In re Edwards

98 F.4th 425

IN RE: Terril EDWARDS, a/k/a Tariq Raymond Edwards, a/k/a Terrell Howard, Petitioner

No. 20-2229

United States Court of Appeals, Third Circuit

Argued: June 27, 2023

Filed: April 16, 2024

On Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania (D.C. Criminal No. 2-08-cr-00027-001), District Judge: Honorable John R. Padova

Lisa B. Freeland, Samuel G. Saylor [ARGUED], Office of Federal Public Defender, 1001 Liberty Avenue, Suite 1500, Pittsburgh, PA 15222, Counsel for Petitioner

Jacqueline C. Romero, Robert A. Zauzmer [ARGUED], Bernadette A. McKeon, Office of United States Attorney, 615 Chestnut Street, Suite 1250, Philadelphia, PA 19106, Counsel for Respondent

Before: JORDAN, KRAUSE, and MONTGOMERY-REEVES, Circuit Judges.

OPINION OF THE COURT

MONTGOMERY-REEVES, Circuit Judge.

In 2010, the Supreme Court held that a second-in-time application for a writ of habeas corpus is not considered second or successive under 28 U.S.C. § 2244(b)—and thus is not subject to more stringent statutory requirements—if it challenges a new, intervening judgment. Magwood v. Patterson, 561 U.S. 320, 323-24, 130 S.Ct. 2788, 177 L.Ed.2d 592 (2010). What exactly constitutes a new, intervening judgment has since been the subject of several cases across the circuits. This Court recently addressed the meaning of "judgment" in Lesko v. Secretary Pennsylvania Department of Corrections, 34 F.4th 211 (3d Cir. 2022). Now we address the meaning of "new" by answering whether a First Step Act resentencing results in a new judgment under Magwood. For the reasons discussed below, we hold that it does not.

I. BACKGROUND

In January 2008, a grand jury returned an indictment charging Terril Edwards with three counts: possession with intent to distribute more than 50 grams of crack cocaine in violation of 21 U.S.C. § 841(a)(1) & (b)(1)(a) (the "Drug Trafficking Charge"), carrying a firearm during and in relation to a drug trafficking crime in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 924(c)(1) (the "First Firearm Charge"), and possession of a firearm by a felon in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1) (the "Second Firearm Charge"). In September 2008, a jury found Edwards guilty of each charge.

Based on Edwards's criminal history, the District Court determined that, under 21 U.S.C. § 841, the statutory minimum for the Drug Trafficking Charge was life imprisonment. In February 2009, the District Court sentenced Edwards to (i) the mandatory minimum of life imprisonment for the Drug Trafficking Charge, (ii) five years, to be served consecutively, for the First Firearm Charge, and (iii) 120 months, to be served concurrently, for the Second Firearm Charge, resulting in "a total term of mandatory life without release with five years consecutive." App. 541. Edwards appealed, and this Court affirmed his conviction and sentence. In 2011, Edwards filed a motion under 28 U.S.C. § 2255 to vacate, set aside, or correct a sentence by a person in federal custody (a "§ 2255 motion"), which the District Court denied with prejudice in May 2012.

In 2010, as part of its cocaine sentencing reform, Congress passed sections 2 and 3 of the Fair Sentencing Act of 2010 (the "Fair Sentencing Act"), which "reduced the statutory penalties for crack cocaine offenses to produce an 18-to-1 crack-to-powder drug quantity ratio" instead of the previous 100-to-1 crack-to-powder drug ratio and "eliminated the mandatory minimum sentence for simple possession of crack cocaine." U.S. Sent'g Comm'n, Report to the Congress: Impact of the Fair Sentencing Act of 2010, at 3 (2015); see also Fair Sentencing Act, Pub. L. No. 111-220, §§ 2-3, 124 Stat. 2372, 2372 (2010). In 2018, Congress passed the First Step Act of 2018 (the "First Step Act"), which, in part, allowed courts to resentence people with crack cocaine convictions as if sections 2 and 3 of the Fair Sentencing Act had been enacted at the time they committed the covered offense. See First Step Act, Pub. L. No. 115-391, § 404, 132 Stat. 5194, 5222 (2018).

In April 2019, Edwards filed a motion for resentencing under the First Step Act. The District Court granted the motion and resentenced Edwards to 180 months for the Drug Trafficking Charge, 60 months consecutive for the First Firearm Charge, and 60 months concurrent for the Second Firearm Charge, for a total of 240 months.¹ The District Court entered an amended judgment reflecting Edwards's new sentence in June 2019.

