Damon Raines v. United States

898 F.3d 680
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit
DecidedJuly 31, 2018
Docket17-1457
StatusPublished
Cited by32 cases

This text of 898 F.3d 680 (Damon Raines v. United States) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Damon Raines v. United States, 898 F.3d 680 (6th Cir. 2018).

Opinions

PER CURIAM.

Damon Tonyado Raines, a federal prisoner proceeding pro se, appeals a district court judgment denying his 28 U.S.C. § 2255 motion to vacate his sentence. This case has been referred to a panel of the court that, upon examination, unanimously agrees that oral argument is not needed. See Fed. R. App. P. 34(a).

In 2012, Raines pleaded guilty to one count of possessing a firearm as a convicted felon, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1), and one count of possessing cocaine with intent to distribute, in violation of 21 U.S.C. § 841(a)(1) and (b)(1)(C). The district court concluded that Raines was subject to a statutory minimum term of 180 months of imprisonment under the Armed Career Criminal Act ("ACCA"), 18 U.S.C. § 924(e)(2)(B), because he had three prior convictions for controlled substance offenses or violent felonies. Specifically, Raines had a 1991 Michigan conviction for assault with intent to do great bodily harm less than murder, a 2002 federal conviction for distributing cocaine base, and a 2002 federal conviction for collecting credit by extortionate means, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 894(a)(1). The district court sentenced him to a total term of 180 months of imprisonment, and we affirmed.

On May 11, 2016, Raines filed a § 2255 motion to vacate, in which he argued that he should not have been sentenced as an armed career criminal because his 2002 convictions should have been counted as a single offense and he, therefore, did not have the requisite three predicate offenses. But Raines already raised that issue on direct appeal, and we affirmed, holding that his 2002 convictions were separate qualifying convictions because they arose from separate criminal episodes, even though both convictions were entered on the same day. United States v. Raines , Nos. 12-2431/12-2432 (6th Cir. June 11, 2013) (order).

Raines also challenges whether his prior convictions are violent felonies "after Johnson ," purporting to lodge a claim based on Johnson v. United States , --- U.S. ----, 135 S.Ct. 2551, 192 L.Ed.2d 569 (2015), which held the ACCA's residual clause to be unconstitutionally vague. The district court denied Raines's § 2255 motion, concluding that each of Raines's predicate *684convictions qualified as either a serious drug offense or violent felony without reliance on the ACCA's now-invalidated residual clause. Specifically, the district court held that Raines's assault conviction qualified under the ACCA's force clause, Raines's drug-distribution conviction qualified as a serious drug offense, and Raines's collecting-credit-by-extortion conviction qualified under the ACCA's enumerated-crimes clause. Raines v. United States , No. 1:16-cv-498, 2017 WL 104093, at *2-3 (W.D. Mich. Jan. 11, 2017) ("[T]he 2002 conviction for collection of credit by extortionate means in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 894(a)(1) is a 'violent felony' because it is a crime of 'extortion' under 18 U.S.C. § 924(e)(2)(B)(ii).").

The district court denied Raines a certificate of appealability, but we granted one on the following issues: (1) whether Raines's Johnson claim is properly before this court on appeal; and (2) whether Raines is entitled to relief based on Johnson because his 2002 conviction under 18 U.S.C. § 894(a)(1), for collecting credit by extortionate means, was counted as a violent felony under the ACCA's now-invalidated residual clause. Raines v. United States , No. 17-1457 (6th Cir. Oct. 26, 2017) (order).

On appeal, Raines argues that the Johnson issue is properly before us and that we must review the merits of the district court's decision. He also argues that his prior conviction for collecting credit by extortionate means in violation of § 894(a)(1) should not have been counted as a violent felony under the ACCA because it is not covered by the use-of-force clause and it is not equivalent to the generic crime of "extortion."

The government argues that Raines cannot claim an entitlement to relief under Johnson : because Raines's sentencing record is silent as to which of the ACCA's clauses the district court relied upon in treating his extortionate-collection charge as a violent felony, Raines cannot show that the district court relied specifically on the residual clause. The government argues that

it is not enough for a defendant seeking collateral relief simply to assert that his claim arises under Johnson ; he must show that more likely than not, he was sentenced as an armed career criminal based on the residual clause. E.g., Beeman v. United States , 871 F.3d 1215, 1224 (11th Cir. 2017) (defendant has the "burden of establishing that he, in fact, was sentenced as an armed career criminal ... solely because of the residual clause"); United States v. Snyder , 871 F.3d 1122, 1129 (10th Cir. 2017) (courts should take a "snapshot" of law at the time and find burden unsatisfied if there was no need to rely on residual clause at the time); but see United States v. Winston , 850 F.3d 677, 682 (4th Cir. 2017) (declining to impose burden on movants);

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Bluebook (online)
898 F.3d 680, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/damon-raines-v-united-states-ca6-2018.