Harrison v. Ollison

CourtCourt of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
DecidedMarch 19, 2008
Docket06-55470
StatusPublished

This text of Harrison v. Ollison (Harrison v. Ollison) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Harrison v. Ollison, (9th Cir. 2008).

Opinion

FOR PUBLICATION UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

DAVE HARRISON,  No. 06-55470 Petitioner-Appellant, v.  D.C. No. CV-05-01465-DMS DERRICK L. OLLISON, Warden, OPINION Respondent-Appellee.  Appeal from the United States District Court for the Southern District of California Dana M. Sabraw, District Judge, Presiding

Argued and Submitted September 27, 2007—Pasadena, California

Filed March 20, 2008

Before: J. Clifford Wallace, Thomas G. Nelson, and Sandra S. Ikuta, Circuit Judges.

Opinion by Judge Ikuta

2633 2636 HARRISON v. OLLISON

COUNSEL

Kurt David Hermansen, Law Office of Kurt David Herman- sen, San Diego, California, for the petitioner-appellant.

Carol C. Lam, United States Attorney; Bruce R. Castetter, Lawrence E. Spong, Assistant United States Attorneys, San Diego, California, for the respondent-appellee.

OPINION

IKUTA, Circuit Judge:

A federal prisoner challenging the legality of a sentence must generally do so by a motion pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2255. However, when a motion under § 2255 is “inadequate or ineffective to test the legality” of a prisoner’s detention, see id., a prisoner may bring a habeas petition under 28 U.S.C. § 2241. This appeal requires us to determine whether the peti- tioner, Dave Harrison, was entitled to bring his habeas peti- tion under § 2241. Before reaching that question, we must determine whether Harrison needs a certificate of appeala- bility, see 28 U.S.C. § 2253(c), before he can appeal the dis- trict court’s dismissal of his § 2241 petition for lack of jurisdiction. HARRISON v. OLLISON 2637 I

In 1988, Dave Harrison was charged with using a pipe bomb to blow up a 1978 Volkswagen van and with burning a 1974 Reinell cabin cruiser motorboat. Harrison pleaded guilty in the district court for the Southern District of Califor- nia to bombing and arson, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 844(i).1 This federal arson statute includes an interstate commerce ele- ment for purposes of establishing federal jurisdiction, namely, that the arson must have affected a “building, vehicle, or other real or personal property used in interstate or foreign com- merce or in any activity affecting interstate or foreign com- merce.” Id.

As part of the plea agreement, both Harrison and the gov- ernment stipulated to the interstate commerce component of § 844(i). For the van, the parties stipulated:

[A]t the time the van was driven and used in the commercial business which [Harrison’s wife] deliv- ered, basically delivered cakes to many people[;] those cakes have traveled in interstate commerce. 1 18 U.S.C. § 844(i) states: Whoever maliciously damages or destroys, or attempts to damage or destroy, by means of fire or an explosive, any building, vehi- cle, or other real or personal property used in interstate or foreign commerce or in any activity affecting interstate or foreign com- merce shall be imprisoned for not less than 5 years and not more than 20 years, fined under this title, or both; and if personal injury results to any person, including any public safety officer perform- ing duties as a direct or proximate result of conduct prohibited by this subsection, shall be imprisoned for not less than 7 years and not more than 40 years, fined under this title, or both; and if death results to any person, including any public safety officer perform- ing duties as a direct or proximate result of conduct prohibited by this subsection, shall also be subject to imprisonment for any term of years, or to the death penalty or to life imprisonment. 2638 HARRISON v. OLLISON In addition, the van was fueled with gasoline that had traveled in interstate and foreign commerce; and, finally, the van itself had been manufactured in the Republic of West Germany, having traveled in for- eign commerce, had been sold here in California and replacement parts necessary to repair the damage that the defendant did will also travel in interstate and foreign commerce.

The parties stipulated to the interstate commerce component for the cabin cruiser motorboat as follows:

[T]he boat was manufactured in 1974 in the state of Washington. It was traveling in interstate commerce and was sold in California. At the time it was destroyed had been [sic] many parts had traveled in interstate commerce. The boat was licensed in the state of Nevada and the owner of the boat paid a fee to a business for the care and maintained and stored the boat in the state of Nevada where it was moored most of the time. The owner of the boat frequently crossed state lines with it bringing it to California and between Nevada and Arizona.

Harrison was sentenced by the district court for the South- ern District of California to two consecutive ten-year prison terms for the arson and bombing, which were to be followed by a five-year probationary term for aiding and abetting the interstate transportation of stolen property. Harrison is cur- rently in state prison in the Central District of California and will commence federal parole upon his release.2 For purposes 2 Following the federal conviction at issue in this case, Harrison was convicted in California state court of the first degree murder of his former wife. Due to the pending sentence of federal parole, Harrison is “in custo- dy” for purposes of the federal habeas provisions, § 2241(c) and § 2255. See Braden v. 30th Judicial Circuit Court of Ky., 410 U.S. 484, 488-89 & n.4 (1973) (petitioner may challenge future imposition of sentence for which detainer has been lodged while in custody for earlier sentence of different sovereign); Jones v. Cunningham, 371 U.S. 236, 242-43 (1963) (parole “significantly restrain[s] petitioner’s liberty” sufficient to satisfy “ ‘custody’ . . . within the meaning of the habeas corpus statute”). HARRISON v. OLLISON 2639 of clarity, we will refer to the district court for the Southern District of California, where Harrison was sentenced, as the “sentencing court,” and the district court for the Central Dis- trict of California, where Harrison is in custody, as the “custo- dial court.”

Harrison filed a timely notice of appeal on March 1, 1989. We dismissed the appeal for failure to prosecute on June 28, 1989. Apparently unaware of this dismissal, Harrison also filed a motion for voluntary dismissal of his appeal on August 1, 1989.

Following his direct appeal, Harrison attempted to chal- lenge his conviction and sentence by means of motions under § 2255 and petitions under § 2241. The history of Harrison’s collateral challenges to his conviction must be understood in the context of these two bases for collateral relief from federal sentences, § 2255 and § 2241, and the limitations Congress has imposed on these forms of relief.

A

As a general rule, “§ 2255 provides the exclusive proce- dural mechanism by which a federal prisoner may test the legality of detention.” Lorentsen v. Hood, 223 F.3d 950, 953 (9th Cir. 2000).

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