Montez Terriel Lee, Jr. v. United States of America

United States Court of Appeals
For the Eighth Circuit
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No. 24-2017
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Montez Terriel Lee, Jr.
Petitioner - Appellant
v.
United States of America
Respondent - Appellee
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Appeal from United States District Court
for the District of Minnesota
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Submitted: May 14, 2025
Filed: August 8, 2025
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Before BENTON, KELLY, and GRASZ, Circuit Judges.
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KELLY, Circuit Judge.
Montez Lee, Jr., pleaded guilty to federal arson and was sentenced to 120
months in prison. His initial judgment deferred a determination of restitution, and
after several months, the district court amended Lee’s judgment to include restitution
in the amount of $842. When Lee filed a motion to vacate his sentence one year later,
the district court dismissed it as time barred. See 28 U.S.C. § 2255(f). The district
court concluded that the one-year limitations period applicable to Lee’s claim was

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triggered by his initial judgment, not the amended judgment adding restitution, and
as a result, Lee’s § 2255 motion came too late. We granted a certificate of
appealability, and we reverse and remand.
I.
On May 28, 2020, during a protest in Minneapolis arising out of the murder
of George Floyd, Lee burned down a Max It Pawn Shop. Lee and some of his friends
entered the shop, which had already been looted, and Lee lit the building on fire.
Two months later, law enforcement found the body of a man named O.L.S. in the
charred rubble.
Lee was charged with arson on property used in interstate commerce, in
violation of 18 U.S.C. § 844(i), and he pleaded guilty in July 2021. As his sentencing
approached, the parties at first prepared to dispute whether Lee’s arson caused
O.L.S.’s death and, in turn, whether he would receive a 14-level cross-reference
enhancement under the United States Sentencing Guidelines. See USSG
§§ 2K1.4(c)(1), 2A1.2. However, just days before the sentencing hearing, Lee’s
attorney changed course, stipulating that the enhancement applied.
Lee was sentenced on January 14, 2022. The district court applied the cross-
reference, varied downward from a Guidelines range of 235 to 240 months, and
sentenced Lee to a 120-month term of imprisonment. The district court also noted
that restitution was mandatory, see 18 U.S.C. § 3663A, but that it would be imposed
at a later date because no victim had yet requested it, see 18 U.S.C. § 3664(d)(5)
(providing 90-day period for victims’ losses to be determined for restitution
purposes). In response, the government indicated that O.L.S.’s family would be
requesting $842 and asked for one week for the parties to “submit . . . documents
and get this resolved.” The district court agreed to “hold the matter open” for two
weeks “and . . . not finalize that issue” until the restitution amount had been
confirmed.

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On January 19, 2022, an initial judgment was entered against Lee, explicitly
deferring a “determination of restitution . . . until January 28, 2022.” A few days
later, the parties filed a joint motion noting that “[t]he Defendant has agreed to pay
restitution in the amount of $842.” But this was not reflected in Lee’s sentence until
April 13, 2022, when the district court entered an amended judgment adding the
restitution obligation.
Lee did not appeal either iteration of his judgment. But on April 27, 2023, one
year and fourteen days after the amended judgment issued in his case, Lee filed a
motion to vacate his sentence under 28 U.S.C. § 2255. Lee alleged ineffective
assistance of counsel—namely, that his lawyer had stipulated to the cross-reference
enhancement without Lee’s consent, and despite knowing of evidence that O.L.S.
had not been killed by the fire Lee started.
On the government’s motion, the district court dismissed Lee’s motion. The
district court concluded that the statute of limitations began to run on Lee’s § 2255
motion two weeks after the imposition of Lee’s initial deferred-restitution judgment,
and thus his conviction became final on February 2, 2023. To the district court, the
fact that Lee’s judgment was amended several months later to add restitution was of
no matter, because “[f]or the purposes of [28 U.S.C. §] 2255(f)(1), the triggering
event is the sentencing judgment, not the subsequent amended judgment ordering
restitution.”
The district court denied Lee’s requests for reconsideration and for a
certificate of appealability. However, we granted a certificate of appealability to
address whether Lee’s amended judgment affected the beginning of the limitations
period for his § 2255 claim. Our review is de novo. Odie v. United States, 42 F.4th
940, 944 (8th Cir. 2022).

