NOT RECOMMENDED FOR PUBLICATION File Name: 26a0341n.06
Case No. 24-5225
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE SIXTH CIRCUIT FILED Jul 29, 2026 ) KELLY L. STEPHENS, Clerk UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, ) Plaintiff-Appellee, ) ON APPEAL FROM THE ) UNITED STATES DISTRICT v. ) COURT FOR THE EASTERN ) DISTRICT OF TENNESSEE MICHAEL BENANTI, ) Defendant-Appellant. ) OPINION )
Before: BOGGS, READLER, and DAVIS, Circuit Judges.
DAVIS, Circuit Judge. Michael Benanti and his co-defendant committed a series of bank
robberies and other crimes from 2014 to 2015. A jury convicted Benanti of twenty-three offenses,
including robbery, kidnapping, and carjacking. We affirmed his convictions after he sought to
overturn them based on the district court’s denial of his motions to suppress evidence. Benanti
subsequently filed a habeas petition under 28 U.S.C. § 2255 seeking to vacate on multiple grounds.
The district court granted his request to vacate several of his 18 U.S.C. § 924(c) convictions based
on United States v. Davis, 588 U.S. 445 (2019), and corrected his sentence accordingly. But it
denied his remaining § 2255 claims. We denied Benanti a certificate of appealability to challenge
the partial denial of his § 2255 petition. That leaves the direct appeal of the amended criminal
judgment for our consideration. Because each of Benanti’s arguments fail, we AFFIRM. No. 24-5225, United States v. Benanti
I.
A. Factual Background
The facts underlying Benanti’s crimes were summarized in this court’s prior decision
affirming his original convictions. See United States v. Benanti, 755 F. App’x 556, 558–59 (6th
Cir. 2018). We therefore limit our discussion here to the facts pertinent to the issues raised in this
appeal.
From 2014 to 2015, Michael Benanti and his co-defendant, Brian Witham, committed
several kidnappings and bank robberies across Pennsylvania, Connecticut, Tennessee, and North
Carolina. The two men typically used the same modus operandi for these crimes—they would
kidnap bank employees or executives, hold family members of the employees and executives
hostage, and compel the employees and executives to obtain money from the banks’ vaults.
Benanti and Witham’s crime wave came to an end in late 2015. In September 2015, the
North Carolina State Highway Patrol (“NCSHP”) attempted to stop Benanti and Witham on an
area highway. But, briefly after pulling over, the two men managed to escape on foot. Then, in
November 2015, officers observed Benanti and Witham leave 380 Allison Drive in a Nissan
Pathfinder SUV. Federal Bureau of Investigation (“FBI”) Special Agent Jeff Blanton notified
NCSHP Trooper Greg Reynolds that the men driving the Pathfinder were bank-robbery suspects
who had fled from authorities in September. After observing that the vehicle had a stolen tag,
Reynolds pulled over the Pathfinder. Benanti exited the passenger side of the SUV, but Witham
sped off and left him behind.
Reynolds recognized similarities between the September and November incidents. For
example, both vehicles stopped only reluctantly, both vehicles pulled over to the shoulder of the
road quickly before driving off again, the passenger door of both vehicles opened, and an occupant
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of both vehicles had similar physical characteristics—white, heavy-set, and a bald spot on the back
of his head. Based on this information, Reynolds arrested Benanti for the stolen tag on the
Pathfinder and for offenses relating to the September flight from the police.
On November 25, 2015, FBI Special Agent Rory Poynter drafted an affidavit summarizing
the facts supporting a search warrant for 380 Allison Drive. Officers executed the search warrant
on November 25 and 26, 2015.
B. Procedural Background
1. Trial and Sentencing
Benanti was charged federally, and a jury convicted him of twenty-three counts: conspiracy
to commit Hobbs Act robbery, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1951(b)(1), (2), and (3) (Count One);
possession of a firearm in furtherance of a crime of violence, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 924(c)
(Count Two); attempted bank extortion, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 2113(a) (Counts Three and
Seventeen); use of a firearm in furtherance of a crime of violence, in violation of 18 U.S.C.
