HAYWOOD WILLIAMS, JR., PETITIONER V. UNITED STATES OF AMERICA No. 90-6780 In The Supreme Court Of The United States October Term, 1990 On Petition For A Writ Of Certiorari To The United States Court Of Appeals For The Fourth Circuit Brief For The United States In Opposition OPINION BELOW The opinion of the court of appeals (Pet. App. A1-A2) is not published, but the judgment is noted at 915 F.2d 1566 (Table). JURISDICTION The judgment of the court of appeals was entered on September 28, 1990. The petition for a writ of certiorari was filed on December 26, 1990. The jurisdiction of this Court is invoked under 28 U.S.C. 1254(1). QUESTION PRESENTED Whether the district court abused its discretion in summarily dismissing petitioner's motion to reconsider a prior motion to vacate his sentence under 28 U.S.C. 2255. STATEMENT Following a jury trial in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, petitioner was convicted of conspiring to possess heroin and cocaine with intent to distribute them, in violation of 21 U.S.C. 846; engaging in a continuing criminal enterprise (CCE), in violation of 21 U.S.C. 848; three counts of engaging in interstate travel to promote, manage, and facilitate the distribution of a Schedule I controlled substance, in violation of 18 U.S.C. 1952(a)(3); possessing heroin with intent to distribute it, in violation of 21 U.S.C. 841(a)(1); and distributing heroin, in violation of 21 U.S.C. 841(a)(1). He was sentenced to concurrent terms of fifteen years' and life imprisonment (without possibility of parole) on the conspiracy and CCE convictions, respectively. On the remaining convictions, he was sentenced to a total of 45 years' imprisonment, to run consecutively to the life sentence. The court of appeals affirmed. United States v. Williams, 661 F.2d 929 (4th Cir. 1981) (Table), cert. denied, 462 U.S. 1135 (1983). /1/ The instant petition involves petitioner's third collateral attack on the 1980 conviction. 1. In a petition for a writ of habeas corpus filed soon after his conviction was affirmed, petitioner argued, inter alia, that: (1) he was insane at the time of arraignment, because he had been adjudicated incompetent to stand trial on other charges in 1972; (2) the court-ordered psychiatric examination in 1980 was procedurally unfair and led to an inaccurate assessment of his mental health; and (3) his attorney was ineffective. The district court denied relief, concluding that petitioner "was granted a fair trial with ample opportunity to present his defenses." Williams v. United States, Civ. No. 84-560-N (E.D. Va. Sept. 18, 1984), slip op. 8. The court found that petitioner had received "a more than adequate opportunity to adjudicate mental (competency)" and "a thorough presentation" of his insanity defense to the jury. Slip op. 2-3. In its view, "(t)he record of the trial, particularly the numerous written motions filed by (petitioner) himself, demonstrate that (he) was perfectly aware of the nature of the proceedings and able to actively participate in his own defense." Id. at 5. The court further noted that all of petitioner's challenges to the psychiatric examination had been rejected at trial or on direct appeal. Id. at 5-6. Finally, the court found petitioner's claim of ineffective assistance of counsel "frivolous," noting that he received "thorough" representation "well within the range of competence," and that he had been "more than unusually demanding of his lawyer, requesting him to file numerous motions on various theories of defense." Id. at 7. The court of appeals found petitioner's appeal "without merit" and affirmed the denial of relief, Williams v. United States, 771 F.2d 79 (4th Cir. 1985), and this Court denied review, 475 U.S. 1023 (1986). 2.a. Petitioner next filed a motion to vacate his sentence under 28 U.S.C. 2255. Petitioner raised 25 claims in that motion, but the district court addressed only the three he listed on the printed form furnished prisoners for filing Section 2255 motions: that an ex parte order for a psychiatric examination violated the Fifth and Sixth Amendments, that the resulting examination was inadequate, and that petitioner had been arraigned while incompetent and without effective assistance of counsel. The district court dismissed the claims regarding petitioner's mental competency and the procedural adequacy of the competency hearing on the ground that they had been decided adversely to him on direct appeal and were successive under Rule 9(b) of the Rules Governing Proceedings under Section 2255. Williams v. United States, CRNo. 80-14-N (E.D. Va. Nov. 7, 1988), slip op. 3-4. /2/ The district court did consider petitioner's claim of ineffective assistance of counsel, because the court of appeals had declined to reach it on direct appeal. Slip op. 4. After "thoroughly review(ing) the transcript of petitioner's competency hearing . . . and the record as a whole," the court found that counsel's representation of petitioner at the competency hearing and at trial "was both zealous and competent and well within the wide range of