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II.
A.
Section 2255 imposes “[a] 1-year period of limitation . . . to a motion under
this section.” 28 U.S.C. § 2255(f). The period runs “from the latest of” a series of
events, including, as relevant here, “the date on which the judgment of conviction
becomes final.” Id. § 2255(f)(1). Because “in a criminal case . . . . [t]he sentence is
the judgment,” the federal postconviction “limitations period d[oes] not begin until
both [the] conviction and sentence ‘bec[o]me final.’” Burton v. Stewart, 549 U.S.
147, 156–57 (2007) (first quoting Berman v. United States, 302 U.S. 211, 212
(1937); and then quoting 28 U.S.C. § 2244(d)(1)(A)).
“Finality is variously defined; like many legal terms, its precise meaning
depends on context.” Clay v. United States, 537 U.S. 522, 527 (2003). In the “context
[of] postconviction relief,” the Supreme Court has defined finality as the conclusion
of the availability of direct review. Id.; see also Burton, 549 U.S. at 156 (defining
finality in the context of federal postconviction relief as “the date on which the
judgment became final by the conclusion of direct review or the expiration of the
time for seeking such review” (quoting 28 U.S.C. § 2244(d)(1)(A))).1 A defendant
must file a notice of appeal of a criminal judgment within fourteen days of its entry,
Fed. R. App. P. 4(b)(1)(A)(i), and Lee filed his § 2255 motion one year and fourteen
days after his amended judgment adding restitution was entered. Accordingly,
determining which judgment in Lee’s case constituted “the [final] judgment of
conviction” under § 2255(f)(1) requires asking which judgment marked the date on
which Lee’s sentence became final and the time to seek direct review of his
underlying conviction expired.
1 While separate statutes govern a one-year limitations period for seeking
postconviction relief from state versus federal convictions, compare 28 U.S.C.
§ 2244(d)(1), with 28 U.S.C. § 2255(f)(1), the Supreme Court has adopted a
“uniform federal rule” when interpreting their definitions of finality. Clay, 537 U.S.
at 530–32.

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Lee argues that his sentence was incomplete until the district court imposed a
specific restitution obligation, and thus his judgment was not “final” within
§ 2255(f)(1)’s meaning until its amendment in April 2022. In turn, the government
argues that any addition of restitution was separate from and immaterial to the
finality of the judgment of conviction in Lee’s case, so it should not influence
§ 2255(f)’s limitations period. These competing views are reflected in a split among
our sister circuits on this issue. Compare United States v. Anthony, 25 F.4th 792,
799 (10th Cir. 2022) (concluding that “restitution . . . is necessarily part of the
judgment of conviction for § 2255 purposes” and that “a judgment of conviction
becomes final for § 2255 limitations purposes when there is no further avenue for
direct appeal of any portion of the sentence, including restitution”), and Gonzalez v.
United States, 792 F.3d 232, 239 (2d Cir. 2015) (per curiam) (holding that “the
AEDPA clock does not start to run until the restitution order becomes final”), with
United States v. Gilbert, 807 F.3d 1197, 1200 (9th Cir. 2015) (holding that § 2255’s
limitations period is triggered when the time expires to directly appeal an initial
“sentence of incarceration coupled with an unspecified amount of restitution”).
In line with the Second and Tenth Circuits, we conclude that Lee’s judgment
of conviction only became final for purposes of § 2255’s statute of limitations once
his judgment was amended to add restitution. The parties do not dispute—and we
agree—that restitution is part of a defendant’s criminal sentence. See Manrique v.
United States, 581 U.S. 116, 118 (2017) (“Sentencing courts are required to impose
restitution as part of the sentence for specified crimes.” (emphasis added)); Dyab v.
United States, 855 F.3d 919, 922 (8th Cir. 2017) (discussing “the restitution portion
of [a defendant’s] sentence” (emphasis added)). Indeed, the Supreme Court has
emphasized that “[b]y deferring restitution, the court is declining to announce a
sentence.” Manrique, 581 U.S. at 124. Because the “sentence is the judgment” for
purposes of finality in federal postconviction proceedings, Burton, 549 U.S. at 156
(quoting Berman, 302 U.S. at 212), the natural conclusion is that Lee’s judgment