§ 924(c) (Counts Four, Six, Eight, Eleven, Thirteen, Fifteen, Eighteen, Twenty, and Twenty-Two);
carjacking, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 2119 (Counts Five, Twelve, and Nineteen); kidnapping, in
violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1201(a)(1) (Counts Seven, Fourteen, and Twenty-One); felon-in-
possession of a firearm, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 922(g) (Counts Nine, Sixteen, and Twenty-
Three); and armed bank extortion, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 2113(a) (Count Ten).
At Benanti’s original sentencing, the district court calculated the Guidelines range for his
thirteen non-§ 924(c) convictions—that is, robbery, extortion, carjacking, kidnapping, and felon-
in-possession—as life imprisonment, based on his total offense level of 43 and criminal history
category of VI. Adding in Benanti’s § 924(c) convictions—which required the court to convert
the life sentences to 470 months to apply the mandatory consecutive sentences—his aggregate
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Guidelines range for all twenty-three convictions was 3,230 months.
The district court overruled Benanti’s objection to the application of the ransom-demand
enhancement contained in U.S.S.G. § 2A4.1(b)(1), which had increased his base offense level by
six. Benanti’s classification as an armed career criminal required that his criminal history category
be set to VI. The district court ultimately sentenced Benanti to four consecutive life sentences plus
155 years.
Benanti’s procedural history following the district court’s judgment is complex.
2. Direct Appeal
On direct appeal, Benanti challenged the district court’s denial of his motions to suppress
evidence. Benanti, 755 F. App’x at 559–60. Specifically, Benanti argued that his arrest and the
search warrant for 380 Allison Drive lacked probable cause. Id. We affirmed his convictions,
holding that probable cause supported his arrest and the search warrant. Id. We also concluded
that the district court did not err in denying Benanti’s request for a hearing pursuant to Franks v.
Delaware, 438 U.S. 154 (1978), because he failed to make a substantial showing that the search
warrant affidavit contained reckless or knowing falsehoods. Benanti, 755 F. App’x at 560.
3. Post-Conviction Proceedings
Next, Benanti filed a habeas petition under 28 U.S.C. § 2255. Relevant here, the habeas
petition proceeded as a miscellaneous action on the district court’s civil docket, with a separate
case number from the criminal case. The district court granted the petition in part and denied it in
part. In particular, the district court entered an order vacating seven of Benanti’s ten § 924(c)
convictions based on the Supreme Court’s invalidation of the violent felony definition in the
statute’s residual clause in United States v. Davis, 588 U.S. 445 (2019). To account for this change
in conviction status, on January 24, 2022, the district court also entered an amended judgment in
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Benanti’s criminal case, correcting his sentence to one life term plus 55 years.1
On January 25, 2022, Benanti filed a notice of appeal (“NOA”) and a motion for a
certificate of appealability (“COA”) to challenge the partial denial of his § 2255 motion. The NOA
was docketed in the habeas case only. The district court denied his COA application, and we
affirmed. Benanti v. United States, No. 22-5063, 2022 WL 18461466, at *6 (6th Cir. Aug. 11,
2022), cert. denied, 143 S. Ct. 854 (2023). And in January 2024, we denied his application for
permission to file a second or successive petition. In re Benanti, No. 23-5264, 2024 U.S. App.
LEXIS 177, at *4 (6th Cir. Jan. 3, 2024).
On February 13, 2024, Benanti filed an amended NOA. The amended NOA explained that
Benanti never received a copy of the January 2022 amended judgment in the criminal case and
“was never af[f]orded the opportunity to appeal the new sentence.” (Case No. 20-cv-194, Am.
NOA, R. 65, PageID 2015).2 We concluded that Benanti had exhausted his appeal of the partial
denial of his § 2255 petition. Benanti v. United States, No. 24-5133, 2024 U.S. App. LEXIS 5584,
at *3 (6th Cir. Mar. 7, 2024). But we also deemed it “apparent” that Benanti’s February 2024
NOA aimed to appeal the “amended criminal judgment entered on January 24, 2022.” Id. Thus,
we instructed the district court to docket the NOA filed on February 13, 2024, in his criminal case.
Id. After this correction of the docket, the present appeal followed.
II.
The district court’s amended criminal judgment following a successful § 2255 petition is
an immediately appealable final judgment. Andrews v. United States, 373 U.S. 334, 338–40 (1963)
(interpreting 28 U.S.C. § 2255(d)); United States v. Burton, 802 F. App’x 896, 902–03 (6th Cir.
