Harris v. Barnhart

448 F.Supp.3d 704

Tyrone HARRIS, Petitioner,

v.J.A. BARNHART, Warden, Respondent.

No. 6:18-CV-189-REW

United States District Court, E.D. Kentucky, Southern Division. London.

Signed March 25, 2020

Sebastian M. Joy, Joy Law Office, Catlettsburg, KY, for Petitioner.

Tyrone Harris, Florence, CO, pro se.

Thomas Lee Gentry, U.S. Attorney's Office, Lexington, KY, for Respondent.

OPINION AND ORDER

Robert E. Wier, United States District Judge

The Court initially screened Tyrone Harris's 28 U.S.C. § 2241 petition. DE #30 (Memorandum Opinion & Order).¹ As there discussed, Harris (sentenced in the Western District of Missouri) relies jointly on Mathis v. United States , ––– U.S. ––––, 136 S. Ct. 2243, 195 L.Ed.2d 604 (2016) and the Eighth Circuit's subsequent decision in United States v. Naylor , 887 F.3d 397 (8th Cir. 2018) to argue that the convictions used to enhance his sentence under the Armed Career Criminal Act (ACCA), 18 U.S.C. § 924(e), are no longer qualifying predicates per the categorical approach. DE #1 (Petition).

At the time of initial screening, upon surveying the balance of Sixth Circuit published authority (namely, Hill v. Masters , 836 F.3d 591 (6th Cir. 2016) ) and the then-existing trend of unpublished Circuit cases building on the sharp pivot of Hill , the Court permitted Harris to proceed with his ACCA claim via § 2241. See id. at 4–6 (citing and discussing unpublished Sixth Circuit decisions applying Hill in analogous scenarios).² The Court thus appointed Harris counsel and directed record development on outstanding issues, including whether Harris had any additional ACCA-qualifying convictions and party views as to how (and where) the case should proceed on resentencing, if applicable. DE #30 at 8.

While these issues were pending, a Sixth Circuit case concerning the correct interpretation and application of Hill (and its three-part-test variants) was progressing through the appellate channel. The Sixth Circuit ultimately decided the case—via a published opinion—in late September 2019. See Wright v. Spaulding , 939 F.3d 695, 705 (6th Cir. 2019) (reiterating prior precedent and holding "that a federal prisoner cannot bring a claim of actual innocence in a § 2241 petition through the saving clause without showing that he had no prior reasonable opportunity to bring his argument for relief[ ]"). This Court directed additional briefing concerning the impact of Wright , if any, in this case. DE #51. The parties disagree about Wright 's effect—petitioner, through counsel, argues that Wright is distinguishable because adverse Eighth Circuit precedent, in place at the time of Defendant's sentencing, appeal, and initial § 2255 motion, held that Missouri second-degree burglary was a valid ACCA predicate.³ DE #53. Accordingly, he views the Mathis decision itself as required in this case, unlike in Wright , to remove barriers to prior assertion of his ACCA argument. Id. The Government, however, emphasizes that Wright clarified (and narrowed) Hill , reinvigorating the fundamental "no reasonable opportunity" test. DE #54. The Government maintains that because the categorical approach preceded Mathis , Harris did not need Mathis itself to test his ACCA claim, and that he cannot demonstrate lack of reasonable prior opportunity to assert it.

The Wright decision carefully traced the roots of the Circuit's savings clause jurisprudence and, functionally, curbed the expansive interpretive trend that had been emerging in unpublished cases; the Wright Court hewed closely to § 2255(e)'s text and foundational principles. 939 F.3d at 697–705. The Circuit has offered similar guidance since, further elucidating the contours of the central "no reasonable opportunity" test that Wright (and earlier precedent) emphasized. Particularly relevant here—given Harris's reliance on the Eighth Circuit's reversal, in Naylor , of its previously binding precedent holding that Missouri second-degree burglary convictions were valid ACCA predicates—is the Sixth Circuit's recent resolution of whether subsequent circuit decisions are sufficient to demonstrate that a prisoner had no reasonable opportunity to test a claim via § 2255 for savings clause purposes. See Hueso v. Barnhart , 948 F.3d 324, 332 (6th Cir. 2020) (addressing whether "a new statutory decision from a circuit court suffice[s] to show § 2255's inadequacy[ ]"). Synthesizing the lessons of prior decisions, the Court answered that question in the negative: "We now turn the facts of our prior cases into a holding. In addition to whatever else our reasonable-opportunity standard demands, it requires a Supreme Court decision that adopts a new interpretation of a statute after the completion of the initial § 2255 proceedings." Id.