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was incomplete—and thus not “the . . . final” judgment under § 2255(f)(1)—until it
was amended to include the restitution part of his sentence.2
Likewise, it was not until after Lee’s judgment was amended that he lost the
ability to directly appeal his underlying conviction. This conclusion follows from
the Supreme Court’s decisions in Corey v. United States, 375 U.S. 169 (1963) and
Manrique. Corey concerned a criminal statute3 that at the time allowed the
sentencing court to first commit a defendant to the “maximum sentence of
imprisonment prescribed by law” and then revisit that sentence months later to
determine whether to change it. Corey, 375 U.S. at 171–72 (citation omitted). There,
the Court held that the initial judgment was immediately appealable if the defendant
so chose, but that the defendant could instead choose to wait to take an appeal until
the court revisited his sentence. Id. at 174–76. The Court acknowledged that the first
sentence was “freighted with sufficiently substantial indicia of finality to support an
appeal.” Id. at 175. But “the fact remain[ed] that the proceedings in the trial court
[were] not actually terminated until after the . . . final sentence.” Id. The Court
stressed that there were practical reasons a defendant might want to wait until a final
sentence had been imposed before challenging his conviction—including the
possibility that “the trial court’s knowledge [of] an appeal . . . might adversely
influence the court’s discretion in imposing final sentence.” Id. Corey held that
“[l]ong-accepted and conventional principles of federal appellate procedure require
recognition of the defendant’s right to await the imposition of final sentence before
seeking review of the conviction.” Id. at 176.
In Manrique—a case about deferred restitution—the Supreme Court expressly
left Corey’s holding undisturbed. There, the Court held that an initial judgment
2 While not dispositive, it is telling that Lee’s initial judgment explicitly
announced its incompleteness, claiming that “[t]he determination of restitution is
deferred,” and that “[a]n amended judgment in a criminal case . . . will be entered
after such determination.”
3 See 18 U.S.C. § 4208(b) (1958) (repealed 1987).

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deferring restitution was itself directly appealable, but was nonetheless insufficient
to “invoke appellate review of [a] later-determined restitution amount.” Id. at 118,
120–23. The Supreme Court concluded that “deferred restitution cases involve two
appealable judgments, not one.” Id. at 123. Thus, as a “mandatory claim-processing
rule,” a defendant who had appealed the initial judgment to challenge his conviction
would need to file a second appeal to challenge any restitution added in an amended
judgment after the first appeal. Id. at 122–23. Importantly, however, in rejecting the
idea that an initial appeal of a deferred-restitution judgment could “spring forward,”
the Supreme Court clarified that it “d[id] not intend to call into question th[e] . . .
decision in Corey . . . holding that a defendant may challenge his conviction after a
single notice of appeal filed from a final sentence imposed under [18 U.S.C.]
§ 4208(b).” Id. at 123 n.* (emphasis added).
Together, Corey and Manrique instruct that Lee could have waited to appeal
his conviction (and custodial sentence) until after his amended judgment was filed.
Corey involved a specific criminal statute not at issue here, but Corey’s logic, as re-
articulated in Manrique, applies equally to deferred-restitution cases. Manrique
clarified that in deferred-restitution cases, “[b]y deferring restitution, the court is
declining to announce a sentence.” Id. at 124. In other words, when the district court
defers restitution, “the fact remains that the proceedings in the trial court [have] not
actually terminated.” See Corey, 375 U.S. at 175. Accordingly, consistent with
“[l]ong-accepted and conventional principles of federal appellate procedure,” a
defendant with a deferred-restitution judgment may choose to wait until “the
imposition of final sentence”—here, via the addition of restitution—“before seeking
[direct] review of the conviction.”4 Id. at 176.
4 Indeed, the dissent in Manrique appeared to assume—without any indication
from the majority to the contrary—that a defendant could challenge his underlying
conviction by appealing the amended judgment. See Manrique, 581 U.S. at 126
(Ginsburg, J., dissenting) (noting that “when a restitution determination has been
deferred,” a defendant could either separately appeal both the initial and amended
judgments “or . . . await the restitution order and then appeal, through a single notice,
his conviction, sentence of imprisonment, and restitution order”); see also United
States v. Shehadeh, 962 F.3d 1096, 1099–100 (9th Cir. 2020) (noting that “two

