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3RD CIRCUIT EASES JOHNSON BURDEN FOR 2255 CHALLENGES
Ronnie Peppers was sentenced to a 180-month mandatory minimum under the Armed Career Criminal Act for being a felon in possession of a firearm. But after the 2015 Johnson v. United States decision, which invalidated the “residual clause” of the ACCA as unconstitutionally vague, Ronnie challenged his sentence under 28 USC 2255.
But the 2255 motion was not his first, and 28 USC 2255(h) places limits on any effort to file a second or successive collateral attack on a criminal judgment. The District Court denied Ronnie’s second 2255 motion after determining that his prior convictions remained predicate offenses because they are covered by portions of the ACCA that survived Johnson.
Last week, the 3rd Circuit reinstated Ronnie’s motion in a pro-defendant decision that conflicts with a number of other circuits. First, the Circuit held that the jurisdictional gatekeeping inquiry for second or successive Johnson 2255 motions requires only that a defendant prove he might have been sentenced under the ACCA’s residual clause, not that he was in fact sentenced under that clause. Second, a guilty plea pursuant to Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 11(c)(1)(C) does not preclude a defendant from collaterally attacking his sentence in a 2255 motion if his sentence would be unlawful once he proved that the ACCA no longer applies to him in light of Johnson. Third, a defendant seeking a sentence correction in a second or successive 2255 motion based on Johnson, and who has used Johnson to satisfy the gatekeeping requirements of 2255(h), may rely on post-sentencing cases (many of which hold other state crimes not to be ACCA predicates, either) to support a Johnson claim.
In Ronnie’s case, the 3rd Circuit found that his two state robbery convictions are no longer categorically violent felonies under the ACCA, and, consequently, it was error to treat them as such.
United States v. Peppers, Case No. 17-1029 (3rd Cir. Aug. 13, 2018)
– Thomas L. Root