Robert Griffin Brown v. Warden, FCC Coleman - Low , 817 F.3d 1278 ( 2016 )

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[PUBLISH]
IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT
________________________
No. 15-11335
________________________
D.C. Docket Nos. 5:14-cv-00452-JSM-PRL; 8:03-cr-00294-JSM-EAJ-1
ROBERT GRIFFIN BROWN,
Petitioner-Appellant,
versus
WARDEN, FCC COLEMAN - LOW,
Respondent-Appellee.
________________________
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Middle District of Florida
________________________
(April 1, 2016)
Before HULL, JULIE CARNES, and BARKSDALE, * Circuit Judges.
HULL, Circuit Judge:
*
Honorable Rhesa H. Barksdale, United States Circuit Judge for the Fifth Circuit, sitting
by designation.
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Petitioner Robert Griffin Brown appeals the district court’s dismissal of his
28 U.S.C. § 2241 petition, which he brought pursuant to the 28 U.S.C. § 2255(e)
savings clause. Brown’s appeal raises a novel issue requiring us to interpret the
fourth prong of the jurisdictional test announced in Bryant v. Warden, FCC
Coleman – Medium, 738 F.3d 1253, 1274 (11th Cir. 2013), which requires a
petitioner to establish that his current detention exceeds the statutory maximum
authorized by Congress.
Petitioner Brown is serving 3 concurrent 188-month sentences on each of his
3 counts of conviction: 2 drug-distribution offenses and a felon-in-possession-of-a-
firearm offense. He challenges his sentence for the felon-in-possession offense.
Because the drug convictions authorize his 188-month sentence, the government
argues his overall detention is not illegal.
We agree and hold that, in order to meet Bryant’s fourth prong, a § 2241
petitioner serving multiple concurrent sentences must demonstrate that his overall
sentence exceeds the allowable statutory maximum for each of the counts of
conviction. In other words, the petitioner must show that, as a result of sentencing
error, he will be in prison-custody or detention for longer than any of his statutes of
conviction authorize.
Here, Petitioner Brown cannot “open a portal” to the § 2255(e) savings
clause because his 188-month sentence on his firearm offense, even if now illegal,
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is equivalent to and wholly concurrent with his 188-month drug sentences that are
not illegal.
I. BACKGROUND
In July 2003, Robert Griffin Brown was indicted for: (1) possessing 50
grams or more of cocaine base with intent to distribute, in violation of 21 U.S.C.
§ 841(a)(1) and (b)(1)(A)(iii); (2) possessing cocaine with intent to distribute, in
violation of 21 U.S.C. § 841(a)(1) and (b)(1)(C); (3) being a felon in possession of
a firearm, in violation of 18 U.S.C. §§ 922(g)(1) and 924(e); and (4) carrying a
firearm during and in relation to a drug-trafficking crime, in violation of 18 U.S.C.
§ 924(c). Brown pled guilty to all four offenses.
Brown’s presentence investigation report (“PSI”) set out the statutory
sentencing ranges for each count of conviction. It determined that Brown was
subject to: (1) 10 years to life imprisonment for the cocaine-base-possession
offense; (2) 0 to 20 years’ imprisonment for the cocaine-possession offense; (3) 15
years to life imprisonment for the firearm-possession offense; and (4) a mandatory
consecutive sentence of 5 years to life imprisonment for the § 924(c) offense.
According to the PSI, Brown was subject to an enhanced statutory sentence
on the firearm conviction in Count 3, in accordance with the provisions of the
Armed Career Criminal Act (“ACCA”), 18 U.S.C. § 924(e). The PSI determined
that Brown had the following three ACCA-predicate convictions for serious drug
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offenses or violent felonies: (1) a 1982 Florida conviction for sale and possession
of cocaine; (2) another 1982 Florida conviction for sale and possession of cocaine;
and (3) a 1988 Florida conviction for carrying a concealed firearm. 1 Brown
committed his two 1982 cocaine offenses on separate dates.