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We conclude that while “a defendant who wishes to appeal an order imposing
restitution in a deferred restitution case must file a notice of appeal from that [later]
order,” Manrique, 581 U.S. at 125, a defendant wishing to appeal his conviction may
do so either initially or after the judgment is amended.5 Because Lee could have
challenged both his underlying conviction and sentence by appealing the amended
judgment that added restitution, “the conclusion of direct review or the expiration of
the time for seeking such review” did not occur until after that amended judgment’s
issuance in Lee’s case. Burton, 549 U.S. at 156–57 (quoting 28 U.S.C.
§ 2244(d)(1)(A)); see also Jimenez v. Quarterman, 555 U.S. 113, 120 (2009)
(holding that a judgment ceased to be “final” for purposes of federal postconviction
proceedings after a state court “restore[d] the pendency of the direct appeal”
(alteration in original and citation omitted)). Section 2255’s limitations period was
thus not triggered until April 27, 2022—fourteen days from the amended judgment,
when Lee lost the ability to file a direct appeal. Lee’s § 2255 motion, filed exactly
one year later, is timely.
B.
Resisting this conclusion, the government raises several arguments.
justices appear to have read Manrique to allow” this result, while “the majority did
not present a contrary view”).
5 In drawing this conclusion, we join every circuit to have considered the
question. See United States v. Muzio, 757 F.3d 1243, 1250 (11th Cir. 2014) (holding
that while “a judgment imposing a prison sentence and restitution but leaving the
specific amount of restitution unsettled is immediately appealable,” “if the defendant
chooses to do so, he may avoid bifurcation of his appeal by waiting until restitution
has been resolved to appeal”); Gonzalez, 792 F.3d at 237 (same); Anthony, 25 F.4th
at 803–05 (same); Shehadeh, 962 F.3d at 1099 (holding that “where a district court
defers its restitution order, a defendant wishing to appeal his conviction and sentence
of imprisonment may enter a notice of appeal either within fourteen days following
the district court’s entry of the custodial sentence, or within fourteen days of the
entry of the amended judgment” adding restitution).