1 The district court also ordered Benanti to obtain leave of court to file any future motions due to his “numerous frivolous filings in both his civil and criminal cases.” (Mem. Op. & Order, R. 345, PageID 21011). 2 Case No. 20-cv-194 is Benanti’s habeas case.
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2020). This is because the amended judgment “is a previously unreviewed aspect of [the
defendant’s] criminal case.” Ajan v. United States, 731 F.3d 629, 630 (6th Cir. 2013). Therefore,
the defendant can “challenge the relief granted—i.e., whether the relief was appropriate under
§ 2255, whether the new sentence was in conformity with the Constitution or Sentencing
Guidelines, etc.” Id. (citation modified) (quoting United States v. Hadden, 475 F.3d 652, 664 (4th
Cir. 2007)); see also United States v. Nichols, 897 F.3d 729, 736 (6th Cir. 2018) (noting that a
defendant may “challenge[] the correctness of his corrected sentence”). The government does not
contest that Benanti is “entitled to direct review of [the] judgment.” (Appellee’s Br., ECF 34, 44).
Rather, the government challenges the scope of our review based on claims that Benanti could
have raised earlier but did not or that he previously litigated. We discuss these non-jurisdictional
issues as they pertain to each argument in Section IV below.
Because Benanti challenges the legality of his amended criminal sentence, we have
jurisdiction to review his appeal.
III.
Preliminary to our discussion on the merits, we address the government’s timeliness
challenge. The government contends that Benanti’s appeal of the criminal judgment should be
dismissed as untimely because he filed his NOA on February 13, 2024, almost two years after the
district court entered its amended judgment in his criminal case. Benanti counters that his January
25, 2022, NOA was for both the partial denial of his § 2255 motion and the amended judgment
entered in his criminal case, as evidenced by the facts that the NOA (1) identified specific orders
from his criminal case and (2) included his criminal case number. Yet it was docketed only in his
habeas case. And he contends that we recognized his criminal appeal as timely in our March 2024
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order directing a correction to the docket.3
Federal Rule of Appellate Procedure 4(b)(1)(A)(i) provides that a defendant must file an
NOA within fourteen days after “the entry of either the judgment or the order being appealed.”
Rule 4(b) is a non-jurisdictional claims-processing rule. See United States v. Jackson, 995 F.3d
476, 483 (6th Cir. 2021) (citing United States v. Gaytan-Garza, 652 F.3d 680, 681 (6th Cir. 2011)
(per curiam)). But if the government raises a valid timeliness issue, we treat this rule as mandatory
and ordinarily are “obliged to dismiss the appeal.” Id. at 482. Here, the government has raised
the issue, but rather than showing that Benanti’s January 2022 NOA did not encompass the
amended criminal judgment, the government advances the conclusory position that Benanti’s
claim that the criminal judgment was part of the NOA is uncorroborated. The bulk of the
government’s argument centers on Benanti’s February 2024 amended NOA, which all appear to
agree would be untimely standing alone.
Given these gaps in analysis in the face of the noted procedural complexities and because
Benanti’s appeal fails on the merits, we forgo resolving this question. As it stands, whether
Benanti’s notice was untimely is inconsequential to our ruling. For even assuming timeliness,
Benanti’s appeal fails. See Franklin v. Johnson, 290 F.3d 1223, 1232 (9th Cir. 2002) (“Procedural
bar issues are not infrequently more complex than the merits issues presented by the appeal, so it
may well make sense in some instances to proceed to the merits if the result will be the same.”).
So we assume—without deciding—that his notice was timely to appeal the amended criminal
judgment. See Ahart v. Bradshaw, 122 F. App’x 188, 192 (6th Cir. 2005) (declining to resolve
3 After oral argument, Benanti filed a Motion to Accept Filing of Supplemental Brief along with his Supplemental Brief. We need not decide whether Benanti timely appealed his amended criminal judgment, so we deny his motion as moot.
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timeliness dispute because habeas petition failed on the merits); United States v. Vázquez-Rosario,
45 F.4th 565, 569 (1st Cir. 2022) (same).
We therefore proceed to the merits.
IV.