The PSI grouped Counts 1, 2, and 3 together and, because Brown was an
armed career criminal under the ACCA, applied the armed career criminal
sentencing guidelines enhancement under U.S.S.G. § 4B1.4. Ultimately, Brown’s
guidelines range for those counts was 188 to 235 months’ imprisonment, based on
a total offense level of 31 and a criminal history category of VI.
Brown did not object to the PSI, and the district court adopted the PSI’s
factual statements and guidelines calculation. In 2004, the district court sentenced
Brown to concurrent 188-month sentences on Counts 1, 2, and 3, and sentenced
him to a 60-month sentence for Count 4, to be served consecutively to the 188-
month sentences, for a total of 248 months’ imprisonment. At the time that Brown
was sentenced, the guidelines were mandatory. Brown did not file a direct appeal.2
In March 2005, Brown filed a 28 U.S.C. § 2255 motion to vacate, in which
he raised claims of ineffective assistance of counsel. None of the claims related to
1
Brown’s PSI also listed as a serious drug offense Brown’s 1988 Florida conviction for
possession of cocaine, but the government does not rely on that offense as a qualifying ACCA
predicate.
2
In 2013, Brown eventually filed a belated appeal, which he voluntarily dismissed.
Brown alleges that he reached an agreement with the government that he would dismiss his 2013
appeal and pursue his claims in the instant § 2241 petition.
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the ACCA enhancement or the sentencing guidelines calculation. In July 2006, the
district court denied the § 2255 motion and a certificate of appealability. In
December 2006, this Court likewise denied a certificate of appealability.
II. SECTION 2241 PETITION
In August 2014, Brown filed the instant § 2241 petition, arguing that he no
longer qualified for an enhanced sentence under the ACCA or U.S.S.G. § 4B1.4,
based on the U.S. Supreme Court’s intervening decision Begay v. United States,
553 U.S. 137, 128 S. Ct. 1581 (2008), overruled in part on other grounds by
Johnson v. United States, 576 U.S. ___, 135 S. Ct. 2551 (2015). Brown stated that
Begay established that, contrary to this Court’s precedent at the time of his
sentencing and § 2255 motion, the Florida crime of carrying a concealed firearm
was not an ACCA-predicate violent felony. Brown claimed that he was incorrectly
sentenced under the ACCA because he actually had only two predicate
convictions, instead of the required three. Therefore, his 188-month sentence for
possessing a firearm as a convicted felon exceeded the applicable statutory
maximum of 120 months’ imprisonment, and he needed to be resentenced within
the appropriate statutory range.
Brown also claimed that his guidelines range should be recalculated because
the district court erred in applying the § 4B1.4 enhancement, which is predicated
on a defendant’s status as an armed career criminal under the ACCA. According
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to Brown, because the erroneous guidelines calculation controlled his sentences for
Counts 1, 2, and 3, he had to be resentenced without the guidelines enhancement
on all three counts.3 Brown argued that the savings clause was the appropriate
vehicle for this relief and that he met the Bryant standard.
The government responded that the district court lacked subject matter
jurisdiction over Brown’s petition because he failed to satisfy the Bryant
requirements for accessing the § 2255(e) savings clause. The government
conceded that Brown had met the first three Bryant prongs because: (1) his ACCA
challenge was foreclosed by binding precedent during his sentencing and § 2255
proceedings; (2) Begay overturned that binding precedent; and (3) Begay applies
retroactively on collateral review. However, according to the government, Brown
could not satisfy the fourth prong by showing that, due to Begay error, his sentence
exceeded the statutory maximum. The government claimed that Brown’s total
sentence for Counts 1, 2, and 3 was still below the statutory maxima for the
concurrently-running drug offenses. Therefore, Brown was not “in custody in
violation of the Constitution or laws or treaties of the United States,” as required
for habeas relief, because his total sentence and detention were legal. Lastly, the
3
Without the U.S.S.G. § 4B1.4 enhancement, the parties agree that Brown’s total offense
level would have been 29 and his criminal history category III. His guidelines range,
irrespective of any statutory minimums and maximums, would have been 108 to 135 months’
imprisonment.
