Erby v. Breckon

CourtDistrict Court, W.D. Virginia
DecidedMarch 24, 2020
Docket7:18-cv-00588
StatusUnknown

This text of Erby v. Breckon (Erby v. Breckon) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, W.D. Virginia primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Erby v. Breckon, (W.D. Va. 2020).

Opinion

AL RUANUNE, FILED MAR 2 4 2020

. my wv ccbyk □□ IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT *™ of FOR THE WESTERN DISTRICT OF VIRGINIA ROANOKE DIVISION JAMES ARNESS ERBY, ) Petitioner, ) Civil Action No. 7:18-cv-00588 ) v. ) MEMORANDUM OPINION ) WARDEN BRECKON, ) By: Michael F. Urbanski Respondent. ) Chief United States District Judge James Arness Erby, a federal inmate proceeding pro se, filed this petition for writ of habeas corpus putsuant to 28 U.S.C. '§ 2241, alleging that his continued detention is unconstitutional. This matter is before the court on respondent’s motion to dismiss. After reviewing the record, the court concludes that respondent's motion must be granted. | I, Etby is in the custody of the Warden of United States Penitentiary (“USP”) Lee. He { . is serving a term of life in prison for firearms and drug crimes.1 Erby appealed his convictions and sentences. On April 24, 2007, the Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit affirmed the judgment. Tn 2010, Erby filed a motion to vacate sentence pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2255 in the US. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia. After finding that Erby’s claims were utitimely, procedurally defaulted, previously litigated, or meritless, the district court denied the motion. Erby appealed the decision to the Fourth Circuit, which denied a certificate of

1 Specifically, Erby was sentenced to two concurrent sentences of 120 months imprisonment for two separate counts of being a felon in possession of a firearm and ammunition, a concurrent sentence of 240 months for the drug trafficking offense, and a consecutive sentence of life in prison for use of a firearm in relation to a drug trafficking offense.

appealability and dismissed the motion. Erby filed a second motion to vacate pursuant to § 2255 in the sentencing court after the Supreme Court's decision in Alleyne v. United States, 570 U.S. 99 (2013). The district court denied the motion as an unauthorized second or successive motion. Erby filed the current petition pursuant to § 2241 on Noreriee? 28, 2018. He subsequently filed a motion to amend the petition, which the court granted. After seeking and receiving an extension of time, respondent filed a motion to dismiss on May 17, 2019. Erby thereafter filed an objection to the motion to dismiss as well as a motion for summary judgment. He has since filed a motion for appointment of counsel, which the court denied, and a second motion to amend the petition, which remains pending. Erby raises three claims in the instant petition, as amended.” First, he argues that the district court imposed a life sentence without authority. Relatedly, Erby claims that he remains presumptively innocent of the distinct crimes of first degree murder and obstruction of justice.

_ In his amended petition, Erby alleges that respondent is violating his rights to due process and to be free from cruel and unusual punishment, in violation of the Fifth and Eighth Amendments, respectively, by continuing to detain him.

Il. Typically, a petitioner challenging the validity of his conviction or sentence must proceed under 28 U.S.C. § 2255 in the district where he was convicted. However, the “savings clause” in § 2255 allows a prisoner to challenge the validity of his. conviction and/or his

2 Erby’s “amended petition” adds additional claims to the original petition, but does not encompass that entire document. Accordingly, the court refers to the two filings separately. > □

sentence by filing a § 2241 petition for writ of habeas corpus, if he demonstrates that § 2255 is “inadequate or ineffective to test the legality of his detention.” 28 U.S.C. § 2255(e) (“An application for a writ of habeas corpus in behalf of a prisoner who is authorized to apply for relief by motion pursuant to this section, shall not be entertained if it appears that the applicant has failed to apply for relief, by motion, to the court which sentenced him, or that such court has denied him relief, unless it also appears that the remedy by motion is inadequate or ineffective to test the legality of his detention.”). “[I]he remedy afforded by § 2255 is not rendered inadequate or ineffective merely because an individual has been unable to obtain relief under that provision, or because an individual is procedurally barred from filing a § 2255 motion.” In re Vial, 115 F.3d 1192, 1194 n.5 (4% Cir. 1997).3

. In United States v. Wheeler, 886 F.3d 415 (4% Cir. 2018), the Fourth Circuit explained that where a petitioner is challenging the legality of his sentence (as opposed to his conviction), —_ § 2255 will be deemed “inadequate or ineffective” only when all of the following four conditions are satisfied: (1) at the time of sentencing, settled law of this circuit or the Supreme Court established the legality of the sentence; (2) subsequent to the prisoner’s direct appeal and first § 2255 motion, the aforementioned settled substantive law changed and was deemed to apply retroactively on collateral review; (3) the prisoner is unable to meet the gatekeeping provisions of § 2255(h)(2)4 for second or successive motions; and (4) due to this retroactive □

3 The court has eliminatéd internal quotation marks, alterations, footnotes, and/or citations here and throughout this memorandum opinion, unless otherwise noted. 4 Section 2255(h) provides that: A second or successive motion must be certified as provided in section 2244 by a panel of the appropriate court of appeals to contain--

change, the sentence now presents an error sufficiently grave to be deemed a fundamental defect. Id, at 429; see also Lester v. Flournoy, 909 F.3d 708, 712 (4th Cir. 2018) (applying Wheeler); In re Jones, 226 F.3d 328, 333-34 (4% Cir. 2000) (reaching same conclusion with respect to challenges to convictions and setting forth similar factors) . ‘The Wheeler court also affirmed that the requitements of the savings clause are jurisdictional. 886 F.3d at 423. Thus, a § 2241 petitioner relying on the savings clause to challenge his sentence must meet the Wheeler test for the district court to have subject matter jurisdiction to evaluate the merits of the petitionet’s claims. Id. at 426-29. Although the court must apply the procedural standard in Wheeler, “[i]n evaluating the substantive law in a § 2255(e) savings clause analysis, the court must look to the substantive law of the circuit where a defendant. was convicted.” Ledezma- Rodriguez v. Brecken, No. 7:18-cv-00268-JLK, 2019 WL 4644556, at *2 (W. D. Va. Sept. 24, 2019) (quoting Hahn v. Moseley, 931 F.3d 295, 300-01 (4* Cir. 2019)). . Erby cannot meet Wheeler’s requirements for use of § 2255’s savings clause. Because Erby’s first and second grounds for relief and arguments in support thereof significantly overlap, the court addresses them together. Erby challenges the district court’s imposition of a life sentence, which he claims was without authority and, therefore, illegal. Pet. at 6.5 According to Erby:

(2) a new rule of constitutional law, made retroactive to cases on collateral review by the Supreme Court, that was previously unavailable. 28 US.C. § 2255(h)(2). 3 Page citations refer to the pagination generated by the court's electronic filing system (“ECF”).

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Bluebook (online)
Erby v. Breckon, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/erby-v-breckon-vawd-2020.