Benanti raises three issues—two pertaining to sentencing and one concerning his
convictions. First, he challenges his armed-career-criminal classification based on Borden v.
United States, 593 U.S. 420 (2021), an argument that he raised in his reply to the government’s
response to his habeas petition. Second, he asserts that the district court improperly applied the
ransom-demand enhancement because his demands did not reach a third party, an issue that he
only raised at his original sentencing. Third, he argues that his arrest and the search warrant for
380 Allison Drive lacked probable cause, both of which he challenged in the direct appeal of his
original judgment and addressed in his ineffective-assistance-of-counsel claims in his habeas
petition. We address each claim in turn.
A. Armed-Career-Criminal Classification
Benanti first asserts that the district court’s application of the Armed Career Criminal Act
(“ACCA”) enhancement was improper based on Borden. In particular, he suggests that his robbery
conviction depended on reckless intent, while Borden held that a crime with a mens rea that can
be proven by showing recklessness does not qualify as a violent offense under the ACCA. The
Supreme Court decided Borden after Benanti’s first appeal, while his habeas petition was pending
before the district court. In his habeas reply brief, Benanti argued that “priors do not count as
violent felon[ies] because of the consideration of recklessness” based on Borden. (Case No. 20-
cv-194, Reply to Gov’t Resp., R. 19, PageID 841).
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Citing a line of cases that has evolved from our decision in United States v. McKinley, 227
F.3d 716 (6th Cir. 2000), the government argues that Benanti has waived this challenge because
Borden did not provide any new legal arguments that Benanti could not have raised in his first
appeal. Under the “law-of-the-case, appellate-forfeiture rule” set forth in McKinley and its
progeny, says the government, Benanti is foreclosed from making the argument now. United
States v. Pembrook, 79 F.4th 720, 729 (6th Cir. 2023). Benanti counters that the appellate-
forfeiture doctrine does not apply to a sentence correction following a successful § 2255 petition
because the resulting sentence follows the district court’s statutorily required action to vacate the
previous sentence and set aside the old judgment. According to Benanti, this means he gets a fresh
start and can challenge any aspect of his sentence based on the new judgment.
1. Appellate-Forfeiture Doctrine
The appellate-forfeiture doctrine provides that “[a]n appellant in a second appeal cannot
raise in that second appeal an error that could have been, but was not, raised and resolved in the
first appeal.” Pembrook, 79 F.4th at 730. We recognize exceptions where “the moving party [was]
either unable to assert the issue initially or the issue only became logically relevant following
remand.” United States v. Boudreau, 564 F.3d 431, 435 n.1 (6th Cir. 2009). But does it matter if
the second appeal does not follow a remand? And assuming it does not—meaning that we treat
an appeal of a new sentence the same whether post-habeas or post-remand, so appellate forfeiture
applies—if the district court leaves in place its original sentences for convictions that were
untouched by the partially successful habeas petition, does a change in the law since the
petitioner’s first criminal appeal open the door to one of the exceptions?
Our precedents do not squarely address these questions. We ordinarily apply appellate
forfeiture in cases involving a second appeal following resentencing on remand. See, e.g.,
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Pembrook, 79 F.4th at 730 (explaining that “[t]he cases applying the appellate-forfeiture doctrine
in the sentencing context all have . . . four stages split down the middle by an appellate judgment
ordering resentencing”); McKinley, 227 F.3d at 718–19 (concluding that the government waived
its firearm-enhancement argument by not raising it in the first appeal before resentencing on
remand). Applying the doctrine under those circumstances makes sense because a party who
chooses not to raise an issue on direct appeal leaves us with no “notice” or “opportunity to dispose
of [the] issue as part of the [first] appellate proceeding.” Pembrook, 79 F.4th at 734 (second
alteration in original) (citation omitted). Importing that reasoning to the post-habeas setting is not
as straightforward. And we have found no cases where we have applied forfeiture or waiver across
the direct appeal/post-habeas appeal boundary.
The procedural posture here differs from the run-of-mine case applying the doctrine in that
the district court, on its own, vacated and set aside the judgment that sparked the first appeal—not
at the direction of an appellate court ordering remand. See Ajan, 731 F.3d at 631. True, Benanti’s
amended criminal judgment reimposed the same convictions and sentences as the original
judgment on the counts unaffected by the Davis error. So, from that perspective, Benanti had had
the opportunity to raise any errors concerning the sentencings on those counts in his direct appeal.
