Controlled Federal Process Glossary
These are routing definitions. Each definition is bounded by its source map and cannot replace the linked canonical claim, current authority, jurisdiction, or procedural posture.
| Term | Controlled definition | Canonical source | Claim |
|---|---|---|---|
| Abuse of discretion | An appellate-review label whose content depends on the issue and governing authority; it is not a substitute for identifying legal, factual, and procedural components. | Review Briefing And Anders | CLM-REVIEW-014 |
| Administrative exhaustion | Completion or required use of an agency review path before judicial relief; its source, character, waiver, excuse, and remedy must be identified for the particular claim. | Administrative Remedies And Judicial Review | CLM-BOPAR-016 |
| Anders procedure | The appellate procedure used when appointed counsel concludes an appeal is frivolous, subject to the governing Supreme Court and circuit process. | Review Briefing And Anders | CLM-REVIEW-030 |
| Appeal waiver | An agreement term whose text, knowing-and-voluntary record, scope, exceptions, government invocation, and controlling circuit law must be analyzed. | Notice Jurisdiction And Record | CLM-APPEAL-018 |
| Audita querela | A residual common-law writ claimed as gap filling; availability and any genuine gap require current controlling circuit authority. | Extraordinary Writs Coram Nobis Audita Querela And Mandamus | CLM-XWRIT-020 |
| Binding authority | Authority controlling the court and issue in the actual jurisdiction and posture, subject to later statutory, rule, en banc, or Supreme Court change. | Supreme Court | module-level control |
| BOP administrative remedy | The federal Bureau of Prisons review process in 28 C.F.R. part 542; it is an agency path and does not itself decide every judicial exhaustion question. | Administrative Remedies And Judicial Review | CLM-BOPAR-001 |
| Certificate of appealability | The statutory appellate gate in 28 U.S.C. § 2253(c), classified by the proceeding and source of detention rather than by the word habeas alone. | 2241 Appeal And Relief | CLM-2241-001 |
| Claim-processing rule | A mandatory procedural rule when properly invoked that is not necessarily a limit on subject-matter jurisdiction. | Rule 33 New Trial | CLM-R33-009 |
| Compassionate release | The § 3582(c)(1)(A) modification vehicle, with a Bureau or defendant motion route and statutory defendant-motion gate. | Section 3582 Remedy Router | CLM-3582-008 |
| Controlling circuit | The federal court of appeals whose published current law governs the district court or appeal in the actual case. | Index | module-level control |
| Coram nobis | An extraordinary criminal postjudgment writ for a bounded no-custody posture under Supreme Court and controlling circuit law; it is not an automatic substitute for § 2255. | Extraordinary Writs Coram Nobis Audita Querela And Mandamus | CLM-XWRIT-016 |
| Direct appeal | Review from an appealable criminal judgment or order through the current appellate rules and jurisdiction statutes. | Index | module-level control |
| Finality | A context-specific legal status; the event relevant to appeal, § 2255 limitations, retroactivity, or another rule must be identified rather than treated as one universal date. | Rehearing Mandate Certiorari And Finality | CLM-FINAL-019 |
| First Step Act time credits | Credits earned under § 3632(d)(4) and applied, if separately eligible, under § 3624(g); earning and application are distinct. | First Step Act Time Credits | CLM-FTC-004 |
| Good-conduct time | Credit under 18 U.S.C. § 3624(b), distinct from days physically served and from First Step Act time credits. | Good Conduct Time | CLM-GCT-002 |
| Harmless error | A review framework whose burden and formulation depend on the preserved error and governing source. | Review Briefing And Anders | CLM-REVIEW-009 |
| Immediate custodian | The default proper respondent for a core challenge to present physical custody, ordinarily the facility warden. | 2241 Filing Jurisdiction Respondent And Exhaustion | CLM-2241F-011 |
| Jurisdiction | The court's legal power to adjudicate the proceeding; it must not be conflated with venue, personal-jurisdiction-like habeas limits, merits, or a claim-processing rule. | Index | module-level control |
| Local rule | A court's current local procedural rule, used with the national statute or rule and checked for current amendments and standing orders. | Index | module-level control |
