United States v. Andrew Johnston

CourtCourt of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit
DecidedOctober 29, 2025
Docket21-2081
StatusPublished

This text of United States v. Andrew Johnston (United States v. Andrew Johnston) 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
United States v. Andrew Johnston, (7th Cir. 2025).

Opinion

In the

United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit ____________________ No. 21-2081 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Plaintiff-Appellee, v.

ANDREW J. JOHNSTON, Defendant-Appellant. ____________________

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division. No. 17 CR 517-1 — Rebecca R. Pallmeyer, Judge. ____________________

ARGUED MARCH 29, 2023 — DECIDED OCTOBER 29, 2025 ____________________

Before BRENNAN, Chief Judge, and ROVNER and SYKES, Circuit Judges. SYKES, Circuit Judge. Andrew Johnston is a recidivist bank robber and repetitive filer of frivolous motions, appeals, and satellite litigation challenging his most recent criminal conviction and sentence. The judgment was entered in early 2019 after a jury convicted him of attempted bank robbery and the district court sentenced him to 168 months in prison. 2 No. 21-2081

While awaiting transfer from Chicago’s Metropolitan Correctional Center to federal prison to serve his sentence, Johnston heard a rumor that a fellow inmate—a high- ranking member of the Sinaloa Cartel—had ordered a hit on another inmate. Johnston reported this information to au- thorities and assisted them by recording a conversation with the cartel leader. He also testified at the cartel leader’s sentencing hearing, but the district judge in that case de- clined to credit his testimony. The judge did, however, consider the recorded conversation when imposing sentence on the cartel leader. In return for this assistance, the government moved for a 25% reduction in Johnston’s sentence under Rule 35(b) of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure. The rule permits the district court to reduce an offender’s sentence based on his “substantial assistance in investigating or prosecuting another person”—but only on “the government’s motion made within one year of sentencing.” FED. R. CRIM. P. 35(b)(1). The government’s motion was quite late: it was filed in April 2021, more than two years after Johnston was sentenced. The time limit has some exceptions, see id. R. 35(b)(2), but none applied. The government took the position that the deadline is waivable and expressly waived it, so the judge in Johnston’s case addressed the motion on the merits. She agreed that his help was useful (if only partially so) and that postsentencing cooperation sometimes supports an inference of genuine acceptance of responsibility. But the inference was weakened in Johnston’s case by his repeated frivolous challenges to his conviction and sentence. Because of this vexatious litigation conduct, the judge determined that he had not No. 21-2081 3

acknowledged responsibility. She reduced his sentence to 151 months—a 10% reduction rather than the 25% requested by the government. Johnston appealed, challenging the 10% reduction as too small. His primary argument is that the judge improperly considered his postconviction litigation conduct. Our first question, however, concerns the district court’s jurisdiction to consider the untimely Rule 35(b) motion. In United States v. McDowell, 117 F.3d 974 (7th Cir. 1997), we held that the one-year time limit in Rule 35(b)(1) is jurisdic- tional. That was before the Supreme Court’s more recent line of cases clarifying the distinction between jurisdictional and nonjurisdictional procedural requirements. More to the point here, the Court has held that time limits in court-made rules are not jurisdictional. Hamer v. Neighborhood Hous. Servs. of Chi., 583 U.S. 17, 19 (2017). Hamer has displaced our deci- sion in McDowell, which means that the one-year time limit in Rule 35(b)(1) is a nonjurisdictional claim-processing rule, enforceable if properly raised but waived if not. The judge was right to consider the merits of the motion. Still, our review of her decision is narrow: we may review only whether the sentence “was imposed in violation of law.” 18 U.S.C. § 3742(a). No legal rule barred the judge from considering Johnston’s frivolous litigation conduct. Whether that conduct deserved the weight she attributed to it is an unreviewable discretionary determination. We affirm. I. Background Johnston has a long history of bank robberies. Before the conviction at issue here, he had served short terms in federal prison for earlier bank-robbery sprees in 2008 and 2013. He 4 No. 21-2081

returned to this pattern soon after completing his sentence on the 2013 judgment. In July 2017, just a few months after his release from prison, he entered a bank in suburban Chicago, threatened a teller, and attempted a robbery. He was unsuccessful and was quickly caught and indicted for attempted bank robbery. Protracted pretrial proceedings followed. Early in the case, Johnston rejected the assistance of appointed counsel and asked the judge for permission to represent himself. The judge granted his request, permitted counsel to withdraw, and appointed standby counsel. Johnston then peppered the court with numerous frivolous motions, frequently followed by frivolous interlocutory appeals when the motions were denied. In January 2019 the case proceeded to a two-day trial. The jury found Johnston guilty after just 90 minutes of deliberation. On April 4 the judge sentenced him to 168 months in prison. While awaiting transfer to his designated prison, Johnston was detained at Chicago’s Metropolitan Correctional Center (“MCC”). There he acquired a reputation as a jailhouse lawyer and assisted fellow inmate Jesus Raul Beltran Leon with some legal matters. Beltran was a high-ranking member of the Sinaloa Cartel, serving as a lieutenant to Ivan and Jesus Alfredo Guzman, sons of the former cartel kingpin Joaquin Guzman Loera (“El Chapo”). Beltran was detained at MCC pending trial on federal charges for his involvement in facilitating the cartel’s drug- distribution and money-laundering activities. In late April Johnston heard from another MCC inmate that Beltran had put out a bounty on Damaso Lopez Serrano, another high-ranking member of the Sinaloa Cartel. Lopez No. 21-2081 5

was also in federal custody on drug-trafficking charges and was cooperating with the government; he had been trans- ferred to MCC for possible testimony at Beltran’s trial. Johnston called his girlfriend and asked her to pass the rumor about the hit to MCC staff. Soon after, Johnston began cooperating with federal law-enforcement officials to inves- tigate the matter. He agreed to wear a wire and record a conversation with Beltran. The recording was cut short for reasons outside his control, but it did capture Beltran seem- ingly acknowledging that he had offered to pay $25,000 to anyone who would assault Lopez. The government later presented Johnston as a witness at Beltran’s sentencing hearing to support its request for a Sentencing Guidelines enhancement for obstruction of justice. The recorded conversation was also admitted. The judge presiding in Beltran’s case declined to credit Johnston’s testimony and denied the government’s request for the obstruction enhancement. He did, however, rely on the information captured on the recording when evaluating Beltran’s mitigation arguments and the sentencing factors in 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a). Johnston was not immediately rewarded for his help in Beltran’s case. In the interim, we affirmed his conviction and sentence in May 2020. In July he wrote to the government seeking a 66% sentence reduction as a reward for his assis- tance in the Beltran prosecution.

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