But in other contexts, the intervening judgment seems more meaningful. For instance, in
Magwood v. Patterson, the Supreme Court observed that a habeas petition challenging a new
sentence resulting from a successful § 2254 petition is not second or successive because the
petitioner “challenges a new judgment for the first time.” 561 U.S. 320, 324 (2010) (emphasis
added). Although Benanti’s challenge does not arise from a second or successive petition, he, too,
“appeal[s] a new criminal sentence” for the first time. See Ajan, 731 F.3d at 631 (citation omitted)
(explaining that “the Magwood rule . . . applies with equal force to § 2255”). In Ajan, where a
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successful habeas petitioner, who was unsuccessful in the direct appeal of his criminal judgment,
appealed his new criminal judgment following a partially successful habeas petition, the scope of
his appeal did not appear to be limited by the fact that “the district court reimposed the same
sentences on the undisturbed counts.” Id. at 632 n.2; see also Magwood, 561 U.S. at 339 (“An
error made a second time is still a new error.”). Considering this murky landscape, we are hesitant
to extend the doctrine to these facts.
Moreover, the government’s reliance on Wright v. Spaulding, 939 F.3d 695 (6th Cir. 2019),
does not dissuade us from this course. There, we explained that “[a] new case matters only . . .
because of the new legal arguments it makes available.” Id. at 705 (emphasis omitted). Applying
Wright’s reasoning, the government argues that Benanti has not identified any new legal arguments
from Borden that warrant relief here. However, our holding in Wright is inapposite. Pointing to
a new Supreme Court ruling, the petitioner there filed a new petition for relief in the venue where
he was held rather than the venue where he was sentenced—in an apparent attempt to avoid the
second-or-successive-petition bar in his sentencing district. Id. at 697. Our analysis focused on
whether the saving clause of 28 U.S.C. § 2255(e) somehow opened the door for the petitioner to
pursue relief based on the aforementioned new ruling. Id. at 697, 705. Some of the discussion in
Wright considered whether the petitioner previously had a “reasonable opportunity to make his
argument any earlier.” Id. at 703 (citation modified). But our query was in service of a different
goal—to see whether the petitioner’s actions squared with our saving-clause jurisprudence. Here,
Benanti does not seek to file another habeas petition but rather to appeal an amended judgment
following his partially successful § 2255 petition. See Ajan, 731 F.3d at 630. Wright, therefore,
offers us little guidance.
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2. Harmless Error
We turn, then, to the district court’s corrected sentence in which it left undisturbed
Benanti’s remaining convictions and accompanying sentences, including the ACCA enhancement.
The government contends that Benanti’s Borden claim fails even if we were to review it because
any error was harmless. In a direct appeal of a criminal sentence, we review de novo whether a
predicate offense is a violent felony under the ACCA. United States v. White, 58 F.4th 889, 893
(6th Cir. 2023). But if the defendant fails to object on this basis at sentencing, we review for plain
error. Id. Plain-error review applies “[e]ven where a new rule of law is at issue.” Id. at 894
(alteration in original) (quoting Henderson v. United States, 568 U.S. 266, 272 (2013)).
Here, under either plain-error or de novo review, we agree with the government that any
error in applying the ACCA enhancement was harmless. So we need not decide whether Benanti
actually forfeited his Borden argument. Although the ACCA enhancement increased Benanti’s
criminal-history category from IV to VI, the Sentencing Guidelines recommend life imprisonment
for defendants with a total offense level of 43, regardless of the criminal-history category. So
removing the enhancement would have no practical effect on Benanti’s sentencing exposure. And
any error in classifying Benanti as an armed career criminal was harmless. See United States v.
Castro, 960 F.3d 857, 867 (6th Cir. 2020); United States v. Faulkner, 926 F.3d 266, 275 (6th Cir.
2019); see also United States v. Butts, 40 F.4th 766, 774–75 (6th Cir. 2022) (applying harmless
error review sua sponte where we were “certain that the district court could not have imposed a
lower sentence even if the court had not applied the career-offender enhancement”).
