United States v. Ramos ( 2019 )

FILED
United States Court of Appeals
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS Tenth Circuit
FOR THE TENTH CIRCUIT January 3, 2019
_________________________________
Elisabeth A. Shumaker
Clerk of Court
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff - Appellee,
v. No. 18-1316
(D.C. Nos. 1:18-CV-00054-CMA &
RAFAEL RAMOS, 1:14-CR-00337-CMA-1)
(D. Colo.)
Defendant - Appellant.
_________________________________
ORDER AND JUDGMENT*
_________________________________
Before PHILLIPS, McHUGH, and EID, Circuit Judges.
_________________________________
Rafael Ramos, a federal prisoner proceeding pro se, filed a 28 U.S.C. § 2255
motion to vacate, set aside or correct his sentence. The district court determined it
lacked jurisdiction to consider the § 2255 motion because it was an unauthorized
second or successive § 2255 motion. Mr. Ramos filed a notice of appeal from the
district court’s decision. The district court granted a certificate of appealability on
the question of whether Mr. Ramos’s first § 2255 motion, which he voluntarily
*
After examining the briefs and appellate record, this panel has determined
unanimously that oral argument would not materially assist in the determination of
this appeal. See Fed. R. App. P. 34(a)(2); 10th Cir. R. 34.1(G). The case is therefore
ordered submitted without oral argument. This order and judgment is not binding
precedent, except under the doctrines of law of the case, res judicata, and collateral
estoppel. It may be cited, however, for its persuasive value consistent with
Fed. R. App. P. 32.1 and 10th Cir. R. 32.1.
withdrew, should count for determining whether a subsequent motion should be
considered second or successive. Exercising jurisdiction pursuant to 28 U.S.C.
§ 1291, we affirm.
I. Background
Mr. Ramos pleaded guilty to possession of a firearm by a convicted felon in
violation of 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1), after he provided four firearms to another
individual for sale to an undercover officer. The district court sentenced him to
84 months’ imprisonment, which was the bottom of the proposed advisory
Sentencing Guidelines range of 84 to 105 months. He did not appeal.
In June 2016, Mr. Ramos filed a pro se § 2255 motion. He asserted he was
entitled to relief based on the Supreme Court’s decision in Johnson v. United States,
135 S. Ct. 2551 (2015), because he was sentenced based on the unconstitutional
residual clause in the Armed Career Criminal Act (ACCA). The government argued
in its response that Johnson did not apply to Mr. Ramos because he was not
sentenced under the ACCA, nor did he receive a sentence enhancement under the
Sentencing Guidelines that was based on a conviction for a prior crime of violence.1
A few months later, Mr. Ramos filed a motion to withdraw his § 2255 motion.
In the motion, he stated that “[u]pon further consideration and examination” of his
§ 2255 motion, “it has become clear to the defendant that the Johnson case does not
1
The presentence investigation report recommended enhancing Mr. Ramos’s
sentence because (1) the offense involved three to seven firearms, see U.S.
Sentencing Guidelines Manual § 2K2.1(b)(1)(A) (U.S. Sentencing Comm’n 2014);
and (2) one of the firearms had an obliterated serial number, see id. § 2K2.1(b)(4)(B).
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apply to his case . . . or conviction.” R. at 89. He further stated that “with the help
of an interpreter[,] [he] read the Government’s Response . . . and has become
convinced that in fact the Johnson decision does not apply to his case.” Id. at 90. He
also indicated that he had been given “advice by an attorney to withdraw his motion
under Johnson in order to preserve that right for a better issue in the future.” Id. at
89. The district court granted the motion to withdraw.
In January 2018, Mr. Ramos filed another § 2255 motion. He argued he
received ineffective assistance of counsel because his attorney misled him into
believing he was going to receive a sentence of 46 to 57 months when Mr. Ramos
was accepting the plea agreement. In response, the government asserted that the
motion should be dismissed for lack of jurisdiction because it was an unauthorized
second § 2255 motion. The government contended that Mr. Ramos’s “previous
§ 2255 motion, which he withdrew after realizing, and affirmatively acknowledging,
that the motion was meritless[,] . . . counts for “purposes of the ‘second or
successive’ analysis.” Id. at 103.
