Hector Valentine v. United States ( 2020 )

NOT PRECEDENTIAL
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE THIRD CIRCUIT
___________
No. 19-2625
__________
HECTOR VALENTINE,
Appellant
v.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
____________________________________
On Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Middle District of Pennsylvania
(D.C. Civil Action No. 4:19-cv-00914)
District Judge: Honorable Matthew W. Brann
____________________________________
Submitted Pursuant to Third Circuit LAR 34.1(a)
June 22, 2020
Before: SHWARTZ, RESTREPO and GREENBERG, Circuit Judges
(Opinion filed June 23, 2020)
___________
OPINION*
___________
*
This disposition is not an opinion of the full Court and pursuant to I.O.P. 5.7 does not
constitute binding precedent.
PER CURIAM
Federal prisoner Hector Valentine appeals pro se from the order of the United
States District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania (“the MDPA”) dismissing
his habeas petition filed pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2241. For the reasons that follow, we
will affirm that decision.
I.
A criminal defendant qualifies as a “career offender” under the United States
Sentencing Guidelines if, inter alia, he “has at least two prior felony convictions of either
a crime of violence or a controlled substance offense.” U.S.S.G. § 4B1.1(a); see U.S.S.G.
§ 4B1.2 (defining “crime of violence” and “controlled substance offense”). In 2012,
Valentine pleaded guilty in the United States District Court for the Southern District of
New York (“the SDNY”) to conspiracy to distribute cocaine base. His written plea
agreement acknowledged that he qualified as a career offender, and it indicated that he
had three prior convictions (all of which were New York state court convictions) that
qualified as career-offender predicates. In light of his career-offender designation, and
after accounting for a three-level reduction to his offense level based on his acceptance of
responsibility and timely notifying the Government of his intent to plead guilty, the
parties agreed that his advisory Guidelines range was 262 to 327 months in prison.1 His
1
The parties agreed that the version of the Guidelines in effect as of November 1, 2011,
applied to this case. The range of 262 to 327 months was based on an offense level of 34
2
plea agreement also included a provision waiving his right to challenge, on either direct
appeal or collateral review — including in a proceeding brought pursuant to 28 U.S.C.
§ 2255 or § 2241 — his sentence if it fell within or below that range.
The SDNY ultimately imposed a below-Guidelines prison sentence of 210
months. Despite the waiver provision in the plea agreement, Valentine filed a direct
appeal and, later, a § 2255 motion. In 2013, the United States Court of Appeals for the
Second Circuit enforced the waiver provision and dismissed Valentine’s direct appeal to
the extent that he challenged his prison sentence.2 In 2015, the SDNY denied Valentine’s
§ 2255 motion, concluding that the waiver provision was enforceable and that, in any
event, his claims lacked merit.3
In 2018, Valentine filed a two-part document in the SDNY. The first part was
titled “Petitioner’s File a Motion to Reconsider Amendment 782 Under 18 U.S.C.
[§] 3582(c)(2) in Light of Recent Decision from Second Circuit Court of Appeals,”4 and
and a criminal history category of VI. See U.S.S.G. ch. 5, pt. A (Nov. 1, 2011)
(sentencing table).
2
To the extent that Valentine’s direct appeal raised issues that were not covered by the
waiver provision, the Second Circuit summarily affirmed the SDNY’s judgment.
3
Valentine appealed from the SDNY’s denial of § 2255 relief, but the Second Circuit
dismissed that appeal because he failed to move for a certificate of appealability
(“COA”).
4
Valentine had previously filed a § 3582(c)(2) motion, arguing that he was entitled to a
sentence reduction in view of Amendment 782 to the Guidelines, “which retroactively
reduced by two levels the base offense levels assigned to many drug quantities in the
Drug Guidelines.” United States v. Thompson, 825 F.3d 198, 202 (3d Cir. 2016). The
3
the second part was titled “Motion to File a 28 U.S.C. [§] 2241 Under Savings Clause in
Light of 28 U.S.C. [§] 2255(e).” The latter part argued that (1) Valentine is actually
innocent of the offense to which he pleaded guilty because the Government’s evidence
was insufficient, and (2) in light of intervening decisions from the United States Supreme
Court and the Second Circuit, he no longer qualifies as a career offender. The SDNY
treated this filing as an application for leave to file a second or successive § 2255 motion
and transferred it to the Second Circuit. In May 2019, the Second Circuit denied the
application, but it transferred Valentine’s case to the MDPA — the court for the federal
district in which he was confined — to the extent that he sought relief under § 2241. See
Rumsfeld v. Padilla, 542 U.S. 426, 442-43 (2004) (indicating that a § 2241 petition
should be filed in the district of confinement). After the transfer, the MDPA, on July 2,
2019, dismissed Valentine’s § 2241 petition, concluding that he could not proceed under
§ 2241 because his claims do not fall within the ambit of § 2255’s savings clause. This
timely appeal followed.
SDNY denied that motion, concluding that a reduction was not warranted because that
amendment did not affect his career-offender sentence. He appealed from that decision,
but the Second Circuit dismissed his appeal based on his failure to file a brief.
4
II.
We have jurisdiction over this appeal pursuant to 28 U.S.C. §§ 1291 and 2253(a).5
In reviewing the MDPA’s order dismissing Valentine’s habeas petition, we exercise
plenary review over the MDPA’s legal conclusions and review its factual findings for
clear error. See Cradle v. United States ex rel. Miner, 290 F.3d 536, 538 (3d Cir. 2002)
(per curiam). We may affirm that order on any basis supported by the record. See
Murray v. Bledsoe, 650 F.3d 246, 247 (3d Cir. 2011) (per curiam).
