In an opinion by Judge Kearse, the Circuit ruled in United States v. Jacques, No. 20-1762(L) (2d Cir. July 26, 2021), that a district court lacks authority under Rule 36 (of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure) to correct a clerical error in the judgment while an appeal is pending in the Circuit from the court’s denial of the defendant’s prior Rule 36 motion. This simply applies the general rule that “the filing of a notice of appeal confers jurisdiction on the court of appeals and divests the district court of its control over those aspects of the case involved in the appeal.” Op. 14.
Although Rule 36 states that the court “may at any time correct a clerical error in the judgment,” the Circuit reads this as “meant literally in the temporal sense, rather than in a situational sense.” That is, Rule 36 empowers a court to correct …