reasonable professional assistance." Id. at 5, 6. The court explained that, at the competency hearing, counsel "fully exercised (petitioner's) right to cross-examine all of the witnesses offered by the government" and called an expert for the defense; that counsel "diligently developed petitioner's defense of mental incompetency at trial and at the time of the offense"; that the trial court found petitioner competent to stand trial only "(a)fter reviewing the medical reports of the examining psychiatrists, and considering the testimony given at the hearing"; and that the jury was properly instructed on the defense of mental incapacity. Id. at 4-6. /3/ b. As relevant here, the court of appeals affirmed the district court's denial of relief. United States v. Williams, 892 F.2d 75 (4th Cir. 1989) (Table), cert. denied, 110 S. Ct. 1956 (1990). /4/ Although the district court had not specifically addressed 22 of petitioner's claims or ordered the government to respond to the motion, the court of appeals concluded, "after careful consideration" of the trial and appellate records, that none of the claims entitled petitioner to relief. Slip op. 9-11. The court found that most of those additional claims had either been "raised on direct appeal, or raised in an earlier post conviction proceeding, and rejected," but that to the extent they had not been, they were "without merit." Id. at 11-12. The court of appeals discussed petitioner's claim of ineffective assistance of counsel at some length. Slip op. 12-17. Although it found that most of the errors and omissions that petitioner alleged were "without support in the record," it agreed that counsel should have requested the appointment of a toxicologist to offer expert testimony on the effects of drug abuse, moved for a defense expert to assist in preparing an insanity defense and cross-examining government experts, and better prepared a defense witness called to testify about petitioner's mental state during the period covered by the indictment. Id. at 12-13. But the court held that petitioner had not satisfied the prejudice prong of the ineffective-assistance-of-counsel test under Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668, 694 (1984), by showing that there is a reasonable probability that but for counsel's errors, the result of the trial would have been different. Indeed, the court found that the evidence of petitioner's guilt was "overwhelming" and that he "had no viable defense." Slip op. 14, 16, 17. Thus, the court of appeals noted that there was "an abundance" of testimony from heroin users regarding the effects of the drug, as well as testimony about petitioner's ability to function during the relevant period; and that petitioner testified that he carried himself in such a way that even people who knew him did not realize he was an addict -- "a clear contradiction of the theory of defense that (petitioner) submits should have been offered." Id. at 14. In the court's view, petitioner's defense of mental incapacity was further damaged by his testimony that, during the relevant period, he sold synthetic heroin that he had prepared from a formula furnished by a chemist inmate, and by one witness's "devastating testimony" that petitioner planned to show that he was insane by "'jump(ing) on the table, throw(ing) something at a judge, pull(ing) down his pants and do(ing) his business on the floor.'" Id. at 14-15. The court of appeals also cited the rebuttal testimony of Dr. Herbert Eisaman, a psychiatrist who had examined petitioner, concerning evaluations of petitioner's competency from January, 1973, through April, 1979, the period covered by the indictment. According to Dr. Eisaman, the entire forensic staff at his medical center had concluded that petitioner "was responsible and did not suffer from a mental illness" during that time, and the neurosurgeon who had performed encephalographic and other examinations had concluded that petitioner did not have narcolepsy. Ibid. The court noted that Dr. Eisaman's acknowledgement on cross-examination that the psychiatrists and a psychologist had disagreed about petitioner's mental state during an examination in 1971-1972 insured that the jury had before it evidence of a prior diagnosis of incompetency. Id. at 15-16; see pages 14-17, infra. 3.a. After the court of appeals affirmed the denial of petitioner's motion under Section 2255, he filed a motion in the district court for "reconsideration and to vacate convictions." In that motion, petitioner claimed that (1) he had not validly waived a commitment hearing, the right to be present at such a hearing, or the right to an independent mental examination by a defense psychiatrist of his choice; (2) the trial court erred in failing to order a mental competency hearing under 18 U.S.C. 4244 to determine the voluntariness of the waivers, even though he had not requested such a hearing; and (3) he was denied effective assistance of counsel with respect to the waivers and commitment hearing. The district court treated petitioner's motion as one filed pursuant