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[DO NOT PUBLISH]
IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT
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No. 18-12610
Non-Argument Calendar
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D.C. Docket No. 1:11-cr-20365-CMA-4
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff - Appellee,
versus
MAREUS ST. HILAIRE,
Defendant - Appellant.
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Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Southern District of Florida
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(April 29, 2019)
Before MARCUS, MARTIN, and ROSENBAUM, Circuit Judges.
PER CURIAM:
Mareus St. Hilaire, an inmate housed in Florida who is serving a 188-month
sentence for various federal drug offenses, appeals the district court’s denial of his
motion for reconsideration of his “Motion for Relief Pursuant to Federal Rule of
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Civil Procedure 60(b)(6).” After careful consideration, we affirm. Because St.
Hilaire’s Rule 60(b) motion was in fact a second or successive habeas petition
under 28 U.S.C. § 2255 and he did not receive permission from this Court before
filing it, the district court correctly declined to revisit its earlier determination that
it lacked jurisdiction over St. Hilaire’s claims.
I.
After federal agents seized approximately 273 pounds of cocaine from a
ship, St. Hilaire was arrested and charged with conspiracy to import five kilograms
or more of cocaine into the United States; importing five kilograms or more of
cocaine into the United States, conspiring to possess with intent to distribute five
kilograms or more of cocaine; and attempting to possess with intent to distribute
five kilograms or more of cocaine. Following a nine-day trial, a jury convicted St.
Hilaire on all counts. The district court then sentenced St. Hilaire to 220 months of
imprisonment. St. Hilaire’s sentence was later reduced to 188 months of
imprisonment pursuant to 18 U.S.C. § 3582(c)(2) and Amendment 782 to the
Sentencing Guidelines.
This Court affirmed St. Hilaire’s convictions and sentence on direct appeal.
See United States v. Louijuste, 517 F. App’x 916, 918 (11th Cir. 2013)
(unpublished). One year later, St. Hilaire filed a pro se 28 U.S.C. § 2255 petition
for habeas relief in district court. The district court denied the petition and
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declined to issue St. Hilaire a certificate of appealability. This Court denied St.
Hilaire’s application for a certificate of appealability and dismissed his appeal.
On April 17, 2018, St. Hilaire filed a pro se motion for relief under Federal
Rule of Civil Procedure 60(b). He argued his convictions and sentence should be
set aside because no reasonable trier of fact could have convicted him on the
evidence presented at trial and because the government presented false statements
during trial. The government argued in response that St. Hilaire’s motion was
actually a second or successive § 2255 petition over which the district court lacked
jurisdiction because St. Hilaire had yet to receive permission to file such a petition
from this Court, as is required by 28 U.S.C. § 2244(b)(3)(A). The district court
agreed with the government and denied St. Hilaire’s motion for lack of
jurisdiction.
St. Hilaire did not appeal the district court’s order. Instead, he filed an
“objection[] to report and recommendation,” which the district court interpreted as
a motion for reconsideration. St. Hilaire objected in his motion to what he
perceived as the district court’s failure to “use its discretion to determine whether
[his] motion is a proper motion under Rule 60(b)(6) or a successive 2255
[m]otion.” The district court denied the motion. St. Hilaire timely appealed.
II.
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We review a district court’s denial of a motion for reconsideration for abuse
of discretion. Richardson v. Johnson,
598 F.3d 734, 740 (11th Cir. 2010) (per
curiam). “Under this standard, we affirm unless we determine that the district
court applied an incorrect legal standard, failed to follow proper procedures in
making the relevant determination, or made findings of fact that are clearly
erroneous.” Lugo v. Sec’y, Fla. Dep’t of Corr.,
750 F.3d 1198, 1207 (11th Cir.
2014). “A motion for reconsideration cannot be used to relitigate old matters, raise
argument or present evidence that could have been raised prior to the entry of
judgment.”
Richardson, 598 F.3d at 740 (quotation marks omitted).
III.
The district court did not abuse its discretion in denying St. Hilaire’s motion
for reconsideration. The law is clear: a proper Rule 60(b) motion is one that
“attacks, not the substance of the federal court’s resolution of a claim on the
merits, but some defect in the integrity of the federal habeas proceedings.”
Williams v. Chatman,
510 F.3d 1290, 1294 (2007) (per curiam) (emphasis added)
(quoting Gonzales v. Crosby,
545 U.S. 524, 532,
125 S. Ct. 2641, 2648 (2005)).
St. Hilaire’s self-described motion, however, does the exact opposite.1 The motion
1
It appears that St. Hilaire’s understanding of a second or successive habeas petition and
a true Rule 60(b) motion may be reversed. When a defendant seeks to challenge his convictions
and sentence by raising new or identical arguments to a previous § 2255 proceeding, that
challenge is a second or successive habeas petition. See
Williams, 510 F.3d at 1294–95. In
contrast, when a defendant challenges the integrity of his first § 2255 proceedings and the
resulting judgment on any of the bases identified under Rule 60(b), he is lodging a true Rule
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takes issue with the government’s actions at trial and the sufficiency of the
evidence to sustain St. Hilaire’s convictions—the latter of which this Court
addressed on direct appeal. See Louijuste, 517 F. App’x at 919. The motion thus
“attacks the federal court’s previous resolution of a claim on the merits” and “seeks
to add a new ground for relief,” neither of which constitutes a “true Rule 60(b)
motion.”
Gonzalez, 545 U.S. at 531–32, 125 S. Ct. at 2647–48.
Because St. Hilaire’s motion was actually a second or successive habeas
petition under § 2255, he “was required to move this Court for an order authorizing
the district court to consider a successive habeas petition.”
Williams, 510 F.3d at
1295 (citing 28 U.S.C. § 2244(b)(3)(A)). His failure to do so means the district
court correctly recognized it was without subject matter jurisdiction over his
petition. See
id. The district court therefore did not abuse its discretion when it
denied St. Hilaire’s motion to reconsider the court’s denial of his motion. 2
AFFIRMED.
60(b) challenge and does not require permission from this Court to proceed.
Id. at 1295. The
judgment at issue in a Rule 60(b) motion under these circumstances is not the criminal judgment
but the civil habeas judgment. See
Gonzalez, 545 U.S. at 532, 125 S. Ct. at 2648.
2
However, the district court should have dismissed St. Hilaire’s self-described Rule
60(b) motion rather than deny it. See
Williams, 510 F.3d at 1294–95 (remanding to the district
court “with instructions to dismiss [the claims] for a lack of jurisdiction” where the petitioner’s
Rule 60(b) motion was a “successive petition as defined in Gonzalez”).
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