As Hueso confirms, Naylor 's ultimate vindication of Harris's ACCA argument in the Eighth Circuit post- Mathis cannot demonstrate § 2255 ineffectiveness or inadequacy for savings clause purposes. See Hueso , 948 F.3d at 335 ("[L]ater circuit decisions do not suffice to prove that an initial § 2255 motion is inadequate or ineffective to test a claim."). The only question remaining, then, is whether Mathis 's arrival, after the completion of Harris's initial § 2255 proceedings, is sufficient to demonstrate that the § 2255 remedy itself was inadequate or ineffective to test his ACCA claim. Critically, Wright emphasized that the Mathis decision itself "matter[ed] only, if at all, because of the new legal arguments it ma[de] available." Wright , 939 F.3d at 705 (footnote omitted) (emphasis in original). The Court thus noted that, though "Wright could not [have] cite[d] Mathis , specifically, before it existed[,]" "a claim for habeas relief is more than the talismanic force of a new case name." Id. And, per the Wright Court, Mathis itself actually generated no new legal arguments; "[i]n fact, it did not even break new ground[.]" Id. The categorical approach had been in place for decades, and Mathis —expressly drawing from earlier precedent—merely reiterated it and clarified the means-elements analysis for judging divisibility. See Mathis , 136 S. Ct. at 2251 (recognizing the "longstanding principles" requiring an elements-based, categorical approach to ACCA predicate analyses and discussing the categorical approach's basis in Taylor v. United States , 495 U.S. 575, 110 S. Ct. 2143, 109 L.Ed.2d 607 (1990), and later application in Descamps v. United States , 570 U.S. 254, 133 S. Ct. 2276, 186 L.Ed.2d 438 (2013) ); id. at 2257 ("Our precedents make this a straightforward case. For more than 25 years, we have repeatedly made clear that application of ACCA involves, and involves only, comparing elements."). Accordingly, as the Court recognized, Wright did not require Mathis to argue that an elements-based approach invalidated his ACCA predicate—and, thus, he could not pass through the savings clause simply by noting an inability to specifically cite Mathis at sentencing, on direct appeal, or in his initial § 2255 motion. See Wright , 939 F.3d at 705 (observing that "Wright's claim never needed Mathis ").

The Court found that Wright was required "also [to] 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 postconviction relief under section 2255 [.]" Id. at 703 (internal quotation marks and citation omitted) (emphasis in original). The Court concluded that Wright had not so shown, in part because Wright did not "need Mathis to clear a path through erroneous Fourth Circuit precedent[,]" id. at 706, as no binding Fourth Circuit authority, in place at the time of Wright's sentencing, appeal, or one-year window for filing an initial § 2255 motion on any ground, held that Wright's predicate was valid under the ACCA. "Thus," as the Court ruled, "Wright had several opportunities to raise his so-called ‘ Mathis claim,’ free of any procedural impediments or hostile precedents. That he failed to seize them does not mean that § 2255 was ‘inadequate or ineffective’ to test his sentence." Id. Wright's attempt to access § 2241 through the savings clause therefore failed.

As Harris argues, though, this case differs—in an important way—from Wright. Unlike Wright's claim in relation to then-applicable Fourth Circuit law, Harris's claim did face binding adverse precedent in the Eighth Circuit—cases holding that Missouri second-degree burglary qualified as a valid ACCA predicate. Such precedent was in place at the time of Harris's sentencing, appeal, and initial § 2255 opportunity. See supra note 3. By 2005, the Eighth Circuit had "consistently held that burglary is a predicate offense under § 924(e) [.]" Nolan , 397 F.3d at 666 (collecting cases).⁴ And, in February 2014—while Harris's direct appeal pended—the Eighth Circuit, following remand for further consideration in light of Descamps , again held that Missouri second-degree burglary qualified as an ACCA predicate. Olsson , 742 F.3d at 856.⁵ Without discussing its earlier precedent concerning the burglary offense's predicate status, the Eighth Circuit—applying Taylor and Descamps —summarily found the statute indivisible and, thus applying the categorical approach to the entire criminal statute, held that the elements were the same as those of generic burglary. Id. Harris thus faced a formidable wall of Eighth Circuit precedent.

The timing and facts here too differ from that in Hueso ; in that case—though the petitioner faced binding adverse precedent in the Ninth Circuit at the time of his sentencing, direct appeal, and initial § 2255 motion—the new Supreme Court case upon which the petitioner relied ( Carachuri-Rosendo v. Holder , 560 U.S. 563, 130 S. Ct. 2577, 177 L.Ed.2d 68 (2010) ) issued before any decision on Hueso's direct appeal and, thus, also before Hueso's initial § 2255 opportunity. Accordingly, the Court reasoned that "Hueso faced no ‘obstacle’ to citing this...