Tyrone Bentley v. Warden Allenwood FCI ( 2023 )

NOT PRECEDENTIAL
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE THIRD CIRCUIT
___________
No. 23-2390
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TYRONE BENTLEY,
Appellant
v.
WARDEN ALLENWOOD FCI
____________________________________
On Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Middle District of Pennsylvania
(D.C. No. 3:23-cv-00088)
District Judge: Honorable Malachy E. Mannion
____________________________________
Submitted for Possible Dismissal Pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1915(e)(2)(B) or
Summary Action Pursuant to Third Circuit LAR 27.4 and I.O.P. 10.6
on November 16, 2023
Before: BIBAS, MATEY, and CHUNG, Circuit Judges
(Opinion filed: December 12, 2023)
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OPINION*
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PER CURIAM
Tyrone Bentley appeals the District Court’s order dismissing his petition filed pursu-
ant to 28 U.S.C. § 2241. For the reasons that follow, we will summarily affirm the Dis-
trict Court’s judgment.
In 2012, Bentley was sentenced to 408 months in prison after being found guilty by a
jury of conspiracy to commit armed bank robbery, armed bank robbery, and using a fire-
arm during a crime of violence in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 924(c). We affirmed his con-
viction and sentence on appeal. See C.A. No. 12-3378. Bentley later filed an unsuccess-
ful motion pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2255, and we denied his request for a certificate of ap-
pealability. See C.A. No. 15-2666.
In 2023, Bentley filed a § 2241 petition challenging his conviction and sentence. He
argued that after the Supreme Court’s decision in Borden v. United States, 141 S. Ct.
1817 (2021), his conviction for armed bank robbery was no longer a valid predicate
crime of violence. The District Court dismissed the petition for lack of jurisdiction, and
Bentley filed a timely notice of appeal.
We have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291 and exercise plenary review over the
District Court’s legal conclusions. Denny v. Schultz, 708 F.3d 140, 143 (3d Cir. 2013).
*
This disposition is not an opinion of the full Court and pursuant to I.O.P. 5.7 does not
constitute binding precedent.
2
Summary action is appropriate if there is no substantial question presented in the appeal.
See 3d Cir. L.A.R. 27.4. We may summarily affirm a District Court’s decision “on any
basis supported by the record” if the appeal fails to present a substantial question. Mur-
ray v. Bledsoe, 650 F.3d 246, 247 (3d Cir. 2011) (per curiam).
A § 2241 petition filed by a federal prisoner challenging his conviction or sentence
may not be entertained unless a § 2255 motion would be “inadequate or ineffective to test
the legality of his detention.” 28 U.S.C. § 2255(e). As noted by the District Court, the
Supreme Court recently held that this language, the so-called “savings clause,” is not a
means of avoiding the restrictions imposed by § 2255(h) on filing successive § 2255 mo-
tions:
We now hold that the saving clause does not authorize such an end-run
around AEDPA. In § 2255(h), Congress enumerated two—and only two—
conditions in which a second or successive § 2255 motion may proceed.
Because § 2255 is the ordinary vehicle for a collateral attack on a federal
sentence, the straightforward negative inference from § 2255(h) is that a
second or successive collateral attack on a federal sentence is not author-
ized unless one of those two conditions is satisfied.
Jones v. Hendrix, 599 U.S. 465, 477–78 (2023). Thus, Bentley’s remedy is not to
file a § 2241 petition but to seek authorization to file a second or successive § 2255 mo-
tion.1
The District Court did not err in dismissing Bentley’s § 2241 petition. For the above
reasons, we will summarily affirm the District Court’s order. See 3d Cir. I.O.P. 10.6.
1
We denied Bentley’s application to file a second or successive § 2255 motion raising
the same argument he raises in his § 2241 petition. See C.A. No. 22-2047.
3