## Facts

- Jacob Denedo, a lawful permanent resident and U.S. Navy servicemember, was charged under the UCMJ with conspiracy, larceny, and forgery related to a fraud scheme.
- Denedo pleaded guilty to reduced charges pursuant to a plea agreement limiting maximum confinement at a special court-martial.
- A military judge accepted the plea as knowing and voluntary and imposed confinement, reduction in rank, and a bad-conduct discharge.
- The Navy–Marine Corps Court of Criminal Appeals (NMCCA) affirmed; the conviction became final under the UCMJ, and Denedo was discharged.
- After removal proceedings were initiated years later, Denedo sought to set aside the conviction, alleging ineffective assistance of counsel based on incorrect advice that the plea carried no deportation risk.
- Denedo filed a petition for a writ of error coram nobis in the NMCCA under the All Writs Act; the NMCCA found jurisdiction but denied relief on the merits.
- The Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces (CAAF) held the NMCCA had jurisdiction and remanded for further proceedings on the ineffective-assistance claim.

## Issues

1. Whether the Supreme Court has jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1259(4) to review a CAAF decision that reverses and remands in coram nobis proceedings.
2. Whether Article I military appellate courts have jurisdiction to entertain coram nobis petitions collaterally challenging final court-martial convictions they previously reviewed.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court held it had subject-matter jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1259(4) because the CAAF’s reversal and remand constituted “relief.”
- The Court held military appellate courts may entertain coram nobis petitions attacking their prior, final judgments when the writ is “in aid of” their existing statutory jurisdiction.
- The Court rejected the argument that UCMJ finality provisions categorically bar coram nobis review.
- The Court affirmed the CAAF’s judgment and left the merits of Denedo’s ineffective-assistance claim to the military courts on remand.

## Legal Principles

- “Relief” in 28 U.S.C. § 1259(4) includes a CAAF decision that reverses a service court and remands for further proceedings.
- The All Writs Act authorizes writs only “in aid of” a court’s existing jurisdiction; it does not independently create subject-matter jurisdiction.
- Coram nobis is treated as a further step in the original criminal case and is available only for errors of a fundamental character in extraordinary circumstances.
- A military appellate court that exercised statutory jurisdiction over a court-martial on direct review may, in appropriate circumstances, consider coram nobis directed at that same judgment even after finality under the UCMJ.
- UCMJ finality provisions (including Articles 73 and 76) do not automatically extinguish all authority to correct fundamental defects through extraordinary writs.

## Conclusion

The Court held that the Supreme Court may review a CAAF reversal-and-remand as “relief” under § 1259(4) and that military appellate courts retain limited coram nobis jurisdiction, under the All Writs Act and in aid of their prior review authority, to consider fundamental-error challenges to final court-martial convictions.


United States v. Denedo, 556 U.S. 904 (2009)