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government asserted that the savings clause does not empower courts to adjust
guidelines calculations.
In his reply, Brown asserted again that the district court had jurisdiction to
review his ACCA claim and resentence him on Count 3. He argued that the
government’s reasoning would require the district court to ignore the statutory
maximum created by Congress and violate separation-of-powers principles.
Brown conceded that the district court lacked jurisdiction under the savings clause
to resentence him on the drug offenses to correct the guidelines error; but he
asserted that, under the sentencing package doctrine, the district court had a
separate jurisdictional basis to resentence him as a matter of discretion on Counts 1
and 2 when it recalculated his sentence for the § 922(g) firearm offense. Brown
argued that his sentences on Counts 1, 2, and 3 were part of the “same sentencing
package.”
The district court held a hearing on the § 2241 petition, at which the parties
reiterated their arguments. Afterward, the district court issued an order dismissing
Brown’s petition for lack of jurisdiction. The court noted that the parties did not
contest the first three Bryant factors, and found that Brown could not make the
requisite showing on the fourth Bryant factor. It concluded that, though Brown’s
sentence for being a felon in possession of a firearm exceeded the statutory
maximum for that particular count, his overall sentence was legal.
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The district court reasoned that the language of the savings clause dictated
this interpretation of Bryant’s fourth prong. It stated that § 2255(e) provides that a
federal prisoner may file a § 2241 petition only when his prior § 2255 motion was
“inadequate or ineffective to test the legality of [his] detention.” The district court
determined that Congress’ use of the term “detention” indicates that § 2255(e) is
concerned with “whether the overall detention is legal,” and “not whether a
particular sentence itself is legal.” Therefore, unless a petitioner establishes that he
is “being held without authorization by any congressional statute,” the savings
clause does not reach his claim.
As to the guidelines error, the district court stated that this Court’s binding
precedent squarely holds that the savings clause does not apply to guidelines-error
sentencing claims. See Gilbert v. United States, 640 F.3d 1293, 1312 (11th Cir.
2011) (en banc). It also concluded that this Court, in Bryant, instructed that the
proper remedy in a § 2241 proceeding predicated on ACCA error was to reduce the
petitioner’s ACCA sentence to the unenhanced ten-year statutory maximum. It
noted that the Bryant Court instructed that there was no need to hold a resentencing
hearing to make this adjustment. Based on this language, the district court stated
that, even if it had jurisdiction to correct Brown’s ACCA sentence, it would not be
able to apply the sentencing package doctrine, and his total sentence would remain
the same.
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Brown appealed from this ruling, and after a thorough review of the parties’
briefs and with the benefit of oral argument, we affirm the district court’s judgment
for the reasons that follow.
III. DISCUSSION
A. ACCA Enhancement
Typically, a person convicted of being a felon in possession of a firearm is
subject to a statutory maximum penalty of ten years’ imprisonment. 18 U.S.C.
§ 924(a)(2). A defendant is subject to an enhanced sentence under the ACCA,
however, if he has three or more convictions committed on occasions different
from one another that qualify as a “violent felony” or a “serious drug offense,” as
defined in the ACCA. Id. § 924(e)(1). An ACCA offender faces 15 years’ to life
imprisonment. Id.
In 1996, this Court determined in United States v. Hall that the Florida
offense of carrying a concealed weapon was a violent felony under the ACCA. 77
F.3d 398, 401-02 & n.3 (11th Cir. 1996), abrogated by Begay, 553 U.S. 137, 128
S. Ct. 1581. In 2008, the Supreme Court decided Begay and held that violent
felonies “involve purposeful, violent, and aggressive conduct.” 553 U.S. at 144-
45, 128 S. Ct. at 1586 (quotation marks omitted). This Court recognized in 2009,
in United States v. Canty, 570 F.3d 1251, 1255 (11th Cir. 2009), that, after Begay,
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carrying a concealed firearm no longer qualifies as a violent felony under the
ACCA.
