Poe v. LaRiva

834 F.3d 770, 2016 U.S. App. LEXIS 15391, 2016 WL 4434552
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit
DecidedAugust 22, 2016
DocketNo. 14-3513
StatusPublished
Cited by26 cases

This text of 834 F.3d 770 (Poe v. LaRiva) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Poe v. LaRiva, 834 F.3d 770, 2016 U.S. App. LEXIS 15391, 2016 WL 4434552 (7th Cir. 2016).

Opinion

KANNE, Circuit Judge.

In 1996, a jury convicted Petitioner Jimmie Poe of several narcotics-related offenses, including engaging in a continuing criminal enterprise (“CCE”). On June 1, 1999, the Supreme Court decided Richardson v. United States, 526 U.S. 813, 119 S.Ct. 1707, 143 L.Ed.2d 985 (1999), which rendered the CCE jury instructions used in Poe’s trial erroneous.

Poe petitioned, on July 16, 1999, for a writ of habeas corpus, pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2241, challenging his conviction under Richardson. Fourteen months later, the district court dismissed Poe’s § 2241 petition without prejudice, because he should have filed under 28 U.S.C. § 2255. On June 18, 2001, Poe petitioned for a writ of habeas corpus, pursuant to § 2255, which was subsequently denied as time-barred. We affirmed the district court’s denial of Poe’s § 2255 petition in Poe v. United States, 468 F.3d 473 (7th Cir. 2006).

On October '28, 2014, Poe filed a new § 2241 petition, challenging his conviction and sentence in light of Alleyne v. United States, — U.S.-, 133 S.Ct. 2151, 186 L.Ed.2d 314 (2013). The district court denied his petition, again for not filing it under § 2255, and he appealed. We affirm.

I. Background

We begin with a brief synopsis of Poe v. United States, which makes up the early background of Poe’s case. We then summarize the present case, which relates to his § 2241 petition, filed on October 28, 2014.

A Poe v. United States

In 1996, Poe was charged with various narcotics-related offenses, including engaging in a CCE, in violation of 21 U.S.C. § 848(c). At Poe’s trial, the district court provided the following jury instructions to find violation of the CCE statute: “You must unanimously find that the defendant committed at least two violations of the federal drug laws, but you do not have to agree on which two violations.” Poe v. United States, 468 F.3d at 475 (emphasis in original and internal quotation marks omitted). The jury convicted Poe of one count of CCE and nine other counts of narcotics-related offenses, and the district court sentenced him to 360 months’ imprisonment. This court affirmed on direct appeal.

On June 1, 1999, the Supreme Court decided Richardson, which held that for a CCE conviction under § 848(c), the underlying individual violations are elements of the CCE and therefore require jury unanimity. 526 U.S. at 824, 119 S.Ct. 1707. In light of Richardson, the jury instructions used in Poe’s trial were erroneous.

On July 16, 1999, Poe filed a § 2241 petition, challenging his CCE conviction under Richardson. Fourteen months later, on September 19, 2000, the district court dismissed Poe’s § 2241 petition as procedurally improper, without prejudice, and advised him to file a § 2255 petition, which he did so on June 18, 2001. Twenty-one months later, on March 17, 2003, the district court denied Poe’s § 2255 petition as untimely. Poe appealed, and this court granted him a certificate of appealability.

On November 6, 2006, this court decided Poe v. United States, affirming the denial of Poe’s § 2255 petition. 468 F.3d at 478. In that decision, we began by determining that Poe’s § 2255 motion was untimely. Id. at 476. We then held that “[tjhere is no legal basis for Poe to claim he was entitled to have his improper § 2241 petition construed as a § 2255 motion for purposes of AEDPA’s statute of limitations.” Id. at 477 (emphasis in original). In conclusion, we [772]*772noted that even if Poe’s § 2255 petition had been timely, it would have “run up against this circuit’s case law holding Richardson error to be harmless where the jury unanimously convicted the defendant of two or more separate drug offenses along with the CCE offense.... Poe was separately convicted of five felony counts of distributing marijuana or possessing marijuana with intent to distribute.” Id. at 478 n. 8. (citations omitted).

B. Current 28 U.S.C. § 22U1 Petition

We now consider the present case. On June 17, 2013, the Supreme Court decided Alleyne, which held that any fact that increases the mandatory minimum of a sentence is an element of the crime that must be submitted to the jury. 133 S.Ct. at 2162-63. On October 28, 2014 Poe filed another § 2241 petition, claiming that, because the jury never found him guilty of an element of 21 U.S.C. § 838(e), his CCE conviction and sentence were unconstitutional in light of Alleyne.

On November 3, 2014, the'district court summarily denied Poe’s § 2241 petition. The district court explained that a federal prisoner may only use a § 2241 petition if § 2255 is “inadequate or ineffective,” which, in turn, requires rebanee on “a new case of statutory interpretation rather than a constitutional decision.” (R. 3 at 2.) The district court declared that Alleyne was a constitutional decision and it “may not be applied retroactively to cases on collateral review.” (Id.) Poe’s § 2241 petition was denied, and he appealed.

On July 21, 2015, this court granted a certificate of appealability and directed the parties to “address the bearing of Webster v. Daniels, 784 F.3d 1123 (7th Cir. 2015) (en banc), Brown v. Caraway, 719 F.3d 583 (7th Cir. 2013), Crayton v. United States, 799 F.3d 623 (7th Cir.2015), and Persaud v. United States, — U.S.-, 134 S.Ct. 1023, 188 L.Ed.2d 117 (2014) (mem.).”

II. Analysis

On appeal, Poe argues that the district court erred in its denial of his § 2241 petition. Alternatively, he contends that his § 2241 petition should be treated as a request to file a successive § 2255 petition.

A. 28 U.S.C. § 22U

Poe’s primary claim is that the district court erred in its denial of his § 2241 petition, which relied on Alleyne. “We review the denial of a § 2241 petition de novo.” Caraway, 719 F.3d at 586.

“Federal prisoners who seek to bring collateral attacks on their conviction or sentences must ordinarily bring an action-under 28 U.S.C. § 2255.” Id.

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Bluebook (online)
834 F.3d 770, 2016 U.S. App. LEXIS 15391, 2016 WL 4434552, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/poe-v-lariva-ca7-2016.