A § 2255 motion is the presumptive means by which a federal prisoner can
collaterally attack the legality of his conviction or sentence. See Okereke v. United
States, 307 F.3d 117, 120 (3d Cir. 2002). A federal prisoner may challenge the legality
of his conviction or sentence via a § 2241 petition only if he establishes that a § 2255
motion would be “inadequate or ineffective.” See 28 U.S.C. § 2255(e); Cradle, 290 F.3d
at 538. For a case to fall within the “inadequate or ineffective” exception, two conditions
must be met. See Cordaro v. United States, 933 F.3d 232, 239 (3d Cir. 2019). “First, a
prisoner must assert a claim of actual innocence on the theory that he is being detained
for conduct that has subsequently been rendered non-criminal by an intervening Supreme
Court decision and our own precedent construing an intervening Supreme Court decision
5
Valentine does not need a COA to proceed with this appeal. See United States v.
Cepero, 224 F.3d 256, 264-65 (3d Cir. 2000) (en banc), abrogated on other grounds by
Gonzalez v. Thaler, 565 U.S. 134 (2012).
5
. . . .” Bruce v. Warden Lewisburg USP, 868 F.3d 170, 180 (3d Cir. 2017) (internal
quotation marks omitted). “[S]econd, the prisoner must be otherwise barred from
challenging the legality of the conviction under § 2255.” Id. (internal quotation marks
omitted).
We agree with the MDPA that, although Valentine claims that he is actually
innocent of the offense to which he pleaded guilty, he cannot seek relief under § 2241 on
that basis because “he does not assert that his conduct has ‘been rendered non-criminal by
an intervening Supreme Court decision.’” (Dist. Ct. Order entered July 2, 2019, at 5
(quoting Bruce, 868 F.3d at 180).) We devote the remainder of this opinion to his claim
challenging his career-offender designation. Assuming without deciding that this
sentencing claim is cognizable under § 2241, we conclude that this claim is barred by the
waiver provision in Valentine’s plea agreement.6
As discussed above, Valentine’s plea agreement waived his right to challenge his
sentence on either direct appeal or collateral review (including in a proceeding brought
pursuant to § 2255 or § 2241), so long as he was sentenced within or below the 262-to-
327-month range (which, of course, he was). Accordingly, that waiver provision clearly
6
After this appeal was fully briefed, this Court held “that an incorrect career-offender
enhancement under the advisory guidelines is not cognizable under § 2255.” United
States v. Folk, 954 F.3d 597, 604 (3d Cir. 2020). In view of our conclusion that
Valentine has waived the career-offender claim that is now before us, we need not reach
the question whether our decision in Folk would preclude him from obtaining § 2241
relief on this claim.
6
covers the sentencing claim now before us. The question that remains is whether we
should enforce that waiver. A criminal defendant’s waiver of his appellate and collateral-
challenge rights is not enforceable unless it was made knowingly and voluntarily. See,
e.g., United States v. Fazio, 795 F.3d 421, 425 (3d Cir. 2015); Sanford v. United States,
841 F.3d 578, 580 (2d Cir. 2016) (per curiam). Furthermore, we will not enforce a
waiver if doing so would work a miscarriage of justice. See Fazio, 795 F.3d at 425.
In Valentine’s case, the Second Circuit effectively concluded that his waiver of his
right to challenge his sentence on direct appeal was knowing and voluntary, and the
SDNY reached the same conclusion with respect to his waiver of his right to collaterally
challenge his sentence under § 2255. We see no reason to reach a different result with
respect to his waiver of his right to collaterally challenge his sentence under § 2241. And
we conclude that enforcing the waiver here would not work a miscarriage of justice. If
Valentine had gone to trial and been convicted, he would not have received the
aforementioned three-level reduction to his offense level, and it appears that his advisory
Guidelines range would have been 360 months to life instead of 262 to 327 months. See
U.S.S.G. ch. 5, pt. A (Nov. 1, 2011) (sentencing table). Accordingly, by choosing to
plead guilty, he received a substantial benefit. Even if we were to assume for the sake of
argument that subsequent decisions from the Supreme Court and/or the Second Circuit
might call into question whether he would still have at least two qualifying career-
offender predicate convictions if he were sentenced now, those post-sentencing
7
developments do not justify setting aside his knowing and voluntary waiver of his right to
attack his sentence under § 2241. See United States v. Lockett, 406 F.3d 207, 214 (3d
Cir. 2005) (“The possibility of a favorable change in the law occurring after a plea
agreement is merely one of the risks that accompanies a guilty plea.”); id. (concluding
that the appellant “cannot now ask to re-bargain the waiver of his right to appeal because
of changes in the law”); Sanford, 841 F.3d at 580 (explaining that the Second Circuit
“has held that a defendant’s inability to foresee [a change in the law] does not supply a
basis for failing to enforce an appeal waiver” (alteration in original) (internal quotation
marks omitted)); see also Folk, 954 F.3d at 605 (“[A]n incorrect career-offender
enhancement is not a fundamental defect inherently resulting in a complete miscarriage
of justice.”); United States v. Castro, 704 F.3d 125, 136 (3d Cir. 2013) (“Courts apply the
miscarriage of justice exception sparingly and without undue generosity, but with the aim
of avoiding manifest injustice.” (internal quotation marks and citations omitted)).
In view of the above, we will affirm the MDPA’s order dismissing Valentine’s
§ 2241 petition.
8