Cite as: 516 U. S. 193 (1996)
Per Curiam
v. Georgia, 450 U. S. 261, 265, n. 5 (1981). And procedural accommodations to prisoners are a familiar aspect of our jurisprudence. See, e. g., 28 U. S. C. § 2255 (1988 ed.) (habeas review in spite of an adverse final appellate decision); Evitts v. Lucey, 469 U. S. 387 (1985) (relief for ineffective assistance of retained counsel on appeal); Schacht v. United States, 398 U. S. 58, 63-64 (1970) (unlike in civil cases, time limits for petitions for certiorari in criminal cases are not jurisdictional). To the extent that the dissent suggests that it is inconsistent with our "traditional practice," ante, at 178 (opinion of Scalia, J.), to call upon a Court of Appeals to reconsider its dismissal of a prisoner's appeal because his lawyer filed it one day late, in circumstances where the Court of Appeals' decision may have been premised on the assumption, unanimously rejected by other Courts of Appeals, that more stringent rules as to filing deadlines apply to prisoners than to creditors filing claims in a bankruptcy proceeding, we must respectfully disagree.
Judicial efficiency and finality are important values, and our GVR power should not be exercised for "[m]ere convenience," cf. Adams v. United States ex rel. McCann, 317 U. S. 269, 274 (1942). "But dry formalism should not sterilize procedural resources which Congress has made available to the federal courts." Ibid. In this case, as in Lawrence v. Chater, a GVR order guarantees to the petitioner full and fair consideration of his rights in light of all pertinent considerations, and is also satisfactory to the Government. In this case, as in Lawrence, a GVR order both promotes fairness and respects the dignity of the Court of Appeals by enabling it to consider potentially relevant decisions and arguments that were not previously before it.
Accordingly, the motion for leave to proceed in forma pauperis and the petition for a writ of certiorari are granted. The judgment is vacated and the case is remanded to the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit for
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