Thus, from 1996 to 2009, prisoners like Brown were squarely foreclosed
from challenging the use of a prior carrying-a-concealed-weapon conviction as an
ACCA-predicate offense. Mackey v. Warden, FCC Coleman – Medium, 739 F.3d
657, 662 (11th Cir. 2014).
B. Savings Clause
Section 2255(e) provides that a prisoner may not file an application for a
writ of habeas corpus if he has already filed a § 2255 motion, “unless it also
appears that the remedy by motion is inadequate or ineffective to test the legality
of his detention.” 28 U.S.C. § 2255(e) (emphasis added). The emphasized
language is the savings clause.
Whether a prisoner may bring a § 2241 petition under the § 2255(e) savings
clause is a question of law that this Court reviews de novo. Williams v. Warden,
Fed. Bureau of Prisons, 713 F.3d 1332, 1337 (11th Cir. 2013). The application of
the § 2255(e) savings clause is a threshold jurisdictional issue. Id. The petitioner
bears the burden of demonstrating that his original § 2255 motion was “inadequate
or ineffective to test the legality of his detention.” Turner v. Warden Coleman
FCI (Medium), 709 F.3d 1328, 1333 (11th Cir. 2013) (quoting 28 U.S.C.
§ 2255(e)).
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Notably, in Bryant, the petitioner was serving only one conviction and
sentence. 738 F.3d at 1258. This Court set out a five-part jurisdictional test for
determining when the savings clause applies to a claim of sentencing error. See id.
at 1274. In order to meet the Bryant test and establish that a court has jurisdiction
to correct an erroneous ACCA sentence based on Begay, we stated that a petitioner
must show that:
(1) throughout his sentencing, direct appeal, and first § 2255
proceeding, our Circuit’s binding precedent had specifically
addressed [his] distinct prior state conviction that triggered
§ 924(e) and had squarely foreclosed [his] § 924(e) claim that
he was erroneously sentenced above the 10-year statutory
maximum penalty in § 924(a);
(2) subsequent to his first § 2255 proceeding, the Supreme Court’s
decision in Begay, as extended by this Court to [his] distinct
prior conviction, overturned our Circuit precedent that had
squarely foreclosed [his] § 924(e) claim;
(3) the new rule announced in Begay applies retroactively on
collateral review;
(4) as a result of Begay’s new rule being retroactive, [his] current
sentence exceeds the 10-year statutory maximum authorized by
Congress in § 924(a); and
(5) the savings clause in § 2255(e) reaches his pure § 924(e)-Begay
error claim of illegal detention above the statutory maximum
penalty in § 924(a).
Id.
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C. Analysis of Fourth Bryant Prong
The parties agree that Brown has demonstrated that, in light of the timing of
his conviction and § 2255 motion, and the retroactively-applicable circuit-busting
precedent established in Begay, he can meet the first three prongs of the Bryant
test. The parties also agree that Brown’s 188-month sentence on Count 3 exceeds
the 120-month statutory maximum in § 924(a).
The dispositive question here is whether, in order to satisfy the fourth prong
of Bryant, Brown must show further that his illegal sentence on Count 3 is above
what Congress has authorized on every one of his concurrent counts of conviction.
In other words, we must decide whether Brown has to show that his aggregate 188-
month detention for Counts 1, 2, and 3 is illegal.
Like the district court ruled and as the government argues, we conclude that
Brown must show that his overall detention is illegal, which Brown has failed to
do. Brown cannot “open a portal” to the § 2255(e) savings clause by attacking the
legality of just one of his concurrent sentences.
