Notice and appeal deadlines
Donald Edward Smith v. United States
In brief
- Where it stands
- Petition Pending
Awaiting an order on the petition
- What it’s about
- Donald Edward Smith asks the Supreme Court to review his claim that the Eleventh Circuit enforced a 21-day deadline after mailing an order denying a certificate of appealability (permission to appeal) to his old address, despite receiving his address change, and then refused corrective relief.
- What's at stake
- Whether Smith can get a remedy after the 21-day deadline remains unresolved.
Summary: written with AI from the case record.
What it's about
The petition was sent to a conference, which does not mean the Court agreed to hear it.
Smith’s petition asks whether the missed notice violated his right to fair process and whether the appeals court’s rules allowed it to provide a remedy.
Question presented
1. Whether due process permits a federal court of appeals to enforce a twenty-one-day deadline for reconsideration of a certificate-of-appealability denial when the Clerk received and file-stamped a pro se litigant’s change-of-address notice before the denial issued, but the court mailed the dispositive order to the superseded address and the litigant therefore received no timely notice of the order or the deadline. 2. Whether a federal court of appeals may refuse all corrective relief, without addressing the documented notice failure, where the court’s own rules authorize extensions of court-rule deadlines for good cause, subject to Federal Rule of Appellate Procedure 26(b), and authorize recall of a mandate to prevent injustice.
What happens next
The Court must decide whether to hear the case. The petition was distributed for a Dec. 4, 2026 conference, but that does not guarantee an order or decision on that date.
Documents
Docket activity
New analysis added
AI analysis generated: Case Briefing
Case data updated: summary, question_presented, generation_metadata
Case data updated: question_presented, extraction_metadata
Brief added: Petition
Sources
Primary materials plus reporting. Best-effort analysis: this explainer relies on a mix of primary materials and trusted secondary sources. Official filings and opinions remain authoritative.