Allen Abney v. Warden ( 2015 )

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[DO NOT PUBLISH]
IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT
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No. 15-10088
Non-Argument Calendar
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D.C. Docket No. 5:14-cv-00147-WS-EMT
ALLEN ABNEY,
Petitioner-Appellant,
versus
WARDEN,
Respondent-Appellee.
________________________
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Northern District of Florida
________________________
(July 29, 2015)
Before MARTIN, JULIE CARNES, and ANDERSON, Circuit Judges.
PER CURIAM:
Petitioner, Allen Abney, a federal prisoner proceeding pro se, appeals the
district court’s dismissal of his petition for habeas corpus filed pursuant to 28
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U.S.C. § 2241. Petitioner has filed a motion for the appointment of counsel to
assist him in his appeal, which we DENY. As to the substance of the appeal, the
district court adopted the magistrate judge’s report and recommendation (“R&R”)
dismissing the § 2241 petition for lack of jurisdiction. After careful review, we
affirm.
I. Background
Following a jury trial in the United States District Court for the Western
District of New York, Petitioner was convicted in May 2006 of being a felon in
possession of a firearm, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 922(g). Federal prosecutors
(“the Government”) provided evidence to the sentencing court that Petitioner had
at least three prior state convictions that qualified as predicate offenses under 18
U.S.C. § 924(e) (the “ACCA”), including: (1) a 1985 felony conviction for
attempting to cause bodily injury with a deadly weapon, (2) a 1987 felony
conviction for cocaine distribution, which had a maximum sentence of 15 years,
and (3) a 1989 felony conviction for indecent assault. Based on these convictions,
the court sentenced Petitioner as an armed career criminal under the ACCA to 240
months in prison followed by five years of supervised release. Petitioner appealed
his conviction and sentence to the Second Circuit Court of Appeals in February
2007. The Second Circuit dismissed the appeal in June 2009.
In October 2009, Petitioner filed a motion in the Western District of New
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York to vacate his sentence pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2255.1 Among other asserted
claims, Petitioner argued in his § 2255 motion that the sentencing court
erroneously categorized him as an armed career criminal under the ACCA. The
district court denied Petitioner’s § 2255 motion and declined to issue a certificate
of appealability (“COA”). Petitioner filed a notice of appeal and a motion for a
COA, which the Second Circuit denied. Petitioner subsequently filed another
§ 2255 motion in the Western District of New York, which the district court
construed as a request for permission to file a second or successive § 2255 motion
and transferred to the Second Circuit pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2255(h). The Second
Circuit denied the motion.
Petitioner filed the § 2241 petition underlying this appeal in June 2014,
asserting several grounds for relief from his sentence. 2 Specifically, Petitioner
alleged that his sentence violated due process because of a “lack of evidence” that
his 1987 drug conviction and his 1989 indecent assault conviction qualified as
ACCA predicates under the Supreme Court’s decisions in Shepard v. United
States, 544 U.S. 13 (2005), Begay v. United States, 553 U.S. 137 (2008), and
Descamps v. United States, 133 S. Ct. 2276 (2013). Petitioner also argued that the
1
Petitioner had filed two prior § 2255 motions, which were dismissed as premature and
denied without prejudice to refile after his direct appeal became final.
2
In the interim, Petitioner filed a separate § 2241 petition in the Northern District of
Florida, which the district court denied. He subsequently filed a third successive § 2255 motion
in the Western District of New York, which was again transferred to and denied by the Second
Circuit.
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sentence was imposed without the effective assistance of counsel.
The magistrate judge issued an R&R recommending dismissal of the
petition. The R&R noted that § 2255 is the primary method available to
collaterally attack a federal sentence, and that § 2255(e) imposes jurisdictional
requirements for obtaining relief under § 2241 that were not satisfied in this case.
The district court adopted the R&R, and dismissed the petition for lack of
jurisdiction. Petitioner argues on appeal that his claims met the jurisdictional
requirements of § 2255(e), and that the district court thus erred in dismissing the
petition. Petitioner also argues that the district court abused its discretion by
failing to conduct an evidentiary hearing prior to dismissing his petition.