to 28 U.S.C. 2255 and denied it as successive under Rule 9(b). Pet. App. B1-B3. It reasoned that the motion "essentially attacks the constitutionality of his competency hearing" and the effectiveness of his attorney, issues that had already been "carefully considered by this Court and by the Court of Appeals." Pet. App. B2-B3. The court further ruled that, to the extent petitioner raised new challenges to the competency hearing, he should have raised them in his previous motion, because they arose from the same set of facts. Accordingly, the court found that petitioner's failure to raise any such issues in the previous motion was "inexcusable" and "an abuse of the procedures under 28 U.S.C. 2255." Pet. App. B3. b. After conducting its own review of the record, the court of appeals affirmed. Pet. App. A1-A2. ARGUMENT The court of appeals' unpublished order of affirmance correctly disposed of petitioner's latest motion to set aside his conviction, and that order does not conflict with any decision of this Court or of another court of appeals. Moreover, this Court has previously denied certiorari in other cases in which petitioner has raised the same or related claims. Further review therefore is especially unwarranted. 1. Petitioner, a frequent litigator, /5/ contends (Pet. 5) that the district court erred in dismissing his motion to reconsider the denial of his motion under 28 U.S.C. 2255 to vacate his sentence. Rule 9(b) of the Rules Governing Proceedings under Section 2255 authorizes a district court to dismiss a second or subsequent motion if it raises claims that were either fully resolved against the movant in a prior proceeding or were omitted from a prior motion under circumstances constituting "an abuse of the procedure governed by these rules." See Sanders v. United States, 373 U.S. 1, 9-10, 17-18 (1963). A successive motion is abusive if the movant failed to include a claim in an earlier motion as a result of either deliberate choice or inexcusable neglect. Moore v. Zant, 885 F.2d 1497, 1505 (11th Cir. 1989) (en banc; plurality opinion), cert. denied, 110 S. Ct. 3255 (1990); cf. Wong Doo v. United States, 265 U.S. 239, 241 (1924) (failure to offer proof of claim during hearing on initial application for writ of habeas corpus is abuse of writ where proof "was accessible all the time"). The question whether a second or subsequent motion may be dismissed without a hearing is "addressed to the sound discretion of the federal trial judges." Sanders, 373 U.S. at 18. In this case, the district court properly exercised its authority to dismiss petitioner's motion. Petitioner had challenged his attorney's effectiveness and his competency to stand trial on direct appeal, in his petition for a writ of habeas corpus, and in his motion under Section 2255. His most recent motion contained nothing more than variations on those themes, and the district court therefore properly denied it under Rule 9(b). Petitioner's effort (Pet. 5, 8) to avoid the consequences of the prior denials of relief by claiming that he was "laboring under the disability of legal insanity" when he filed them is a familiar refrain in petitioner's filings in this and other cases, and it has been repeatedly rejected. /6/ In fact, petitioner's filing of successive Section 2255 motions is itself a practice in which he has engaged for many years with respect to his other federal convictions. See, e.g., Williams v. United States, 481 F.2d 339, 342 (2d Cir.) (noting that, "(i)n the years following his direct appeal from (his) 1964 (narcotics) conviction, (petitioner) filed no less than six motions pursuant to 28 U.S.C. 2255 in the New York and Virginia federal courts"), cert. denied, 414 U.S. 1010 (1973); United States v. Williams, 753 F.2d 1072 (4th Cir.) (Table) (dismissing petitioner's appeal from order denying as abusive his third Section 2255 motion challenging 1979 conviction), cert. denied, 474 U.S. 829 (1985). Against this background, the district court, which was fully familiar with petitioner's practice of renewing and recasting challenges to his various convictions and sentences, acted well within its discretion in dismissing his latest Section 2255 motion. As this Court observed in Sanders, 373 U.S. at 18, "(n)othing in the traditions of habeas corpus requires the federal courts to tolerate needless piecemeal litigation, or to entertain collateral proceedings whose only purpose is to vex, harass, or delay." 