Clarence Wallace v.

• Court: Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit
• Decided: January 9, 2023
• Docket: 22-1902
• Status: Unpublished

Opinion

BLD-211 NOT PRECEDENTIAL

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE THIRD CIRCUIT ___________

No. 22-1902 ___________

IN RE: CLARENCE WALLACE, Petitioner ____________________________________

On a Petition for Writ of Mandamus from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania (Related to Cr. No. 2-02-cr-00197-001) ____________________________________

Submitted Pursuant to Rule 21, Fed. R. App. P. August 4, 2022

Before: MCKEE1, GREENAWAY, JR., and PORTER, Circuit Judges

(Opinion filed January 9, 2023) _________

OPINION* _________

PER CURIAM

Clarence Wallace petitions this Court for a writ of mandamus pursuant to 28

U.S.C. § 1651. For the following reasons, we will deny the petition.

In 2001, Wallace was convicted of multiple federal crimes related to his

participation in the armed robbery of two banks. The District Court denied his numerous

1 Judge McKee assumed senior status on October 21, 2022. * This disposition is not an opinion of the full Court and pursuant to I.O.P. 5.7 does not constitute binding precedent. post-conviction motions and sentenced Wallace to 960 months’ imprisonment. Wallace

subsequently filed a motion pursuant to Fed. R. Civ. P. 60(b) alleging fraud on the Court,

which the District Court denied for lack of jurisdiction. This Court affirmed his

judgment of conviction and the denial of his post-judgment motions on direct appeal.

See United States v. Wallace, 135 F. App’x 527 (3d Cir. 2005). In our opinion, we

agreed with the Government that

Wallace has, in numerous letters to the district court and this Court, in complaints to the bar association, and in his motions, made facially absurd allegations that government counsel, the case agent, and his trial counsel are ‘corrupt law handlers’ involved in the creation of evidence and the subornation of perjury. He claims this ‘conspiracy’ to subvert justice was aided by post-trial counsel, appellate counsel, and, apparently, even the trial judge.

Id. at 528. We further noted that he had levied “a litany” of “conclusory and

unsubstantiated, indeed fantastic and patently frivolous” claims against his appellate

counsel. Id. (quotation marks omitted).

Wallace next filed a motion to vacate his sentence pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2255,

which the District Court denied, noting that he continued with his “patently frivolous”

allegations that “the pre-trial and trial process were corrupt.” See ECF No. 154. We

declined to issue a certificate of appealability. C.A. No. 06-1943.

Before us now is Wallace’s mandamus petition, which is replete with the same

fantastical allegations of a wide-ranging conspiracy to convict him and far-fetched claims

of prosecutorial, attorney, and judicial misconduct. There is no basis in the petition for

granting this extraordinary remedy. See Sporck v. Peil, 759 F.2d 312, 314 (3d Cir. 1985)

2 (recognizing that issuance of a writ of mandamus is an appropriate remedy in

extraordinary circumstances only).

Wallace alleges that some of his motions are “still pending” and have not been

adjudicated or “settled” by the District Court. Although “an appellate court may issue a

writ of mandamus on the ground that undue delay is tantamount to a failure to exercise

jurisdiction,” Madden v. Myers, 102 F.3d 74, 79 (3d Cir. 1996), Wallace fails to point to

any specific motion that remains pending before the District Court, nor is one evident

from a review of the docket. To the extent that Wallace complains that the District Court

failed to fully address his claims in his motions, he could have raised those arguments on

direct appeal or in his motion for a certificate of appealability. See id. at 77 (recognizing

that mandamus cannot be used as a substitute for an appeal).

And to the extent Wallace is challenging his federal convictions or sentence,

mandamus is not the proper vehicle for doing so. Instead, he must comply with the

gatekeeping requirements prescribed by 28 U.S.C. § 2244 and § 2255(h). See Samak v.

Warden, FCC Coleman-Medium, 766 F.3d 1271, 1285 (11th Cir. 2014) (Pryor, J.,

concurring); cf. Massey v. United States, 581 F.3d 172, 174 (3d Cir. 2009) (per curiam).

Wallace should be familiar with those procedures by now. See, e.g., In re Wallace, C.A.

Nos. 10-2450, 16-2595, & 16-2855; see also USA v. Wallace, C.A. No. 14-3039, Order

entered Jan. 21, 2015 (construing a COA request as a § 2244 application).

Accordingly, we will deny the petition for a writ of mandamus.