The U.S. Supreme Court is giving a federal appeals court another chance to review a Florida prison inmate's immigration case due to a mix-up on mailing addresses.

A rare confession of error by the U.S. Office of Solicitor General to the U.S. Supreme Court gives the pro se Jamaican inmate another chance to persuade the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit to reject his removal from the country.

Andrew Brown claimed the Eleventh Circuit incorrectly dismissed his appeal as untimely after the federal Board of Immigration Appeals mailed its final decision on his removal to the wrong prison, which kept him from meeting the filing deadline.

In the Supreme Court, U.S. Solicitor General Noel Francisco told the justices that the immigration board and the government now agree the mail went to the wrong address.

Although confessions of error at the Supreme Court are uncommon, Brown's case was remarkable for another reason: Many records in his case are sealed or not otherwise easily accessible. The government's brief confessing error was not publicly accessible on the Supreme Court's online docket.

Brown, a lawful permanent resident since 2012, was convicted in 2015 of two counts of cocaine trafficking and sentenced to eight years on each count. The immigration board issued its final denial  July 13, 2018, and mailed it to the Wakulla Correctional Institution. Brown, however, was at the Liberty Correctional Institution.

The delay in receiving the board's decision caused Brown, who previously notified the board of his change of address, to miss the 30-day window for an appeal to the Eleventh Circuit. When he filed his appeal in September 2018, he attached documents showing the board's mistake, but the governmen brief argued the "untimely filing" should not be excused on the ground that the board's decision "was not properly served on him."

The government acknowledged "the board sent notice of its decision to the Wakulla Correctional Institution" but contended the record was "ambiguous" as to whether Wakulla was the right address.

The government also argued Brown had "not presented any definitive evidence" that "he was 'unaware' of the decision until it was too late." The appellate court dismissed Brown's appeal, concluding the board's original decision was mailed to the correct address — Liberty — based on the mistaken view that a Liberty label was placed there by the board. That label, Brown argued, was a forwarding label placed by a Wakulla prison official.

Francisco told the Supreme Court that the Justice Department now agrees the board mailed its original decision to the wrong address and Brown's description of events was accurate. The board, acting on its own legal authority, reissued its removal decision Feb. 27, giving Brown a fresh 30 days to file his appeal.

On Monday, the Supreme Court, acting on Francisco's recommendation, granted Brown's petition for review, vacated the Eleventh Circuit's decision and remanded the case to the appellate court.

Whether Brown actually gets a new 30-day window to appeal is unclear, according to immigration scholar Nancy Morawetz, co-director of New York University Law School's immigration rights clinic. She said the government could argue on remand that Brown should have filed a new appeal in the Eleventh Circuit within 30 days of the board's reissued decision, or by March 26. The Eleventh Circuit, she added, should treat the Supreme Court's April 20 order as foreclosing that argument.

Many files in Brown's case are not easily available to the public. Federal civil procedure and appellate rules issued in 2009 impose restrictions on access to immigration filings in federal courts. The rules are an attempt to balance public access and protection of privacy interests.

The Justice Department's Supreme Court brief confessing error was not accessible on the court's electronic docket or the solicitor general's website. The U.S. Supreme Court's iconic building in Washington has remained closed to the public for weeks, limiting any public access to the clerk's office.

Morawetz, in a blog post Monday, lamented the secrecy in Brown's case.

"The net result is that the Department of Justice, which succeeded in persuading the Eleventh Circuit to dismiss Mr. Brown's case, has engineered a reversal of that decision that does not in any way make the department answerable for the position it took below," Morawetz wrote. "Meanwhile, the positions of the Justice Department and the ways that they deprive pro se individuals of their opportunity for judicial review are unavailable to the public."

Brown's case, she said, shows "how bad things are" in immigration litigation. "Our workaround has been individual [Freedom of Information Act] requests, but those take time," she said. "I think that the lack of transparency in immigration litigation is a real problem."

As of late Tuesday, the Eleventh Circuit's April 20 docket entry for Brown's case showed his Supreme Court petition had been denied. The court fixed the error after The National Law Journal called about the entry. The docket notation now says Brown's petition at the high court was granted.

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