Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca3-17-01006/USCOURTS-ca3-17-01006-0/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 530
Nature of Suit: Prisoner Petitions - Habeas Corpus
Cause of Action: 

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CLD-134 NOT PRECEDENTIAL

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE THIRD CIRCUIT

___________

No. 17-1006

___________

KASEEN DOBSON,

Appellant

v.

ATTORNEY GENERAL UNITED STATES OF AMERICA;

UNITED STATES MARSHAL SERVICE

____________________________________

On Appeal from the United States District Court

for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania

(D.C. Civil No. 2-16-cv-06225)

District Judge: Honorable James Knoll Gardner

____________________________________

Submitted for Possible Dismissal Pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1915(e)(2)(B)

or Summary Action Under Third Circuit LAR 27.4 and I.O.P. 10.6

February 16, 2017

Before: SHWARTZ, GREENBERG and FISHER, Circuit Judges

(Opinion filed: February 23, 2017)

_________

OPINION*

_________

PER CURIAM

 

* This disposition is not an opinion of the full Court and pursuant to I.O.P. 5.7 does not 

constitute binding precedent.

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Kaseen Dobson appeals pro se from the District Court’s order dismissing his 28 

U.S.C. § 2241 petition for lack of jurisdiction. We will summarily affirm.

I.

Following a 2008 jury trial in the United States District Court for the Eastern 

District of Pennsylvania, Dobson was convicted of conspiracy to distribute crack cocaine 

(21 U.S.C. § 846), among other crimes, and sentenced to 300 months in prison. We 

affirmed his convictions and sentence. See United States v. Rawlinson, 433 F. App’x 99, 

105 (3d Cir. 2011). The following year, he filed a motion to vacate under 28 U.S.C. 

§ 2255, which the District Court denied on its merits. We declined to issue a certificate 

of appealability. See C.A. No. 16-1907. About a month later, he filed another § 2255 

motion, which the District Court dismissed for lack of jurisdiction because he filed it 

without first obtaining our permission. Soon after, he filed this § 2241 petition, arguing 

that “his detention is unconstitutional and unlawful because the trial docket . . . fails to 

show and authenticate . . . . whether the indictment is really the act of the grand jury.” He 

appeared to suggest that the indictment was defective because it was not signed by every 

member of the grand jury, and argued that the District Court lacked subject-matter 

jurisdiction as a result. The District Court similarly dismissed this petition as an 

unauthorized § 2255 motion, and this timely appeal ensued.

II.

We have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291 and “review de novo the District 

Court’s dismissal of a habeas petition on jurisdictional grounds.” Cardona v. Bledsoe, 

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681 F.3d 533, 535 (3d Cir. 2012). We may summarily affirm the District Court where “it 

clearly appears that no substantial question is presented.” 3d Cir. I.O.P. 10.6 (2015).

We detect no error in the District Court’s dismissal of Dobson’s § 2241 petition 

because his claim—which relates to the validity of his federal convictions—should have 

been asserted in a § 2255 motion.1 See Cradle v. U.S. ex rel. Miner, 290 F.3d 536, 539 

(3d Cir. 2002) (per curiam) (challenge to district court’s jurisdiction, asserted in a § 2241 

petition, “falls within the purview of § 2255”); United States v. Scott, 414 F.3d 815, 817

(7th Cir. 2005) (challenge to the validity of a grand jury indictment, asserted in postjudgment motion seeking grand jury records, “initiated a second collateral attack [under § 

2255]”). Because Dobson has already filed one § 2255 motion and lost on the merits, and 

has not obtained our permission before filing this petition, the District Court lacked 

jurisdiction to entertain another § 2255 motion. See 28 U.S.C. § 2255(h); Pridgen v. 

Shannon, 380 F.3d 721, 725 (3d Cir. 2004).

Dobson may not use § 2241 instead “unless a § 2255 motion would be ‘inadequate 

or ineffective,’” that is, “some limitation of scope or procedure would prevent a § 2255 

proceeding from affording him a full hearing and adjudication of his wrongful detention 

claim.” Cradle, 290 F.3d at 538 (quoting Application of Galante, 437 F.2d 1164, 1165 

(3d Cir. 1971)). He has not made such a showing. He continues to argue on appeal that 

 

1 Dobson argued that his petition “does not seek to challenge the validity of his 

conviction or sentence, rather, it only challenges the fact of his imprisonment.” But he 

was required to use § 2255 because he claimed “the right to be released [from custody] 

upon the ground that . . . the court was without jurisdiction.” 28 U.S.C. § 2255(a).

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the indictment was defective, and that this defect deprived the District Court of subjectmatter jurisdiction. But he has failed to identify any extraordinary circumstances or 

intervening change in the law, see Cradle, 290 F.3d at 539—or anything else—that would 

have prevented him from bringing his claim under § 2255. Nor does the record reveal 

such a circumstance. Accordingly, we will summarily affirm the judgment of the District 

Court. 

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