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First, relying on Manrique, the government argues that, even if Lee’s initial
deferred-restitution judgment was technically incomplete, it was still an
“immediately appealable final judgment[]” from which he could have challenged his
conviction, 581 U.S. at 123, and was thus “nonetheless a ‘final judgment’ for the
purposes of § 2255(f)(1).” But this argument wrongly assumes that the definition of
“finality” in the context of § 2255(f)(1) is the same as the definition applicable in
the context of direct appeal. See Clay, 537 U.S. at 527 (noting that the meaning of
“[f]inality . . . depends on context,” and distinguishing “appellate review” from
“postconviction relief”). For example, § 2255(f)(1) explicitly refers to “the . . . final”
judgment of conviction, while Manrique itself acknowledges that criminal cases can
produce multiple judgments subject to direct appeal. 581 U.S. at 123. In other words,
“while there can be multiple judgments in a deferred restitution case for direct appeal
purposes, only one final judgment exists for § 2255(f)(1) purposes.”6 Anthony, 25
F.4th at 802 (emphasis added). The fact that Lee could have challenged his
conviction earlier in time does not make the initial judgment the “final” one under
§ 2255(f)(1); what matters is that he could have chosen to challenge his conviction
and sentence later. Nor does it matter that Lee did not—or even could not—
challenge his restitution amount in § 2255 proceedings, see United States v. Bernard,
351 F.3d 360, 361 (8th Cir. 2003) (noting that because restitution does not concern
a defendant’s custodial sentence, it is not challengeable in § 2255 proceedings), or
that we currently view restitution as a civil remedy incorporated into his criminal
sentence, see United States v. Thunderhawk, 799 F.3d 1203, 1209 (8th Cir. 2015).
For purposes of calculating the statute of limitations on Lee’s § 2255 motion, it
matters only when his entire sentence became final. Here, that occurred when Lee’s
6 For this reason, we disagree with the Ninth Circuit’s framing of this issue as
whether an amendment to a restitution amount “restarts” the limitations period—a
framing the government echoes here. See Gilbert, 807 F.3d at 1200. Until “the
judgment of conviction becomes final,” 28 U.S.C. § 2255(f)(1), the limitations
period never began. See Anthony, 25 F.4th at 800–01 (“The issue before us is not
whether Anthony’s § 2255 period of limitations was extended or restarted—rather,
the issue is whether Anthony’s one-year period under § 2255 ever started in the first
place.”).

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amended judgment reflected his restitution amount.7 See Anthony, 25 F.4th at 802
(making this point).
Alternatively, the government argues that, even though restitution is part of a
sentence, it is not the kind of meaningful addition that would count toward a
judgment’s finality in the context of § 2255. The government relies on two lines of
our caselaw: cases concerning ministerial changes to a judgment that do not reopen
a window for the defendant to take a direct appeal, and cases related to changes to a
sentence sufficient to open the door to a second or successive postconviction motion
under 28 U.S.C. § 2255(h).
As to the former line of cases, the government points to United States v.
Campbell, 971 F.3d 772 (8th Cir. 2020), where we found that an amended judgment
in a defendant’s case “did not trigger a new time to appeal.” Id. at 774. We stressed
that “[t]he question is whether the . . . second order[] has disturbed or revised legal
rights and obligations which, by [the] prior judgment, had been plainly and properly
settled with finality.” Id. at 773 (quoting FTC v. Minneapolis – Honeywell Regul.
Co., 344 U.S. 206, 212 (1952)). “The only difference between the two judgments”
in Campbell “[wa]s the addition of . . . case numbers” for two pending state charges
mistakenly omitted in the original judgment, for which the defendant would serve
concurrent sentences. Id. at 773. We concluded that the judgment had been
7 The government also cites 18 U.S.C. § 3582(b), which states:
“[n]otwithstanding the fact that a sentence to imprisonment can subsequently be”
corrected or reduced, “a judgment of conviction that includes such a sentence
constitutes a final judgment for all other purposes.” 18 U.S.C. § 3582(b). The
government suggests that according to this language, an initial deferred-restitution
judgment is “a final judgment for all . . . purposes,” including federal postconviction
proceedings. But no one disputes that a deferred-restitution order is a final judgment;
rather, the question is whether it is the particular final judgment that triggers
§ 2255’s clock in a defendant’s case. See Manrique, 581 U.S. at 122–23 (concluding
that an amended judgment imposing restitution is not “the only final . . . judgment
in a deferred restitution case”).