Bucking this result, Benanti argues that his offense level could decrease to 38. But his
argument is not straightforward; only if we also accept that the district court erroneously applied
the ransom-demand enhancement would his offense level decrease and his Guidelines range
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change from life imprisonment to 324 to 405 months. Such bootstrapping will not work because,
as we discuss below, we reject Benanti’s objection to the ransom-demand enhancement.
Therefore, correcting for the claimed ACCA-application error would have no impact on his
Guidelines range.
B. Ransom-Demand Enhancement
Next, Benanti argues that the district court erred in applying the six-level ransom-demand
enhancement under U.S.S.G. § 2A4.1(b)(1) because he did not make any demands on a third party.
Although Benanti objected to the application of the ransom-demand enhancement at his original
sentencing, he did not raise this argument in his direct appeal. Once again, the government asserts
appellate forfeiture, arguing that Benanti could have raised the issue in his first appeal but did not.
But as discussed above, application of the doctrine under these circumstances remains an
unresolved issue in our case law. And we need not resolve it here, because Benanti’s argument
fails regardless. So we move to the merits of Benanti’s ransom-demand-enhancement argument
below.
Because we treat the amended judgment as an entirely new aspect of Benanti’s criminal
case, we review the district court’s factual findings for clear error and its legal conclusions de
novo. See United States v. Medlin, 65 F.4th 326, 331 (6th Cir. 2023). “Included in this de novo
review is a district court’s interpretation and application of the [S]entencing [G]uidelines.” Id.
(citation modified).
Benanti largely bases his ransom-demand argument on our sister circuit’s decision in
United States v. Reynolds, 714 F.3d 1039 (7th Cir. 2013). In Reynolds, the Seventh Circuit
concluded that “§ 2A4.1(b)(1) may be applied only if kidnappers’ demands for ‘money or other
consideration’ reach someone other than the captured person.” Id. at 1044. We have previously
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noted several other circuits’ holdings that the ransom-demand enhancement may be applied only
if a ransom demand is directed towards a third party. See United States v. Messer, 71 F.4th 452,
461 (6th Cir. 2023) (collecting cases). However, we have not had occasion to address the merits
of the third-party issue within this circuit, and we need not address it today. For even were we to
assume that the enhancement requires a demand on a third party, that requirement is met here.
We agree with the district court that Benanti and his co-defendant’s ransom demands
involved third parties. Indeed, Benanti and Witham “initially held entire families captive . . . [and]
continued to hold the bank employees’ families against their will, while forcing the employees
themselves to rob or seek to rob their respective banks.” (Sentencing Tr., R. 252, PageID 19037).
And, as the probation officer noted in the presentence report, the co-defendants employed the same
tactic against at least three bank employees or executives and their families. In those instances,
the family members were held captive, and the employees or executives were the third parties to
whom the ransom demands were made.
Moreover, Reynolds does not bind us and is factually distinguishable from the
circumstances here. In Reynolds, a group kidnapped a drug dealer and demanded money or drugs
from the dealer in exchange for his release. 714 F.3d at 1041, 1045–46. The record reflected that
no one but the dealer knew about these demands before he escaped. Id. at 1046. Here, however,
Benanti and Witham’s crimes involved both the families of the bank employees and executives
and additional employees at the targeted banks who learned about their demands in real time.
As such, even accepting as viable the third-party argument here, Benanti’s challenge fails.
C. Issues Raised in Previous Appeal
Finally, Benanti makes two arguments that he already raised in the direct appeal of his
original sentence. Specifically, he argues that law enforcement lacked probable cause for both his
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arrest and the search of 380 Allison Drive. The government argues that our prior decision on these
issues is the law of the case, so we may not consider Benanti’s attempts to reprise them here.
Benanti does not dispute that he argued both claims previously. Instead, he again argues that he
can challenge any facet of the amended criminal judgment, even issues about his underlying
convictions that he litigated in his first appeal.
1. Law-of-the-Case Doctrine
The law-of-the-case doctrine “commands that ‘findings made at one stage in the litigation
should not be reconsidered at subsequent stages of that same litigation.’” United States v. Obi,
132 F.4th 388, 395 (6th Cir. 2025) (citation omitted). We apply this doctrine when three factors
are satisfied: (1) “the statement . . . contributed to the judgment,” (2) “the panel . . . intended to
rest the judgment (if necessary) on that conclusion,” and (3) “the panel . . . considered the issue
and consciously reached a conclusion about it.” Id. at 396 (citation modified). Whether to apply
the law of the case is discretionary. See United States v. Cunningham, 679 F.3d 355, 377 (6th Cir.
