Plunkett v. Sproul

16 F.4th 248

Jamar E. PLUNKETT, Petitioner-Appellant,

v.Dan SPROUL, Respondent-Appellee.

No. 20-2461

United States Court of Appeals, Seventh Circuit.

Argued September 17, 2021

Decided October 20, 2021

Marco P. Basile, Attorney, Jones Day, Boston, MA, for Petitioner-Appellant.

James M. Cutchin, Attorney, Office of the United States Attorney, Benton, IL, for Respondent-Appellee.

Before Sykes, Chief Judge, and Flaum, and Kirsch, Circuit Judges.

Flaum, Circuit Judge.

A grand jury indicted petitioner-appellant Jamar Plunkett on a charge of distributing crack cocaine. Plunkett pleaded guilty after the government established that his prior Illinois drug conviction subjected him to an enhanced statutory maximum sentence. Plunkett now appeals the district court's decision to deny his § 2241 collateral attack on his sentence. Plunkett, however, waived his appellate rights, subject only to limited exceptions not presently applicable. Given this waiver, we now dismiss his appeal.

I. Background

A. Underlying Criminal Case Proceedings

In January 2013, Plunkett sold crack cocaine to a confidential informant. A federal grand jury subsequently indicted Plunkett on one count of distributing cocaine base, a Schedule II controlled substance, in violation of 21 U.S.C. §§ 841(a)(1) and 841(b)(1)(C). Convictions for offenses under § 841(b)(1)(C) carry a default statutory maximum sentence of twenty years' imprisonment. After Plunkett pleaded not guilty, the government filed an information under 21 U.S.C. § 851 notifying the district court that Plunkett had a 2008 Illinois felony conviction for unlawful delivery of cocaine in violation of 720 Ill. Comp. Stat. 570/401(d). The government asserted that this prior conviction qualified as a predicate "felony drug offense" under § 841(b)(1)(C) and thus subjected Plunkett to an increased statutory maximum prison term of thirty years for his federal drug offense.

Faced with a possible thirty-year prison term, Plunkett reached an agreement with the government to plead guilty in October 2013. In his plea agreement, Plunkett and the government agreed that he qualified as a career offender and that his advisory range under the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines was 188 to 235 months' imprisonment. The government further agreed to recommend a sentence at the low end of the sentencing range. In return, Plunkett agreed to waive his rights to appeal or collaterally attack his conviction or sentence, with limited exceptions. Among these, Plunkett preserved his right to seek collateral review based on any subsequent change in the interpretation of the law declared retroactive by the Supreme Court or this Court that renders him actually innocent of the charges against him.

The district court accepted Plunkett's guilty plea. During the change-of-plea hearing, the court informed Plunkett multiple times that he faced a statutory maximum sentence of thirty years' imprisonment and engaged him in a lengthy colloquy regarding his understanding of his waiver of his appeal and collateral-attack rights.

The district court then held a sentencing hearing in January 2014. The court found that Plunkett qualified as a career offender and faced a statutory maximum sentence of thirty years' imprisonment. The court further found that the Guidelines recommended an advisory sentencing range of 188 to 235 months' imprisonment. Neither party objected to these findings. Consistent with the terms of the plea agreement, the government then recommended a low-end Guidelines sentence of 188 months. The district court, however, rejected the government's recommendation and ultimately sentenced Plunkett to 212 months in prison—two years above the Guidelines minimum—and six years of supervised release. The court also imposed a $500 fine and a $100 assessment.

B. Collateral Challenges

1. Section 2255 Motion

Plunkett did not appeal his conviction or sentence, but in January 2015 he filed a pro se motion in the district court to vacate, set aside, or correct his sentence under 28 U.S.C. § 2255. In his motion, Plunkett argued that he received ineffective assistance of counsel because his lawyer did not correctly calculate his Guidelines sentencing range and did not appeal his sentence. He did not assert that the district court incorrectly classified him as a career offender or erroneously found that his prior Illinois felony drug conviction subjected him to an increased statutory maximum sentence under § 841(b)(1)(C).

The district court denied Plunkett's § 2255 motion, concluding that Plunkett's waiver of his appellate and collateral-attack rights foreclosed his claims, which lacked merit in any event. The court dismissed the motion with prejudice and did not issue a certificate of appealability. Plunkett filed a motion for reconsideration under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 59(e), which the district court also denied.