II. Discussion
A. Availability of Relief under § 2241
Whether the district court had jurisdiction to consider the merits of a § 2241
petition is a question of law that we review de novo. Williams v. Warden, Fed.
Bureau of Prisons, 713 F.3d 1332, 1337 (11th Cir. 2013). The jurisdictional
question is a threshold issue, and we cannot reach the merits of a § 2241 petition
unless we find that the district court had jurisdiction to entertain it. Id. at 1337,
1340 (holding that § 2255(e) imposes a jurisdictional limit on § 2241 petitions).
As noted in the R&R, § 2255 is the primary mechanism for a federal
prisoner to collaterally attack his sentence. See Bryant v. Warden, FCC Coleman-
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Medium, 738 F.3d 1253, 1256 (11th Cir. 2013). Petitioner previously filed an
unsuccessful § 2255 motion, and the Second Circuit denied Petitioner’s subsequent
attempts to file a second or successive § 2255 motion. See 28 U.S.C. § 2255(h)
(authorizing a successive motion that is certified by the appellate court to contain
newly-discovered evidence sufficient to show that no reasonable factfinder would
have found the petitioner guilty or a new, retroactively applicable, rule of
constitutional law that was previously unavailable). Relief under § 2255 is thus
unavailable to Petitioner. See Gilbert v. United States, 640 F.3d 1293, 1311 (11th
Cir. 2011) (en banc) (“The statutory bar against second or successive motions is
one of the most important AEDPA safeguards for finality of judgment.”).
Petitioner argues that he may nevertheless collaterally attack his sentence via
a § 2241 petition that falls within the “savings clause” of § 2255(e). The savings
clause permits a prisoner to file a § 2241 petition where the remedy provided by
§ 2255 is “inadequate or ineffective to test the legality of [the prisoner’s]
detention.” 28 U.S.C. § 2255(e); see also Bryant, 738 F.3d at 1256. As applied to
sentencing claims such as Petitioner’s, this Court has interpreted the “inadequate or
ineffective” language to permit a § 2241 petition when: (1) throughout sentencing,
direct appeal, and the first § 2255 proceeding, the relevant Circuit precedent
specifically addressed and squarely foreclosed the claim raised in the § 2241
petition, (2) subsequent to the first § 2255 proceeding, a Supreme Court decision
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overturned the Circuit precedent that had squarely foreclosed the claim, (3) the
new rule announced by the Supreme Court applies retroactively on collateral
review, (4) as a result of the new rule being retroactive, the petitioner’s current
sentence exceeds the statutory maximum authorized by Congress, and (5) the
savings clause of § 2255(e) reaches the petitioner’s claim. See Bryant, 738 F.3d at
1274.
As discussed, Petitioner relies on the Supreme Court’s decisions in Shepard,
Begay, and Descamps to satisfy the above requirements. Specifically, Petitioner
argues that his 1987 drug conviction does not qualify as an ACCA predicate
because the sentencing court improperly looked beyond Shepard-approved
documents to determine that the conviction involved cocaine and thus carried a
penalty of more than ten years. Petitioner further asserts that his 1989 indecent
assault conviction does not qualify as a “violent felony” under Begay’s
“purposeful, violent, and aggressive” analysis, and that the sentencing court failed
to follow the categorical approach required by Descamps in concluding that the
assault was a “violent felony.” See Begay, 553 U.S. at 144-145; Descamps, 133 S.
Ct. at 2281-2282.
Shepard and Begay do not even arguably bring Petitioner’s claim within the
first or second prong of Bryant. Shepard was decided in 2005, and was thus
available to Petitioner throughout his sentencing, direct appeal, and first § 2255
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proceeding. Likewise, Begay was decided in 2008, prior to Petitioner’s first
§ 2255 proceeding. In fact, Petitioner acknowledges that he alleged a Begay error
in his first § 2255 motion, but the district court determined that his claim was
procedurally barred.