The district court agreed with the government that it lacked jurisdiction over
Mr. Ramos’s § 2255 motion because it was an unauthorized second or successive
§ 2255 motion. Mr. Ramos now appeals that decision.
II. Discussion
Under § 2255, a prisoner sentenced by a federal court may move to have that
sentence vacated, set aside or corrected. 28 U.S.C. § 2255(a). A prisoner may not,
however, file a second or successive § 2255 motion unless he first obtains an order
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from the circuit court authorizing the district court to consider the motion. 28 U.S.C.
§ 2244(b)(3)(A); id. § 2255(h). Absent such authorization, a district court lacks
jurisdiction to address the merits of a second or successive § 2255 motion. See In re
Cline, 531 F.3d 1249, 1251 (10th Cir. 2008) (per curiam). “[T]o avoid having claims
barred as successive, federal prisoners seeking relief under § 2255 generally must
marshal all of their claims into one collateral attack on their conviction and
sentence.” United States v. Kelly, 235 F.3d 1238, 1241 (10th Cir. 2000). But not all
first-in-time § 2255 motions will lead to a second-in-time motion being treated as a
second or successive § 2255 motion. See Haro-Arteaga v. United States, 199 F.3d
1195, 1196 (10th Cir. 1999) (identifying types of cases where the first § 2255 motion
did not count as a first motion for purposes of determining whether a later motion
was second or successive).
Mr. Ramos contends that the district court erred in treating his second-in-time
§ 2255 motion as an unauthorized second or successive motion because: (1) an
inmate paralegal misled him into filing his first § 2255 motion with a single claim
that had no relevance to his case; (2) the district court erred in failing to warn him
about the consequences of withdrawing his initial § 2255 motion; and (3) there is a
circuit split as to whether a motion that is voluntarily withdrawn should count as an
initial § 2255 motion. We are not persuaded by Mr. Ramos’s arguments; instead, we
agree with the district court that Mr. Ramos’s voluntarily-withdrawn § 2255 motion
should count as a first motion for purposes of the second or successive analysis. The
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district court therefore properly determined it lacked jurisdiction to consider
Mr. Ramos’s unauthorized second or successive § 2255 motion.
We will address Mr. Ramos’s issues in reverse order. Contrary to his
assertion, there is no circuit split on the issue of whether a motion that is voluntarily
withdrawn should count as an initial § 2255 motion for purposes of the second or
successive analysis. All of the courts to consider the issue have looked at the
circumstances of each individual case. In doing so, courts have sometimes decided
that a voluntarily-withdrawn § 2255 motion counts when determining whether a later
motion is second or successive, and courts have sometimes decided that a
voluntarily-withdrawn § 2255 motion does not count for second or successive
purposes. But the decisions are based on the facts of the case, not any conflicting
legal analysis. For example, in a trio of cases in the Seventh Circuit, that court twice
concluded that the circumstances supported counting the voluntarily-withdrawn
§ 2255 motion as a first motion for second or successive purposes, see Potts v.
United States, 210 F.3d 770, 770-71 (7th Cir. 2000), and Felder v. McVicar, 113 F.3d
696, 698 (7th Cir. 1997), but in between those two cases, the court determined that
the circumstances surrounding the voluntarily-withdrawn § 2255 motion did not
support counting it as a first motion for second or successive purposes, see Garrett v.
United States, 178 F.3d 940, 942-43 (7th Cir. 1999).
