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[DO NOT PUBLISH]
IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT
________________________
No. 18-13044
Non-Argument Calendar
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D.C. Docket No. 4:08-cr-10078-JEM-1
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff-Appellee,
versus
JUERGEN HEINZ WILLIAMS,
a.k.a. Jurgen H. Williams,
a.k.a. Juergen Heinz Werthmann,
a.k.a. Eric Williams,
a.k.a. Eric Scott Wallace,
Defendant-Appellant.
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Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Southern District of Florida
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(August 4, 2020)
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Before WILSON, JILL PRYOR, and LUCK, Circuit Judges.
PER CURIAM:
Juergen Williams, a federal prisoner proceeding pro se, appeals the district
court’s dismissal of his post-conviction motion. After review, we affirm.
BACKGROUND
Williams pled guilty to conspiracy to launder proceeds derived from the
importation of controlled substances, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1956(h). In 2015,
Williams filed a pro se motion to vacate under 28 U.S.C. § 2255, arguing generally
that the government acted in bad faith when it refused to uphold a portion of his
plea agreement. The district court dismissed that § 2255 motion as untimely.
Williams did not appeal.
One year later, Williams filed another pro se motion, this time to modify his
sentence under 18 U.S.C. § 3582(c)(2). In that motion, he argued that Amendment
782 to the Sentencing Guidelines applied retroactively and, as a result, his sentence
should be reduced. The government filed a response claiming that his offense
level remained the same even after the amendment. Williams replied with a
number of assertions including, among other things, that: (1) his plea was
unconstitutional because his attorney and the government colluded to obtain his
guilty plea, and (2) the proceedings against him were biased and prejudicial
because the government repeatedly called him a Nazi both to his attorney and
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before the district court. The district court denied the motion because the record
established that the sentence was still proper given the underlying criminal
conduct. The district court also noted that the constitutional issues Williams raised
could not be considered in the context of a § 3582 motion. Williams appealed.
While the appeal of his § 3582 motion was still pending and after attempting
to “re-open” his original § 2255 motion 1, Williams filed the motion at the heart of
this appeal. In that motion—titled “Pro se motion respectfully requesting the court
to compel the government . . . to show any and all proof of validity . . . for the
government to have referred . . . to ‘the defendant as a Nazi’ to former defense
counsel(s), to the legal and public community”—he alleged that the government
abused the legal process and intentionally interfered with his ability to receive
effective representation and a fair judgment when it referred to him as a Nazi. He
re-asserted that these constant references prejudiced everyone involved in his
criminal case, including his own court-appointed attorney. The district court
dismissed that motion, sua sponte, stating that it lacked jurisdiction.
DISCUSSION
We review a district court’s subject matter jurisdiction de novo. United
States v. Al-Arian,
514 F.3d 1184, 1189 (11th Cir. 2008) (per curiam). “[W]e may
1
In seeking to “re-open” his original § 2255 motion, Williams argued that purported violations of
his constitutional rights were prejudicial enough to require a reversal of his plea and conviction.
The district court denied his motion.
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affirm for any reason supported by the record, even if not relied upon by the
district court.”
Id. (internal quotation mark omitted).
Pro se pleadings “are held to a less stringent standard than pleadings drafted
by attorneys and . . . [should] be liberally construed.” Tannenbaum v. United
States,
148 F.3d 1262, 1263 (11th Cir. 1998) (per curiam). Federal courts have an
“obligation to look behind the label of a motion filed by a pro se inmate and
determine whether the motion is, in effect, cognizable under a different remedial
statutory framework.” United States v. Jordan,
915 F.2d 622, 624–25 (11th Cir.
1990) (emphasis removed). Doing so may allow a court to “avoid an unnecessary
dismissal” or “create a better correspondence between the substance of a pro se
motion and its underlying legal basis.” See Castro v. United States,
540 U.S. 375,
381–82 (2003) (emphasis removed).
A prisoner in federal custody may file a motion to vacate, set aside, or
correct his sentence by asserting “that the sentence was imposed in violation of the
Constitution or laws of the United States, or that the court was without jurisdiction
to impose such sentence, or that the sentence was in excess of the maximum
authorized by law, or is otherwise subject to collateral attack.” 28 U.S.C.
§ 2255(a). A district court is authorized to recharacterize a pro se litigant’s motion
for relief from a criminal judgment as a § 2255 motion to vacate even if the filing
did not previously bear that label.
Castro, 540 U.S. at 381–83.
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A prisoner seeking to file a second or successive § 2255 motion must first
obtain our authorization. 28 U.S.C. § 2255(h). Without such authorization, the
district court lacks jurisdiction to consider the second or successive § 2255 motion.
Farris v. United States,
333 F.3d 1211, 1216 (11th Cir. 2003) (per curiam).
Here, the district court did not explain why it lacked jurisdiction to consider
Williams’s motion. But we may affirm on any basis supported by the record, and
we do so here because we construe Williams’s motion as a second or successive
§ 2255 motion. While Williams titled his filing a “motion to compel,” the district
court had an obligation to look behind the motion’s label and determine whether
the motion was cognizable under a different remedial framework. See
Jordan, 915
F.2d at 624–25. And although Williams’s motion only requested the production of
evidence from the government, it can be fairly construed as a motion to vacate
based on Williams’s numerous related filings, including: (1) his letter to the district
court complaining of the prejudice injected into his proceedings due to the
government’s slander; (2) his reply to the government’s response to his § 3582
motion where he argued for his release, that his plea was unconstitutional, and that
the proceedings were prejudiced against him because the government called him a
Nazi; and (3) his motion to “re-open” his initial § 2255 motion, which he filed just
a few months before his “motion to compel,” where he argued, in part, that the
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violations of his constitutional rights compelled the reversal of his plea and
conviction.
Since Williams had already filed an initial § 2255 motion, which was
dismissed on the merits, he was required to obtain our authorization to file another.
See 28 U.S.C. § 2255(h). Because he failed to do so, the district court lacked
jurisdiction to consider his motion. See
Farris, 333 F.3d at 1216.
Accordingly, the district court’s dismissal of Williams’s motion is
AFFIRMED.
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