As for Descamps, that decision does not meet Bryant’s third prong, which
requires an intervening Supreme Court decision that “applies retroactively on
collateral review.” Bryant, 738 F.3d at 1274. To apply retroactively, a Supreme
Court decision must first announce a “new rule.” Teague v. Lane, 489 U.S. 288,
301 (1989) (“a case announces a new rule if the result was not dictated by
precedent existing at the time the defendant’s conviction became final”) (emphasis
in original). See also Howard v. United States, 374 F.3d 1068, 1073-74 (11th Cir.
2004) (applying the Teague retroactivity doctrine). Assuming that requirement is
met, the decision must also fall within an exception to the general prohibition
against the retroactive application of such new rules to convictions that are already
final. See Schriro v. Summerlin, 542 U.S. 348, 351 (2004) (explaining that new
constitutional rules only apply to final convictions in limited circumstances). New
substantive rules generally qualify as an exception, but new procedural rules
generally do not. Id. at 351-352 (noting that only a “small set of watershed rules of
criminal procedure” apply retroactively) (quotation marks and citation omitted).
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Descamps refined the process for determining whether a prior conviction
qualifies as a “violent felony” under the ACCA. See Descamps, 133 S. Ct. at
2281-82. The Descamps Court reaffirmed that in the case of a “divisible” statute,
the sentencing court may apply a “modified categorical approach” to determine
which of the statutory alternatives formed the basis of the defendant’s prior
conviction and thus whether the conviction qualifies as an ACCA predicate. Id. at
2283-84 (citing Taylor v. United States, 495 U.S. 575 (1990) and Shepard v.
United States, 544 U.S. 13 (2005)). In other words, when the statute at issue sets
out alternative crimes, some of which qualify as ACCA predicates and some of
which do not, the sentencing court may look to certain Shepard-approved
documents to determine which crime the defendant committed. However, the
Descamps Court held that the modified approach had “no role to play” in a case
involving an “indivisible” statute, that is, a statute that simply defines the crime at
issue too broadly rather than setting forth alternative elements. Id. at 2285-86.
Following Descamps, a sentencing court cannot look beyond the fact of conviction
to determine whether the defendant’s violation of an indivisible statute qualifies as
an ACCA predicate. Id.
As is evident from the above discussion, Descamps did not announce a
“new” constitutional rule. In fact, the Descamps Court emphasized that the
outcome in the case was “all but resolve[d]” by existing Supreme Court precedent
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“explaining the categorical approach and its ‘modified’ counterpart.” Id. at 1283.
Neither did Descamps implement a substantive or a “watershed” procedural
change in the law. See Schriro, 542 U.S. at 352-357 (describing the difference
between substantive and procedural rules and discussing the “extremely narrow”
class of watershed procedural rules). Rather, the Descamps Court simply
interpreted its “prior decisions and the principles underlying them” to hold that
“sentencing courts may not apply the modified categorical approach when the
crime [at issue] has a single, indivisible set of elements.” Descamps, 133 S. Ct. at
2282. As such, Descamps does not apply retroactively to cases on collateral
review, and is not a proper basis for granting relief under § 2241 via the savings
clause of § 2255(e). See Bryant, 738 F.3d at 1274.
B. Failure to Conduct an Evidentiary Hearing
We review the district court’s denial of an evidentiary hearing in this case
for an abuse of discretion. See Hernandez v. United States, 778 F.3d 1230, 1232
(11th Cir. 2015). An evidentiary hearing is not required if the petitioner’s
allegations or claims are “affirmatively contradicted by the record.” Id. (quotation
marks and citation omitted). That is the case here. It was evident from the record
before the district court that Petitioner was not entitled to relief under § 2241,
because he did not cite any Supreme Court authority that was (1) issued after his
first § 2255 proceeding and (2) retroactively applicable. See Bryant, 738 F.3d at
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1274. Thus, the district court did not abuse its discretion in denying Petitioner’s
request for an evidentiary hearing. See San Martin v. McNeil, 633 F.3d 1257,
1271-1272 (11th Cir. 2011) (the district court did not abuse its discretion in
denying an evidentiary hearing where there was no reason to believe an evidentiary
hearing would help the petitioner prevail on his claims).
III. Conclusion
For the reasons discussed above, Petitioner’s motion for the appointment of
counsel is DENIED, and the district court’s decision to dismiss Appellant’s § 2241
petition is AFFIRMED.
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