One of the factors courts have found determinative in considering how to treat
a voluntarily-withdrawn § 2255 motion is whether the moving party conceded the
motion lacked merit. See, e.g., Provenzale v. United States, 388 F. App’x 285, 287
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(4th Cir. 2010) (finding that petitioner’s “original § 2255 motion does not bar the
filing of another § 2255 motion without pre-filing authorization” because he “did not
concede upon withdrawal of his first § 2255 motion that the motion lacked merit”);
Thai v. United States, 391 F.3d 491, 496 (2d Cir. 2004) (“The circumstances of the
instant case do not provide a clear indication that Thai regarded his initial petition as
meritless when he moved to withdraw it. Accordingly, we hold that the most recent
petition is not a second or successive petition[.]”); Garrett, 178 F.3d at 942, 943
(holding that current § 2255 motion was not a successive motion because petitioner
had “never conceded defeat” when he moved to withdraw his earlier motions and
there was “no indication that withdrawal was to obtain a tactical advantage in the
face of impending defeat”); Felder, 113 F.3d at 698 (finding that petitioner’s
concession that he could not meet his burden of proof at an evidentiary hearing was
“an admission of defeat” and concluding that “a petitioner for habeas corpus cannot
be permitted to thwart the limitations on the filing of second or successive motions
by withdrawing his first petition as soon as it becomes evident that the district court
is going to dismiss it on the merits”). The cases from the circuits noted above are
consistent with our approach to the issue.
In Haro-Arteaga, the petitioner had filed two prior § 2255 motions, which he
then voluntarily withdrew. 199 F.3d at 1195. At the time he withdrew the motions,
the petitioner had not conceded any claim nor had the district court engaged in
substantive review; we therefore concluded the petitioner’s subsequent motion should
not be treated as a second or successive motion. Id. at 1197. In contrast, Mr. Ramos
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did concede his first § 2255 motion lacked merit when he moved to withdraw it. In
his first § 2255 motion, he brought a single claim, arguing he was entitled to
sentencing relief based on Johnson. But in his motion to withdraw his first § 2255
motion, he admitted that Johnson “does not apply to his case . . . or conviction.”
R. at 89. Given these circumstances, the district court properly determined that
Mr. Ramos’s voluntarily-withdrawn § 2255 motion should count for purposes of the
second or successive analysis.
Mr. Ramos also argues that the district court erred in failing to warn him about
the consequences of withdrawing his initial pro se § 2255 motion, relying on the
Supreme Court’s decision in Castro v. United States, 540 U.S. 375 (2003). But
Castro does not apply here because it relates to situations where a pro se prisoner
files a motion that he does not label as a § 2255 motion, but the district court
recharacterizes it as a § 2255 motion. The Supreme Court held that a district court:
cannot so recharacterize a pro se litigant’s motion as the litigant’s first
§ 2255 motion unless the court informs the litigant of its intent to
recharacterize, warns the litigant that the recharacterization will subject
subsequent § 2255 motions to the law’s ‘second or successive’ restrictions,
and provides the litigant with an opportunity to withdraw, or to amend, the
filing.
540 U.S. at 377. Here, Mr. Ramos’s initial motion was labeled a § 2255 motion; there
was no recharacterization. Castro does not obligate district courts to warn pro se litigants
about the potential second or successive consequences of withdrawing an initial § 2255
motion.
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Finally, Mr. Ramos asserts he was misled by a fellow inmate into believing he
had a viable claim under Johnson. He contends that if he “had not been totally
dependent on the legal advice of his fellow ‘inmate paralegal,’ he would not have
submitted such a ridiculous issue which had absolutely no bearing on his case but
would have brought the issues discussed herein.” Aplt. Br. at 7. But Mr. Ramos
cites to no legal authority—and we are aware of none—that indicates this type of
information is relevant or permitted to be considered when determining whether
Mr. Ramos’s initial § 2255 motion should count for purposes of the second or
successive analysis.
III. Conclusion
For the foregoing reasons, we affirm the district court’s determination that it
lacked jurisdiction to consider the merits of Mr. Ramos’s § 2255 motion because it
was an unauthorized second or successive § 2255 motion. We grant Mr. Ramos’s
motion to proceed on appeal without prepayment of costs or fees.
Entered for the Court
Per Curiam
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