2. Petitioner argues (Pet. 8-13) that before dismissing his motion, the district court should have ordered the United States Attorney to respond and should have notified him of its intention to dismiss. This claim is without merit, especially in the circumstances of this case. As petitioner concedes (Pet. 13), Rule 4(b) of the Section 2255 Rules requires the judge summarily to dismiss the motion "(i)f it plainly appears from the face of the motion and any annexed exhibits and the prior proceedings in the case that the movant is not entitled to relief in the district court." Only if the motion survives that test must the court "order the United States Attorney to file an answer or other pleading." Ibid. The Advisory Committee Note to Rule 4(b) confirms that "(t)he judge has discretion to require an answer or other appropriate response from the United States Attorney," and refers to the Note to Rule 4 of the Section 2254 Rules, which in turn recognizes that "it is the duty of the court to screen out frivolous applications and eliminate the burden that would be placed on the respondent by ordering an unnecessary answer." The latter Note also points out that while "(i)t has been suggested that an answer should be required in every habeas proceeding," such a requirement is premised in part upon "the usual petitioner's lack of legal expertise" (emphasis added). See also Price v. Johnston, 334 U.S. 266, 292 (1948) (habeas corpus procedures need most scrutiny when petitioners are "unlearned in the law and unfamiliar with the complicated rules of pleading"). /7/ Here, it was obvious from the pleadings and prior proceedings that petitioner was not entitled to relief. It was also obvious that petitioner was not the typical pro se petitioner who may be in need of special solicitude. None of the decisions of other courts of appeals upon which petitioner relies (Pet. 13) for the proposition that the district court should notify the movant before dismissing a motion under Section 2255 involved an experienced litigant who, like petitioner, was fully familiar with the power of the court to dismiss a motion as successive or abusive where and for whom the giving of notice therefore would have been a mere formality. See Manning v. Warden, Louisiana State Penitentiary, 786 F.2d 710 (5th Cir. 1986); Miller v. Solem, 758 F.2d 144 (8th Cir. 1985), cert. denied, 481 U.S. 1054 (1987); Robinson v. Fairman, 704 F.2d 368 (7th Cir. 1983); United States v. Gutierrez, 839 F.2d 648 (10th Cir. 1988). /8/ Moreover, petitioner's motion here, unlike those in the cases just cited, was cast primarily as one to reconsider the district court's denial of his prior motion under Section 2255, rather than as a new and independent motion under Section 2255. A district court should have especially broad discretion to deny such a reconsideration motion where the movant seeks only to reargue claims that the court previously denied. Finally, this Court denied certiorari in Williams v. United States, 474 U.S. 829 (1985), where petitioner likewise claimed lack of notice and a government response in connection with an order denying as abusive his third Section 2255 motion to vacate a separate conviction (for a firearms violation) in 1979. /9/ There is no reason for a different disposition here. 3. In any event, petitioner could not have prevailed on his motion to reconsider, because the claims it raised were devoid of merit. Petitioner essentially contended once again that he was incompetent in 1980, a status that in his view had continued since 1972, and that his attorney was ineffective in protecting his rights as an incompetent defendant. A brief review of the history of petitioner's allegations about his mental state reveals that these premises are unfounded. As we explained in our brief in opposition (at 7-9) in Williams v. United States, cert. denied, 474 U.S. 829 (1985), in which petitioner claimed continuing incompetency and ineffective counsel in connection with a 1979 firearms conviction: In 1956, petitioner was convicted on narcotics charges in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia. Subsequent events are described in an exhaustive opinion of the district court dated January 6, 1982 on petitioner's motion, filed in 1980, to set aside that 1956 conviction. United States v. Williams, Crim. No. 11-150 (1956) (E.D. Va.) ("Williams I"), aff'd, No. 82-6113 (4th Cir. Apr. 7, 1983), cert. denied, 464 U.S. 859 (1983). Petitioner did not take a direct appeal from his 1956 conviction. However, after he was convicted of narcotics offenses as a second offender in the Southern District of New York in 1964, petitioner unsuccessfully brought a collateral attack on the 1956 conviction in 1967. Williams I, slip op. 5, 12. In 1971, petitioner was indicted for perjury based on his testimony in those collateral proceedings that he was not in the courtroom when the jury was impaneled at his 1956 trial. Id. at 21. Petitioner was committed to the Medical Center for Federal Prisoners in Springfield, Missouri in 1971 for a medical examination concerning his competency to stand trial on the perjury indictment. The medical staff recommended that petitioner be found competent to stand trial, but the district court thereafter determined that he was not competent, and it remanded him to the Medical Center at Springfield in March, 1972, pursuant to 18 U.S.C. 4246. It apparently is this determination by the district court in 1972 upon which petitioner relies in contending . . . that he previously had been adjudicated incompetent to stand trial. However, soon after petitioner was remanded to the Medical Center, a five-member staff committee at the Center, in a report dated