2. Section 2241 Petition

In 2016, while Plunkett's § 2255 motion remained pending, the U.S. Supreme Court issued its opinion in Mathis v. United States , ––– U.S. ––––, 136 S. Ct. 2243, 195 L.Ed.2d 604 (2016). That case reiterated that (1) the modified categorical approach applies only to divisible offenses, and (2) a state statute that lists alternative means, as opposed to elements, of committing the state offense defines a single, indivisible offense for the categorical analysis. See 136 S. Ct. at 2248, 2253, 2257. At the time, Plunkett did not seek to supplement his pending § 2255 motion with any arguments based on Mathis .

In June 2019, two years after the denial of his § 2255 motion, Plunkett challenged the use of his 2008 Illinois drug conviction to increase his statutory maximum sentence for the first time. Plunkett filed a pro se petition for a writ of habeas corpus under 28 U.S.C. § 2241 in the district court, asserting that his challenge fell within § 2255(e)'s "saving clause" exception that allows a prisoner to seek habeas relief under § 2241 when the remedy under § 2255 "is inadequate or ineffective to test the legality of his detention." See 28 U.S.C. § 2255(e). His petition asserted that after Mathis and our subsequent decision in United States v. Elder , 900 F.3d 491 (7th Cir. 2018), his 2008 Illinois conviction no longer qualified as a predicate offense; he further contended that because of this erroneous classification, his federal sentence was unlawfully enhanced. Specifically, he argued that, under Mathis , the statute underlying his state conviction— 720 Ill. Comp. Stat. § 570/401 —was categorically overbroad because it criminalized a broader range of conduct and substances than its federal counterpart. According to Plunkett, the erroneous application of the increased statutory maximum sentence caused him to suffer a miscarriage of justice because it resulted in an increase in his Guidelines sentencing range based on his career offender status.¹

The district court denied Plunkett's § 2241 petition on preliminary review. The court interpreted Plunkett's argument that his prior Illinois drug offense should not qualify as a felony drug offense as a challenge to his "designation and sentence as a career offender." The court then explained that Plunkett's career-offender sentence was imposed under the advisory Sentencing Guidelines; therefore, our decision in Hawkins v. United States , 706 F.3d 820 (7th Cir.), supplemented on denial of reh'g , 724 F.3d 915 (7th Cir. 2013), which held that errors in calculating advisory Guidelines ranges are not cognizable on collateral review, precluded Plunkett's challenge. The district court further noted that even if Plunkett's prior Illinois convictions no longer pass muster after Mathis , he still had not demonstrated the requisite fundamental defect in his 212-month sentence because it did not exceed the nonenhanced statutory maximum of 240 months for his offense. The district court thus dismissed Plunkett's § 2241 petition with prejudice.

Plunkett again filed a motion for reconsideration. He asserted that the district court misinterpreted his petition as a challenge to his career-offender designation, when in fact he sought to challenge the use of his prior Illinois convictions as predicate offenses for the career-offender enhancement. The district court denied the motion. The court denied misunderstanding the nature of Plunkett's challenge and reiterated that it would not grant relief because Plunkett's final sentence fell within the 240-month statutory maximum even absent the enhancement. The court also explained that the Supreme Court's decision in Brady v. United States , 397 U.S. 742, 90 S.Ct. 1463, 25 L.Ed.2d 747 (1970), foreclosed Plunkett's argument that the allegedly erroneous increase in the statutory maximum sentence distorted the plea negotiations and influenced his decision to plead guilty; the court noted that at the time he entered into the plea agreement, Plunkett agreed with the government's assessment that his Illinois drug conviction exposed him to a sentence ranging between 188 and 235 months. The district court concluded that because his sentence fell squarely within that range, he did not raise a viable habeas claim.

This appeal followed.

II. Discussion

Plunkett appeals the denial of his § 2241 petition, reasserting many of the arguments he raised before the district court. He contends that his collateral attack on his sentence falls within § 2255(e)'s "saving clause" exception that allows a prisoner to seek habeas relief under § 2241 when the remedy under § 2255 "is inadequate or ineffective to test the legality of his detention." See 28 U.S.C. § 2255(e). The government, in addition to responding to this argument, counters that Plunkett's waiver of his collateral-attack rights in his plea agreement precludes his § 2241 petition and requires dismissal of this appeal. "Generally speaking, appeal waivers are enforceable and preclude appellate review." United States v. Desotell , 929 F.3d 821, 826 (7th Cir. 2019) (quoting United States v. Worthen , 842 F.3d 552, 554 (7th...