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“reentered or revised in an immaterial way” and thus did not reopen the window for
seeking direct review. Id. at 773–74 (citation omitted). The opposite is the case here:
the imposition of the new restitution obligation revised the judgment in a way that
itself invited appeal. See Manrique, 581 U.S. at 123. Lee’s amended judgment is not
like the ministerial error-correction discussed in Campbell.8
As to the line of cases concerning successive § 2255 motions, the government
relies primarily on Dyab. There, the defendant had been convicted of conspiracy to
commit wire fraud and money laundering, and was sentenced to a prison term and
$6.4 million in restitution. Dyab, 855 F.3d at 921. Years later, upon the
government’s motion, the district court amended Dyab’s judgment to update
restitution payees’ addresses and “reflect that one of Dyab’s co-conspirators . . . was
jointly and severally liable for a portion of Dyab’s restitution obligation.” Id. In
response, Dyab filed a § 2255 motion—his third such motion seeking to vacate the
same sentence—in which he argued in part that he was innocent of his money
laundering charge. Id. We concluded that Dyab’s motion was a prohibited “second
or successive” motion under 28 U.S.C. § 2255(h). Id. at 923–24. Recognizing that a
“resentencing” that leads to a “new judgment” can invite a postconviction challenge
to “at least some aspects of that new judgment,” we also said that “[n]ot every change
8 The government also relies on Byers v. United States, 561 F.3d 832, 835 (8th
Cir. 2009), where the “parties . . . agree[d]” that a sentence modification under
Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 35(b), made years after the judgment of
conviction had become final, did not redefine the final “judgment of conviction” for
purposes of § 2255(f)’s limitations period. But unlike mandatory orders of restitution
under 18 U.S.C. § 3663A, sentence modifications under Rule 35 are entirely
discretionary and ordinarily not subject to appeal. See United States v. Haskins, 479
F.3d 955, 957 (8th Cir. 2007) (“This court lacks jurisdiction . . . to hear a defendant’s
appeal of the district court’s ruling on a Rule 35(b) motion.”); see also United States
v. Sykes, 356 F.3d 863, 865 (8th Cir. 2004) (“Sykes also contends the district court
erred by not further reducing his sentence based on the government’s Rule 35(b)
motion. Absent an unconstitutional motive, the extent to which a district court
exercises its discretionary authority to depart downward is not subject to review.”).
Modifications under Rule 35(b) are not similar to amended judgments in deferred-
restitution cases and do not bear on the question in Lee’s case.

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to a judgment results in a new sentence or judgment that wipes clean the slate of
post-conviction motions previously filed.” Id. at 923 (quoting Magwood v.
Patterson, 561 U.S. 320, 331, 342, 342 n.17 (2010)). We noted that “[f]ixing
typographical errors and the like does not substantively alter a prisoner’s sentence,
so a § 2255 motion filed after such a correction is still a challenge to the original
judgment.” Id. On this view, we held that the 2014 amendments to Dyab’s judgment
“did not result in a new sentence or judgment,” because “[t]here was no substantive
proceeding that adjudicated Dyab’s guilt or determined the appropriate punishment,”
and “[t]he court did not alter the amount of Dyab’s restitution obligation or otherwise
change Dyab’s sanction.” Id. at 923. Merely “updat[ing] the addresses” for payees
and “reflect[ing]” that a coconspirator was jointly and severally liable was “not
sufficient to create a new sentence or judgment that would permit Dyab to file a
successive § 2255 motion.” Id. at 923–24.
The government reads Dyab to hold that only “plenary resentencings” create
sufficiently material changes to a judgment to warrant a second or successive § 2255
motion. And because amended judgments in deferred-restitution cases are not
plenary resentencings, the government argues, they do not change a sentence
materially enough to invite a successive § 2255 motion, and thus they also do not
affect the original judgment’s finality under § 2255(f)(1).
This argument fails for several reasons. For one, by relying on Dyab, the
government again errs in attempting to define finality under § 2255(f)(1) by
borrowing precedent from another context. The question in Lee’s case is not whether
an amended judgment imposing restitution is a new sentence or judgment under
§ 2255(h); the question is whether it is the final version of the original judgment.
28 U.S.C. § 2255(f)(1). Dyab does not address this question.9
9 In fact, we had the opportunity to address § 2255(f) in Dyab and declined to
do so: there, the district court dismissed Dyab’s § 2255 motion both because it was
successive under § 2255(h) and because it was untimely under § 2255(f), and the
district court subsequently granted a certificate of appealability on both issues. See

