Section 2255

The Eleventh Circuit held Ephren Taylor’s pro-se habeas motions were unauthorized “second or successive” under the Supreme Court’s recent decision in Rivers v. Guerrero, rejecting his bid to reopen § 2255 claims.

In a 6-3 opinion, the majority reinforced that a petitioner cannot file a second or subsequent motion to vacate a sentence under 28 USC 2255 unless they can show “newly discovered evidence” or a “new rule of constitutional law.” Even though a majority of circuits had held that the “savings clause” under 2255(e) creates an additional exception when the available options are “inadequate or ineffective to test the legality of his detention,” the Court held that this exception did not apply to second or subsequent motions.

The Eleventh Circuit affirmed a district court’s denial of a defendant’s motion under 28 USC 2255. The Court held that the defendant’s motion was properly waived based on his plea agreement, notwithstanding changes in the law that undermined his conviction under 924(c), holding that the waiver exception for sentences over the statutory maximum is based on the maximum “in effect at the time of sentencing,” and not the maximum based on subsequent new laws.

The Eleventh Circuit reversed a district court’s partial denial of a defendant’s motion to vacate under 2255 and vacated the defendant’s convictions for tax fraud and tax evasion. The Court held that the defendant’s counsel was ineffective for failing to move for a judgment of acquittal where the Government’s evidence showed that the defendant hid gold bullion, no evidence that it was his gold.

The Third Circuit held that, in cases where a defendant is sentenced under the prior version of 924(c) but has their sentence vacated on constitutional grounds, the amended version of 924(c) is in effect at any later resentencing.

The Ninth Circuit affirmed petitioner’s new sentences that were imposed after petitioners won a 2255 motion based on the First Step Act’s changes to 18 USC 924(c), a statute which carries a mandatory minimum of five years, consecutive to any other sentence imposed, and previously carried a minimum of 25 years for any subsequent convictions. Congress amended 924(c) so that “subsequent convictions” would not include 924(c) counts in a single indictment, and the Ninth Circuit held that the petitioners could be re-sentenced under the new version of the law since their original sentences had previously been vacated and were thus considered void.

The First Circuit reversed a district court’s order denying defendant’s motion to vacate sentence and conviction under 28 USC 2255. The defendant’s appellate attorney had been ineffective for failure to raise a Brady claim, raised by all of her co-defendants on appeal, based on the government’s failure to disclose material that would have undermined the government witnesses’ credibility. The First Circuit held that “any reasonable attorney would have known of the availability of the Brady claim since the co-defendants all raised it and since trial counsel had preserved the issue by raising it in his motion for new trial.”

The Eleventh Circuit affirmed the denial of a defendant’s motion under 2255. The trial court in the defendant’s case had erroneously instructed the jury that the defendant’s charge for Hobbs Act conspiracy could be a predicate offense for finding the defendant guilty of conspiracy to possess a firearm in furtherance of a crime of violence under 924(o). However, the defendant had procedurally defaulted on this claim by not bringing it up in front of the trial court or on direct appeal, and he could not show prejudice or actual innocence because the jury found him guilty of other predicate offenses that were “inextricable intertwined” with the Hobbs Act conspiracy count.

The Seventh Circuit remanded a defendant’s 2255 motion for an evidentiary hearing, holding that the defendant had made a sufficient showing that he may have received ineffective assistance of counsel based on his lawyer’s failure to argue that his Hobbs Act robbery was not a crime of violence under the career offender provision of the sentencing guidelines. While the Seventh Circuit had not yet decided whether Hobbs Act robbery was a crime of violence at the time of the defendant’s sentencing, other circuits had, the categorical approach under the Guidelines was well-known, and this was enough to warrant at least a hearing to determine whether the defendant’s counsel failed to reasonably investigate the issue before the defendant’s sentencing.

The Eleventh Circuit affirmed the district court’s denial of the defendant’s motion under 28 U.S.C. § 2255, holding that despite counsel’s deficient performance in failing to advise the defendant of potential exposure to a life sentence, make a plea offer to the government as directed by the defendant, or convey the government’s time-limited plea offer to the defendant, the defendant was not prejudiced by the deficient performance based on his rejection of two other plea offers from the government.