July 5, 1972, unanimously concluded that petitioner was thoroughly competent to stand trial and to assist his counsel in his defense. But in the meantime, it seems that the government had developed doubts about the possibility of success in prosecuting petitioner for perjury, and the perjury indictment was dismissed on the government's motion in August 1972. Williams I, slip op. 21-23. Petitioner was subsequently convicted of state offenses for which he received consecutive sentences totaling 32 years. Williams I, slip op. 2. In 1979, he was convicted of the federal firearms charge noted above and was sentenced to a two-year prison term, to run consecutively to the state sentence. Id. at 1. In the second of three Section 2255 motions petitioner filed in connection with the 1979 conviction, he claimed for the first time that he had been insane at the time of the offense and incompetent to stand trial because of narcotics withdrawal, pathological intoxication, and narcolepsy. Id. at 3-4. The district court dismissed the motion, the court of appeals affirmed, United States v. Williams, 691 F.2d 498 (4th Cir. 1982) (Table), and this Court denied review, Williams v. United States, 460 U.S. 1046 (1983). In his third Section 2255 motion, petitioner attempted to excuse his failure to raise certain issues in his prior motions on the ground that he had been under a mental disability when he filed them. The court dismissed the motion for abuse of the writ after considering all the claims and finding them meritless. The court of appeals dismissed the appeal and, as previously noted, this Court denied review. In light of this background and the evidence presented at the competency hearing held in connection with the 1980 trial, petitioner simply cannot show that he was incompetent to stand trial in 1980. /10/ CONCLUSION The petition for a writ of certiorari should be denied. Respectfully submitted. KENNETH W. STARR Solicitor General ROBERT S. MUELLER, III Assistant Attorney General VICKI S. MARANI Attorney APRIL 1991 /1/ On direct appeal, petitioner argued, inter alia, that: (1) his counsel was ineffective; (2) the district court improperly denied his motions for further mental examination and appointment of an expert witness, additional counsel, and an investigator; and (3) the district court erred in instructing the jury on specific intent. See Appellant's Br. Nos. 80-5117 & 80-6614 (4th Cir.). /2/ Rule 9(b) provides: A second or successive motion may be dismissed if the judge finds that it fails to allege new or different grounds for relief and the prior determination was on the merits or, if new and different grounds are alleged, the judge finds that the failure of the movant to assert those grounds in a prior motion constituted an abuse of the procedure governed by these rules. /3/ The court rejected petitioner's claim that amnesia had impaired his ability to defend himself. It noted that his claim of amnesia during the period covered by the indictment was "discredited by (his) own testimony at trial," which "clearly reveals that (he) recalls places, persons, and events" from that period. Slip op. 7-8. The court similarly found petitioner's allegation that he experienced narcolepsy "neither credible nor supported by the evidence," recalling its record finding at trial that petitioner "was merely feigning sleep and was awake and alert throughout the course of the trial." Id. at 8. /4/ The court of appeals vacated the district court's order to the extent it denied relief on petitioner's claim that he could not properly be punished on both the conspiracy and CCE counts, and it remanded with instructions to vacate the sentence on the conspiracy conviction. Slip op. 11-12 (citing Jeffers v. United States, 432 U.S. 137, 154-158 (1977)). /5/ The court of appeals clerk's office has advised us that, in the last four years alone, petitioner has filed no fewer than 24 motions, applications, petitions, and appeals in connection with this and other matters. Our research into his litigation history, only portions of which are discussed in this brief, reveals that he has been similarly prolific in challenging convictions from each of the past four decades. /6/ See, e.g., United States v. Williams, CRNo. 11-150 (1956) (E.D. Va.) (in denying petitioner's Section 2255 challenge to his 1956 conviction, district court rejected his contention that he had been mentally incompetent when he filed earlier collateral attacks on that conviction), aff'd, 707 F.2d 511 (4th Cir.) (Table), cert. denied, 464 U.S. 859 (1983); Williams v. United States, Civ. No. 84-251-N (E.D. Va. 1984) (in dismissing as abusive petitioner's successive Section 2255 motion concerning 1979 conviction, district court rejected as "frivolous" his attempt to excuse failure to raise issues previously on ground that "he has been laboring under a mental disability from 1956 up until and including the present date"; court noted that petitioner had "extensive background in litigation" and had filed one action in 1979, seven in 1980, and seven in 1981), aff'd, 753 F.2d 