Davenport's rule that a prisoner barred from a successive § 2255 motion could use § 2241 when a later statutory interpretation displaced circuit precedent that had prevented an earlier challenge.

    Jones v. Hendrix · Supreme Court of the United States · filed

    This application of the saving clause took shape in In re Dorsainvil, 119 F. 3d 245, 251 (CA3 1997); Triestman v. United States, 124 F. 3d 361, 378–380 (CA2 1997); and In re Davenport, 147 F. 3d 605, 609–611 (CA7 1998), and it was later adopted by most of the other Circuits. ... We now hold that the saving clause does not authorize such an end-run around AEDPA.
    Read the full opinion on CourtListener →

Declined to Follow

  • The Tenth Circuit rejected Davenport's view that adverse circuit precedent makes an initial § 2255 motion inadequate and permits a later § 2241 petition.

    Prost v. Anderson · Tenth Circuit · filed

    Mr. Prost emphasizes that the Seventh Circuit has used the erroneous circuit foreclosure test, see In re Davenport, 147 F.3d 605, 610 (7th Cir.1998), and that the test has been employed by a couple other courts, see, e.g., Wofford v. Scott, 177 F.3d 1236, 1244 (11th Cir.1999); Reyes-Requena v. United States, 243 F.3d 893, 904 (5th Cir.2001). But Mr. Prost (and the concurrence) overstate the test’s acceptance and offer no persuasive reason to adopt it.
    Read the full opinion on CourtListener →

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