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6TH CIRCUIT REFUSES MATHIS CLAIM IN 2241 PETITION

Congress intended that all post-conviction federal conviction and sentence claims be heard only in a § 2255 motion. But 28 USC § 2255(e) contains a “saving clause” that lets a prisoner file a 28 USC § 2241 habeas corpus petition when the § 2255 motion “is inadequate or ineffective to test the legality of his detention.”

Prisoner Bill Wright believed that after the Supreme Court decided Mathis v. United States, his predicate Maryland drug conviction was no longer a “serious drug offense” that qualified him for a 15-year Armed Career Criminal Act sentence. He had already filed and lost a § 2255 motion well before Mathis was decided, so he filed a 28 USC § 2241 petition under the § 2255(e) saving clause.

Last week, the 6th Circuit agreed that under post-Mathis analysis, the Maryland conviction did not count toward ACCA, and that Bill should not have been given a 15-year mandatory minimum sentence. But the substance did not matter, because procedurally, Bill was out of luck.

The 6th said that a “prisoner who has already filed a § 2255 motion and cannot file another one cannot access § 2241 just because a new Supreme Court case hints his conviction or sentence may be defective. Rather, the prisoner must also show that binding adverse precedent (or some greater obstacle) left him with no reasonable opportunity to make his argument any earlier, either when he was convicted and appealed or later when he filed a motion for post-conviction relief under § 2255. Otherwise, § 2255 is simply not inadequate or ineffective to test his claim.”

In Bill’s case, the Circuit said, there was not a prior 4th Circuit holding that the Maryland drug conviction was or was not a “serious drug offense,” even before Mathis. Only one case had ever considered the Maryland statute, and there the court merely assumed it was a “serious drug offense.” The 6th said that such dictum, something other the actual holding in the case, was not binding precedent. What’s more, Mathis was nothing new. It clarified how to categorize prior convictions, but even the Supreme Court said in the decision that “for more than 25 years, we have repeatedly made clear that application of ACCA involves, and involves only, comparing elements” and “our precedents make this a straightforward case.”

The 6th said Bill did not qualify for the § 2255(e) “saving clause,” no matter how right he was on the merits of his claim.

Wright v. Spaulding, 2019 U.S. App. LEXIS 28325 (Sept. 19, 2019)

– Thomas L. Root