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And even if Dyab bore on the question of finality in Lee’s case, it would not
resolve it. Contrary to the government’s contention, neither Dyab nor our other
precedent holds that only a plenary resentencing proceeding can produce a new
sentence or judgment susceptible to a successive § 2255 motion. See id. at 923.
Rather, we have consistently framed our holdings in the negative, determining that
ministerial changes to a sentence fail to create a new judgment sufficient to justify a
second or successive motion.10 See id.; see also United States v. Brown, 915 F.3d
1200, 1202 (8th Cir. 2019) (holding successive motion was prohibited following a
correction of a clerical error in the judgment); Gonzalez, 792 F.3d at 236
(“Restitution is a serious component of criminal punishment, and calculating the
restitution amount is hardly ministerial.”). We have said nothing about where a new
restitution obligation falls on this spectrum, other than to note that such a
circumstance could meaningfully alter the analysis. Indeed, in Dyab, we held that
the amended judgment did not create a “new sentence or judgment” in part because
it “did not alter the amount of Dyab’s restitution obligation or otherwise change
Dyab’s sanction.”11 855 F.3d at 923. Of course, the opposite is true in Lee’s case.
Finally, the government argues that adopting Lee’s reading of § 2255(f)(1)
would allow defendants to unfairly benefit from the “procedural flexibility” afforded
to crime victims in restitution cases and would upset notions of finality undergirding
the rules surrounding postconviction relief. True, offenses involving restitution may
involve delay. See 18 U.S.C. § 3664(d)(5) (allowing court to wait up to 90 days in
id. at 921. We affirmed only on the ground that the amendment did not allow a
successive motion under § 2255(h), and we did not address § 2255(f).
10 Specifically, we contrasted more significant alterations to a sentence with
sentence reductions under 18 U.S.C. § 3582(c) and typographical error corrections
under Criminal Rule 36. Id.
11 Contrary to Lee’s situation, Dyab’s restitution obligation was changed by
joining a new defendant who was jointly and severally liable for the amount—if
anything, a reduction in Dyab’s payment obligation. Dyab, 855 F.3d at 923–24.

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determining restitution amount “[i]f the victim’s losses are not ascertainable by the
date that is 10 days prior to sentencing”); see also Dolan v. United States, 560 U.S.
605, 608 (2010) (discussing court’s ability to impose restitution after 90-day
deadline “at least where, as here, the sentencing court made clear prior to the
deadline’s expiration that it would order restitution, leaving open (for more than 90
days) only the amount”); United States v. Carneal, 91 F.4th 903, 906 n.2 (8th Cir.
2024) (discussing Dolan and noting that “a delay in ordering restitution might . . .
prejudice a defendant and threaten his due process rights” (alteration in original)
(quoting United States v. Zaic, 744 F.3d 1040, 1043 (8th Cir. 2014))). But any delay
falls within Congress’s control or a victim’s control, not a defendant’s control. And
there is no reason to strain a different interpretation of § 2255(f)(1) in restitution
cases merely because of the potential for uncertainty as to the full extent of
punishment a defendant will ultimately face. See Anthony, 25 F.4th at 802 n.11
(“We recognize that our ruling could lead to delays in federal habeas review. But
even though AEDPA ‘seeks to eliminate delays in the federal habeas review process
. . . [i]t did not seek to end every possible delay at all costs.’” (alterations in original)
(quoting Holland v. Florida, 560 U.S. 631, 648, 649 (2010))).
III.
We hold that Lee’s “judgment of conviction bec[ame] final” under
§ 2255(f)(1) fourteen days after it was amended to add deferred restitution. His
motion is timely, and we reverse and remand.
______________________________

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