United States v. John Doe

806 F.3d 732, 2015 U.S. App. LEXIS 15578, 2015 WL 5131208
Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit·Decided September 2, 2015·No. 13-4274·Published·Cited by 3 cases

Opinion

OPINION OF THE COURT

AMBRO, Circuit Judge.

Contents

I. Introduction. 738

II. Procedural and Legal History.738

III. Summary of Our Decision.741

IV. Standards of Review and Jurisdiction.742

A. Mootness.-.742

B. Jurisdiction to Grant a COA.742

C. Should We Grant a COA?.743

1. Begay’s Arguably Constitutional Dimension .745

2. Doe’s Arguably Meritorious Begay Claim.746

3. The District Court’s Arguably Wrong Procedural Holdings.747
4. Conclusion With Respect to COA.747

D. Cognizability as a Jurisdictional Limit.748

V.Did the 2008 Motion Count Such That Any Later Motion Was Second or Successive? .748

VI. Statute of Limitations.749
VII. Was Doe Entitled to Rule 60 Relief?.750
VIII. Procedural Default.752
IX. Retroactivity.753
X. Cognizability.754
A. Supreme Court Guidance.754
B. Seventh Circuit.755
C. Fourth Circuit .756
D. Eleventh Circuit.756
E. Eighth Circuit.757

F. Our Dicta .757

G. The Government’s Argument.757
H. , Synthesis and Conclusion With Respect Cognizability.758

XI.Savings Clause..-.760

*738 XII. Conclusion. .760

“The whole thing was a very cleverly planned jigsaw puzzle, so arranged that every fresh piece of knowledge that came to light made the solution of the whole more difficult.” — Agatha Christie, Murder on the Orient Express.
“It’s like kind of complicated to me”— John Doe, on the withdrawal of his § 2255 motion.
I. Introduction

John Doe, whose identity we protect because he is a Government informant, appeals from the denial of (1) a 28 U.S.C. § 2255 motion filed in 2012 and (2) a request made in 2013 to reopen a § 2255 motion filed in 2008. Doe was sentenced pursuant to the then-mandatory Sentencing Guidelines as a “career offender” on the basis of two convictions for simple assault in Pennsylvania. He argued in his 2008 motion that his convictions were not “crimes' of violence” within the meaning of the Guidelines and thus he was not a career offender. Our precedent foreclosed that argument when he made it, but, in light of the Supreme Court case Begay v. United States, 553 U.S. 137, 128 S.Ct. 1581, 170 L.Ed.2d 490 (2008), we reversed ourselves, and Doe’s argument became plausible. He therefore filed another § 2255 motion, but it too was denied.

This case presents many procedural complexities of first impression within this Circuit. If Doe can manage the Odyssean twists and turns of the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (AEDPA), including the Seylla of the second-or-successive bar and the Charybdis of the statute of limitations, he may find a meritorious claim at the end of his journey. However, we do not definitively reach the merits here and instead remand to let Doe’s case continue its uncertain course.

II. Procedural and Legal History

In 1991 Doe pled guilty in Pennsylvania to cocaine possession. In 1996 and 2000 (also in Pennsylvania), he pled guilty to two simple assaults. In 2003, he pled guilty in federal court to distribution and possession with intent to distribute at least five grams of crack cocaine in violation of 21 U.S.C. § 841(a)(1) & (b)(l)(B)(iii) (2000). Doe was sentenced to 262 months’ incarceration pursuant to the then-mandatory Sentencing Guidelines and case law that has since been overruled. This is the sentence he now attacks.

The Sentencing Guidelines provide a significant enhancement for “career offenders,” defined as those with “at least two prior felony convictions of either a crime of violence or a controlled substance offense.” U.S.S.G. § 4Bl.l(a)(3). Doe’s 1991 drug conviction was not relevant to the career-offender designation because it occurred more than 10 years before his federal conviction and did not result in a sentence longer than one year and one month of imprisonment. 1 Thus Doe was a career offender only if both of his prior assaults were “crime[s] of violence.” Id. § 4Bl.l(a)(3). His sentence in 2003 occurred under our case law categorically designating simple assault in Pennsylvania as a crime of violence, and hence Doe was *739 a career offender. United States v. Dorsey, 174 F.3d 331, 333 (3d Cir.1999). He was sentenced to 262 months of imprisonment, the bottom of the Guidelines range, and did not appeal. Without the career-offender enhancement, Doe’s Guidelines’ range would have been 110-137 months, with a mandatory minimum of 10 years. 2 U.S.S.G. ch. 5 pt. A (2002).

In 2004 the Government filed a motion to reduce Doe’s sentence because he provided “substantial assistance” to the Government in a different criminal investigation. Fed.R.Crim.P. 35(b). The Government requested that the District Court hold the motion in abeyance while the investigation was ongoing, which the Court did. While the Rule 35 motion was still pending, Doe filed a § 2255 motion arguing in part that his simple assault convictions were not crimes of violence and that he was therefore wrongly sentenced as a career offender.

On April 16, 2008, the Supreme Court decided Begay, which held that a DUI .conviction is not a “violent felony” within the meaning of the Armed Career Criminal Act (ACCA) because it does not involve “purposeful, violent, and aggressive conduct.” 553 U.S. at 145, 128 S.Ct. 1581. The words and structure of the career-offender Sentencing Guideline are similar to the ACCA’s. This holding thus significantly strengthened Doe’s argument (which otherwise would have certainly failed because of Dorsey), as the subsection ' of Pennsylvania’s assault statute to which Doe pled guilty proscribes intentional (ie., purposeful), knowing and reckless conduct. 18 Pa. Cons.Stat. § 2701(a)(1) and (a)(2).

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United States v. John Doe, 806 F.3d 732, 2015 U.S. App. LEXIS 15578, 2015 WL 5131208 (3d Cir. 2015).

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