2012).
At first blush, our prior decision concluding that Benanti’s arrest and the 380 Allison Drive
search were constitutional would appear to fit the bill. But our post-habeas jurisprudence gives
reason for pause. Benanti’s previously-litigated arguments concern his underlying convictions. In
King v. Morgan, we extended Magwood to broadly conclude that, in addition to his new sentence,
a petitioner can “challenge his undisturbed conviction” following a new judgment without
triggering second or successive requirements. 807 F.3d 154, 156 (6th Cir. 2015). In doing so, we
explained that Magwood’s “judgment-based reasoning naturally applies to all new judgments,
whether they capture new sentences or new convictions or merely reinstate one or the other.” Id.
at 157 (emphasis added). As a practical consideration, we noted that, sometimes, separating claims
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related to the conviction from those related to the new sentence may prove a difficult task. Id. at
158. And beyond discussing what aspects of the judgment are reviewable, we observed that “the
law-of-the-case doctrine likely would not apply due to the intervening judgment.” Id. at 160. So
we will not apply it here. See Cunningham, 679 F.3d at 377.
That said, separating Benanti’s conviction-related arguments from those pertaining to his
sentence is relatively straightforward here. They do not overlap, and we substantively ruled on
the issues that he raises about his convictions in his first appeal. See Benanti, 755 F. App’x at
559–60. Moreover, though not binding here, we reviewed Benanti’s COA application on similar
issues and determined that they were not worthy of appeal. See Benanti, 2022 WL 18461466, at
*6. Nevertheless, given King’s observation that addressing the merits of a previously-litigated
claim “likely will not be difficult to sort out,” we take up the task here. 807 F.3d at 160; see also
Magwood, 561 U.S. at 340 n.15 (“It will not take a court long to dispose of such claims where the
court has already analyzed the legal issues.”).
2. Probable Cause for Arrest and Search Warrant
As noted, Benanti’s arguments regarding his arrest are nearly identical to those that he
made on direct appeal of his convictions. For example, he contends that Reynolds lacked probable
cause to arrest him. According to Benanti, Blanton had “almost no basis” for his statement that
the occupants of the vehicle in November 2015 were the bank-robbery suspects. (Appellant’s Br.,
ECF 23, 38). Without this statement, says Benanti, the facts that he is a white male and the two
car chases had certain similarities were not enough to support probable cause for his arrest. In his
direct appeal, Benanti asserted that “Reynolds knew only that Benanti had been a passenger in an
SUV with stolen plates.” Benanti, 755 F. App’x at 559. We concluded that Reynolds had probable
cause to arrest Benanti, crediting Blanton’s statement that the two men were from the September
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chase and Reynolds’s observations about the similarities between the September and November
chases. Id.
The same is true for Benanti’s challenges to the search warrant. Here, he again argues that
Poynter’s affidavit included a false identification; Poynter failed to disclose that witnesses to the
April 2015 robbery identified a potential third suspect; and the affidavit did not disclose that these
same witnesses disagreed about the race of one of the three suspects. Considering these same
points, we previously concluded that Benanti “failed to show” any “knowing or reckless
falsehoods” and that “the magistrate judge could easily have found probable cause” irrespective
of the challenged statements and omissions. Id. at 560. Benanti also previously argued “that the
affidavit gave the magistrate judge no reason to think that the two abductions and bank robberies
[in Knoxville] were both committed by the same two men.” Id. We held that the search warrant
provided ample information connecting Benanti and Witham to the kidnappings and robberies. Id.
Addressing that same issue, he now asserts that the affidavit “merely presented general facts” and
repeatedly mentioned “two white males” without explaining the connection between 380 Allison
Drive and the robberies. (Appellant’s Br., ECF 23, 31–32).
We see no reason to stray from our prior conclusions here. Critically, Benanti has provided
no new information to justify a different result, even without applying the law-of-the-case doctrine.
V.
We AFFIRM.
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