| Mandate | The court of appeals' formal act returning or concluding authority under Appellate Rule 41; it is distinct from judgment entry and certiorari timing. | Rehearing Mandate Certiorari And Finality | CLM-FINAL-010 |
| Mootness | The Article III requirement for a live, redressable dispute throughout litigation, analyzed against the actual injury and requested relief. | 2241 Saving Clause Custody And Mootness | CLM-2241S-030 |
| New judgment | A judgment classification relevant to later-application analysis; the actual judgment and scope of resentencing must be examined under controlling authority. | 2255 Later Filings Classification And Authorization | CLM-SOS-003 |
| Plain error | The appellate framework for forfeited error under Rule 52(b), with separate required showings rather than automatic relief. | Review Briefing And Anders | CLM-REVIEW-011 |
| Precedential publication status | Whether an opinion is published and binding in the relevant court system; publication does not cure jurisdictional mismatch or later negative treatment. | Index | module-level control |
| Procedural default | A bar or limitation based on failure to raise a claim at the required time, subject to the governing vehicle's cause, prejudice, innocence, waiver, and jurisdiction rules. | 2255 Default Innocence And Ineffective Assistance | CLM-2255D-001 |
| Remand | An appellate disposition returning a matter to a lower court with instructions or a defined scope; it is not the same as final merits relief. | Rehearing Mandate Certiorari And Finality | CLM-FINAL-012 |
| Remedy | The legally authorized relief tied to the proven violation and decisionmaker; eligibility for a vehicle is not entitlement to every requested outcome. | Index | module-level control |
| Rule 33 motion | A defendant's federal criminal new-trial motion, with separate filing periods for newly discovered evidence and other grounds. | Rule 33 New Trial | CLM-R33-003 |
| Rule 35 | The criminal rule containing a narrow court-correction route and government-motion sentence-reduction routes; subsection, trigger, and timing control. | Rules 35 36 And Modification Appeals | CLM-R3536-001 |
| Rule 36 | The rule permitting correction of a clerical error in a judgment, order, or record, not a general substantive resentencing vehicle. | Rules 35 36 And Modification Appeals | CLM-R3536-028 |
| Saving clause | Section 2255(e)'s limited clause addressed by Jones v. Hendrix; it is not a general route around § 2255 restrictions. | 2241 Saving Clause Custody And Mootness | CLM-2241S-001 |
| Second or successive | A statutory classification that is not equivalent to second in time and depends on judgment, claim, ripeness, and prior disposition. | 2255 Later Filings Classification And Authorization | CLM-SOS-001 |
| Standard of review | The appellate lens for the specific issue, preservation status, and posture; a case can contain different standards for different questions. | Review Briefing And Anders | CLM-REVIEW-001 |
| Supervised release | A post-imprisonment component of the federal sentence governed principally by § 3583, distinct from parole and from imprisonment. | Commencement Conditions Modification Termination And Transfer | CLM-SRTERM-001 |
| Venue | The legally proper geographic place for a prosecution or proceeding; it is distinct from subject-matter jurisdiction and from § 2241's custodian rule. | Federal Charging And Commencement | CLM-CHARGE-028 |
| Waiver | Intentional relinquishment or an agreement-based limit whose source, scope, record, exceptions, and government invocation must be identified. | Notice Jurisdiction And Record | CLM-APPEAL-018 |
| § 2241 | The federal habeas statute used in several custody postures; respondent, district, exhaustion, merits, and remedy depend on the custody and claim classification. | 2241 Filing Jurisdiction Respondent And Exhaustion | CLM-2241F-001 |
| § 2255 | The federal prisoner's sentencing-court motion vehicle for the grounds and remedies stated in the statute, subject to custody, timing, procedural, and later-application rules. | 2255 Initial Motion And Limitations | CLM-2255-001 |
| § 3582(c)(2) | A sentence-modification vehicle for a qualifying retroactive Guidelines reduction consistent with Commission policy, not a plenary resentencing. | Section 3582 Remedy Router | CLM-3582-018 |
Use rule
When a term has different meanings across statutes, rules, circuits, or postures, use the exact governing source and full phrase rather than this shorthand. Terms marked by a module-level control require proposition-level research before being used as law.