Coram Nobis - Purpose

Purpose

A coram nobis petition applies to persons who have already been convicted of a crime and have served their sentence. It may seek to remove probation requirements or restrictions, eliminate payment or obtain refund of court imposed fines, restore voting rights and gun ownership, improve employment and credit potential, remove a public stigma, and so forth, in order to restore, so far as possible, the erroneously convicted party to a pre-conviction state. Motions may be filed by heirs at law even after the convicted person is deceased.

In a case from 2007 (Gary Earl Neighbors v. Commonwealth of Virginia), the Supreme Court of Virginia explained in great detail the purpose of a writ of error coram nobis, quoting from a 1957 decision from the same court (Dobie v. Commonwealth):

The writ of error coram vobis, or coram nobis, is an ancient writ of the English common law. It was called coram nobis (before us) in King’s Bench because the king was supposed to preside in person in that court. It was called coram vobis (before you — the king’s justices) in Common Pleas, where the king was not supposed to preside. The difference related only to the form appropriate to each court and the distinction disappeared in this country when the need for it ended. 49 C.J.S., Judgments, § 311, p. 561, n. 28. Mr. Minor says the proper designation here is coram vobis. IV Minor's Inst., 3 ed., Part I, pp. 1052-3.

The principal function of the writ is to afford to the court in which an action was tried in an opportunity to correct its own record with reference to a vital fact not known when the judgment was rendered, and which could not have been presented by a motion for a new trial, appeal or other existing statutory proceeding. Black's Law Dict., 3 ed., p. 1861; 24 C.J.S., Criminal Law, § 1606 b., p. 145; Ford v. Commonwealth, 312 Ky. 718, 229 S.W.2d 470. It lies for an error of fact not apparent on the record, not attributable to the applicant’s negligence, and which if known by the court would have prevented rendition of the judgment. It does not lie for newly-discovered evidence or newly-arising facts, or facts adjudicated on the trial. It is not available where advantage could have been taken of the alleged error at the trial, as where the facts complained of were known before or at the trial, or where at the trial the accused or his attorney knew of the existence of such facts but failed to present them. 24 C.J.S., Criminal Law, § 1606 at p. 148; 49 C.J.S., Judgments, § 312 c., pp. 563, 567.

State courts may treat the writ very differently from their federal counterparts. The Supreme Court of California ruled in 2009 that the state petition for writ of error coram nobis cannot be used to challenge an old conviction that later forms the basis for deportation. For challenges to convictions, either at trial or in a plea bargain, that have deportation as a collateral consequence, California courts require a petition for Writ of Habeas Corpus. The Court observed that "The writ of error coram nobis is a nonstatutory, common law remedy whose origins trace back to an era in England in which appeals and new trial motions were unknown." The Court noted how limited the writ is in California, and expressly declared federal coram nobis law to be inapplicable. In California, coram nobis essentially requires a fact, not going to the facts of the case (e.g. guilt or innocence) that would have prevented the rendition of the judgment.