1072 (4th Cir.) (Table), cert. denied, 474 U.S. 829 (1985); Williams v. City of Portsmouth, 538 F. Supp. 74, 76 (E.D. Va.) (in rejecting petitioner's attempt to evade state statute of limitations in personal injury action by invoking exception for persons of unsound mind, court noted that he had not been incompetent since 1972), aff'd, 692 F.2d 754 (4th Cir. 1982) (Table); id., 538 F. Supp. at 76 (quoting Williams v. City of Norfolk, 81-923-N (E.D. Va. Jan. 19, 1982) (court noted that since 1972, petitioner "has been tried and convicted on two occasions in this Court and one occasion in the state court. In a trial which took place in this Court in July of 1980, (petitioner) again raised the question of his competency; as a result of which, he was examined by two local psychiatrists and was sent to Springfield, Missouri, for psychiatric evaluation. The Court determined that he was competent but the issue of his competency to have criminal intent was nevertheless submitted to the jury and the jury by convicting (petitioner) determined that he was mentally competent"). /7/ Molina v. Rison, 886 F.2d 1124 (9th Cir. 1989), and Ward v. United States, 694 F.2d 654 (11th Cir. 1983), cited by petitioner (Pet. 13), are not to the contrary. In Molina, the Ninth Circuit held that the issue whether Molina's third Section 2255 motion was abusive was not properly before the court of appeals because the government had not raised that issue in the district court or on appeal. In Ward, the Eleventh Circuit similarly held that where the government does not raise in the district court the issue of a Section 2255 motion's successiveness, and the district court proceeds to the merits, the court of appeals will also decide the merits, unless the government shows that the district court abused its discretion in reaching the merits. /8/ Petitioner also cites (Pet. 13) Johnson v. Copinger, 420 F.2d 395 (4th Cir. 1969), which held that before a motion pursuant to 28 U.S.C. 2254 may be dismissed for failure to raise the claims in a prior motion, the petitioner must be given notice and an opportunity to be heard. However, in United States v. Oliver, 865 F.2d 600 (4th Cir.), cert. denied, 110 S. Ct. 98 (1989), the court distinguished Copinger on the ground that it was decided before the adoption of the Section 2254 Rules and that the district court in Copinger had dismissed the motion on the basis of only a partial record of the petitioner's state court proceedings. In any event, an intra-circuit conflict does not warrant this Court's review. Wisniewski v. United States, 353 U.S. 901, 901-902 (1957). /9/ We explained in our brief in opposition there (at 12-13): (I)t was not unreasonable for the district court to decline to insist upon a responsive pleading from the government before dismissing the petition in its entirety, including (the) new claims. The district court observed . . . that petitioner had filed numerous actions in the preceding two years and thus was fully familiar with applicable procedures. For example, in the proceedings on petitioner's 1980 motion to set aside his 1956 conviction, the district court . . . specifically invited the government to move to dismiss petitioner's motion as successive . . ., and he was repeatedly urged in each collateral attack on the 1956 conviction to present all his claims in one filing. . . . Thus, petitioner was well aware prior to the date on which he filed his second and third motions under 28 U.S.C. 2255 to set aside his 1979 firearm conviction that such motions may be dismissed for abuse of the writ. Indeed, apparently recognizing as much, petitioner attempted to excuse his failure to raise his new claims in prior filings on the ground that he was under a mental disability and did not previously have the assistance of counsel . . .. However, the district court rejected these purported justifications . . .. Because petitioner attempted to justify his patent abuse of the writ, he cannot now be heard to complain that the court's failure to request a response from the government deprived him of an opportunity to present a justification. In short, there was no unfairness in the dismissal of petitioner's third motion for collateral relief by the courts below, which have had ample experience with petitioner's repeated filings. /10/ Petitioner has recently appealed a district court order denying yet another motion for relief from his 1980 conviction. United States v. Williams, No. 90-7400 (4th Cir.). In an informal brief filed in the court of appeals in December 1990, petitioner argued (at 4), inter alia, that (1) he was denied due process and equal protection when he was arraigned and tried after having been found "mentally incompetent to stand trial," and (2) the district court's "failure to provide a written declaration of restored competency prior to arraignment and trial articulating its factual findings . . . and conclusions of law and the evidence relied on and the reasons for the finding of restored competency . . . was a violation" of his constitutional and statutory rights.