The § 2255(e) savings clause specifies that a prisoner may file a § 2241
petition when his § 2255 motion was “inadequate or ineffective to test the legality
of his detention.” 28 U.S.C. § 2255(e) (emphasis added). When a prisoner has
only one conviction and sentence, his detention is legal as long as his sentence is
legal. However, if a prisoner is serving multiple sentences, his detention may be
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legal even if one of his sentences is not. Therefore, a prisoner cannot show that his
first § 2255 motion was inadequate or ineffective to test his “detention” unless his
total sentence now exceeds the statutory maximum for each crime of conviction.
This is the showing required for the fourth Bryant prong.
Dictum in Bryant also supports this interpretation of “detention.” This Court
explained in Bryant that a petitioner can access the savings clause when he “is
being detained without authorization by any statute.” Bryant, 738 F.3d at 1283. In
essence, the Bryant Court was stating what we just concluded: a detention is legal
(authorized by statute) so long as its length is within the statutory maximum for
one of the counts of conviction. So long as “any statute” supports the detention, it
remains legal, and the petitioner cannot rely on the savings clause for relief. See
id.
Importantly, our conclusion today is in line with all of our current case law
on the savings clause, which makes clear that § 2255(e), at best, “contains a very
narrow exception to [the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act’s]
prohibition on successive collateral relief.” Id. (emphasis added). We have stated
in the sentencing-error context that this exception applies only to “fundamental
defect[s].” See id. at 1281; Williams, 713 F.3d at 1343; Gilbert, 640 F.3d at
1319 n.20; Wofford v. Scott, 177 F.3d 1236, 1244-45 (11th Cir. 1999). Put
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simply, there is no fundamental defect when a prisoner is not serving more time, in
total, than authorized by law. 4
Applying this principle to Brown, we conclude that the district court lacked
jurisdiction to entertain his § 2241 petition. While Brown’s 188-month ACCA
sentence was illegal, his 188-month detention was authorized by the statutory
maxima for his drug crimes—life for possessing cocaine base with intent to
distribute, and 20 years for possessing cocaine with intent to distribute. See 21
U.S.C. § 841(a)(1), (b)(1)(A)(iii), (b)(1)(C) (2003). As Brown’s erroneous ACCA
sentence is not causing him to remain in prison longer than authorized by any of
his statutes of conviction, he has failed to satisfy the fourth Bryant prong and
“open a portal” to the savings clause.5
D. Guidelines Error
As to Brown’s claims that we should correct his guidelines range and
resentence him on Counts 1, 2, and 3 without the U.S.S.G. § 4B1.4 enhancement,
this Court has squarely held that “the savings clause of § 2255(e) does not permit a
4
Even the dissent in Bryant recognized that the petitioner’s case was exceptional because
(contrary to the case before us now) Bryant was “in prison beyond the time allowed.” See
Bryant, 738 F.3d at 1291 (Martin, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part).
5
Brown argues that our decision that he cannot be resentenced, at least on his conviction
for being a felon in possession of a firearm, fails to respect separation-of-powers principles and
Congress’ intent in setting statutory maximum sentences. However, our decision today relates to
federal courts’ jurisdiction, and Congress has severely limited the power of federal courts to
reach the merits of federal prisoners’ § 2241 petitions. We must respect all of Congress’ statutes,
and in this case, the jurisdictional limitation imposed by Congress in this procedural posture.
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prisoner to bring in a § 2241 petition a guidelines miscalculation claim . . . .”
Gilbert, 640 F.3d at 1312.6 And because we have concluded that Brown is not
entitled to be resentenced on Count 3, we need not address the applicability of the
sentencing package doctrine. Thus, we do not disturb any of his concurrent
sentences.
IV. CONCLUSION
For all of the foregoing reasons, we affirm the judgment of the district court.
AFFIRMED.
6
Brown raises the guidelines-error issue to preserve it for possible future review as to the
scope of § 2255(e).
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