In 2019, the Supreme Court overturned extensive circuit court precedent and held that under 18 U.S.C. §§ 922(g) and 924(a)(2), the government "must prove both that the defendant knew he possessed a firearm and that he knew he belonged to the relevant category of persons barred from possessing a firearm." Rehaif v. United States, — U.S. —, 139 S. Ct. 2191, 2200, 204 L.Ed.2d 594 (2019). Previously, circuit courts, including this Court, had held that the scienter requirement in § 922(g) applied only to the possession of the firearm and not to the membership in the prohibited class. E.g., United States v. Boyd, 999 F.3d 171, 178 (3d Cir. 2021) ("[T]he District Court was following established precedent when it interpreted this knowledge requirement to apply only to gun possession." (citing United States v. Huet, 665 F.3d 588, 596 (3d Cir. 2012))). In other words, before Rehaif and at the time of Edwards's § 922(g) conviction, the Government had to prove that Edwards was a felon, but not that Edwards knew that he was a felon.

In May 2020, Edwards filed a second § 2255 motion in light of the Supreme Court's decision in Rehaif. The District Court transferred the petition² to this Court pursuant to 28 U.S.C. §§ 2244(b)(3)(A) and 1631 for this Court "to determine whether the District Court may consider the successive petition." App. 26. We do so now.

II. DISCUSSION³

Edwards's petition requires us to address three questions. First, we determine whether Edwards's second-in-time § 2255 motion is a second or successive § 2255 motion. We hold that Edwards's second-in-time § 2255 motion is a second or successive § 2255 motion because a First Step Act resentencing is unrelated to the validity of the judgment it amends and thus does not result in a new, intervening judgment under Magwood. Second, we address whether Edwards has satisfied the requirements of § 2255(h) such that the District Court can consider his second or successive § 2255 motion. We hold that Edwards has not satisfied the requirements of § 2255(h) because Rehaif did not announce a "new rule of constitutional law" made retroactive to cases on collateral review by the Supreme Court. See In re Sampson, 954 F.3d 159, 161 (3d Cir. 2020). Third and finally, we consider whether, if Edwards cannot proceed under § 2255, he can challenge his sentence under 28 U.S.C. § 2241. We hold that the Supreme Court foreclosed this possibility in Jones v. Hendrix, 599 U.S. 465, 143 S.Ct. 1857, 216 L.Ed.2d 471 (2023). As a result of this three-part analysis, we must deny Edwards's requests.

A. The Meaning of "New Judgment"

Edwards argues that his 2019 resentencing resulted in a new judgment under Magwood because the District Court made a substantive change to his sentence. Therefore, Edwards contends, because his second-in-time petition for a writ of habeas corpus is the first to challenge this new judgment, it is not a second or successive petition and need not comply with 28 U.S.C. §§ 2244(a) or 2255(h) to proceed. The Government responds that Edwards's 2019 First Step Act resentencing did not result in a new judgment under Magwood because the First Step Act did not invalidate Edwards's original judgment but, instead, merely allowed the District Court to reduce his sentence "to account for the application of the Fair Sentencing Act." Br. for Respondent 23. Thus, the Government contends, Edwards's petition is a second or successive petition for a writ of habeas corpus and must comply with §§ 2244(a) and 2255(h) to proceed.

The Great Writ, as the writ of habeas corpus is often called, is "one of the few safeguards of liberty specified in a Constitution that, at the outset, had no Bill of Rights." Boumediene v. Bush, 553 U.S. 723, 739, 128 S.Ct. 2229, 171 L.Ed.2d 41 (2008). While the roots of the Great Writ trace back to Magna Carta, id. at 740-41, 128 S.Ct. 2229, the current iteration is a creature of statute codified in Title 28 of the United States Code, see 28 U.S.C. §§ 2241-2255. Relevant to this appeal, the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 ("AEDPA") amended Title 28 in various ways to strictly limit second or successive petitions for a writ of habeas corpus. See, e.g., 28 U.S.C. § 2244(a) ("No circuit or district judge shall be required to entertain an application for a writ of habeas corpus to inquire into the detention of a person pursuant to a judgment of a court of the United States if it appears that the legality of such detention has been determined by a judge or court of the United States on a prior application for a writ of habeas corpus, except as provided in section 2255."). For example, a prisoner detained pursuant to a judgment of a federal court can only bring a second or successive motion under § 2255 if that motion is based on newly discovered evidence of innocence or a new rule of constitutional law that the Supreme Court made retroactive to cases on collateral review:

A second or successive motion must be certified as provided in section 2244 by a panel of the appropriate court of appeals to contain—

(1) newly discovered evidence that, if proven and viewed in light of the evidence as a whole, would be sufficient to establish by clear and convincing evidence that no reasonable factfinder would have found the movant guilty of the offense; or

(2) a new rule of constitutional law, made retroactive to cases on collateral review by the Supreme Court, that was previously unavailable.

28 U.S.C. § 2255(h).⁴

The Supreme Court's 2010 opinion in Magwood addressed the meaning of the phrase "second or...