Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca6-15-05188/USCOURTS-ca6-15-05188-0/pdf.json

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

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1 

RECOMMENDED FOR FULL-TEXT PUBLICATION 

Pursuant to Sixth Circuit I.O.P. 32.1(b) 

File Name: 16a0220p.06 

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE SIXTH CIRCUIT 

_________________ 

MARK DAVE HILL, 

Petitioner-Appellant, 

v. 

BART MASTERS, Warden, 

Respondent-Appellee. 

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No. 15-5188 

Appeal from the United States District Court 

for the Eastern District of Kentucky at Pikeville. 

No. 7:14-cv-00085—Amul R. Thapar, District Judge. 

Argued: January 27, 2016 

Decided and Filed: September 7, 2016 

Before: GILMAN, WHITE, and STRANCH, Circuit Judges. 

_________________ 

COUNSEL 

ARGUED: Eugene A. Sokoloff, HOGAN LOVELLS US LLP, Washington, D.C., for 

Appellant. Michael A. Rotker, UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, Washington, 

D.C., for Appellee. ON BRIEF: Eugene A. Sokoloff, Neal Kumar Katyal, HOGAN LOVELLS 

US LLP, Washington, D.C., for Appellant. Michael A. Rotker, UNITED STATES 

DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, Washington, D.C., for Appellee. 

_________________ 

OPINION 

_________________ 

JANE B. STRANCH, Circuit Judge. This case concerns a prisoner’s right to bring a 

successive habeas corpus petition under 28 U.SC. § 2241, challenging the misapplication of a 

sentence enhancement. Appellant Mark Hill contends that a career-offender enhancement was 

>

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No. 15-5188 Hill v. Masters Page 2 

erroneously applied to his sentence in light of subsequent caselaw establishing that his predicate 

offense was not a “crime of violence.” Because Hill is foreclosed from bringing a successive 

petition using 28 U.S.C. § 2255, he seeks to challenge his sentence under § 2241. The district 

court dismissed Hill’s petition. For the following reasons, we REVERSE the order of the district 

court and REMAND the case for further proceedings consistent with this opinion. 

I. BACKGROUND

On March 31, 2000, Hill was arrested with four fellow conspirators outside Charleston, 

South Carolina, following more than a year of undercover investigation into drug-trafficking 

activities between Baltimore and a high-crime area of Charleston. (Presentence Report (PSR) at 

¶¶ 8, 11.) Hill was charged with one count of conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute one 

kilogram or more of heroin and less than 500 grams of cocaine, and three counts of possession 

with intent to distribute less than 100 grams of heroin. Shortly after the commencement of his 

October 2001 trial in the District of South Carolina, Hill pleaded guilty to the lesser-included 

offense of conspiracy to distribute more than 100 grams of heroin. 21 U.S.C. §§ 846, 841(a); 

(PSR at ¶ 88.) 

Hill was sentenced under the then-mandatory 2001 Sentencing Guidelines Manual. His 

total offense level of 35 reflected a four-level enhancement for his role as an organizer or leader 

of the conspiracy and a two-level reduction for acceptance of responsibility. (PSR at ¶¶ 38-46.) 

Because Hill had two prior felony convictions in Maryland—a controlled-substance offense and 

second-degree assault—he received a further enhancement and a criminal-history category of VI 

as a career offender. (Id.); USSG §4B1.1 (2001) (To qualify as a career offender, the 

defendant’s instant offense must be a felony that is “either a crime of violence or a controlled 

substance offense,” committed by one who is eighteen years or older, and the defendant must 

have “at least two prior felony convictions of either a crime of violence or a controlled substance 

offense.”). Hill was sentenced to 300 months of imprisonment based on a guideline range of 

292 to 365 months. Hill appealed his sentence, which was affirmed by the Fourth Circuit. 

United States v. Hill, 75 F. App’x 115, 116 (4th Cir. 2003) (per curiam). 

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Hill has brought several challenges to his sentence over the course of his incarceration.1 

See United States v. Hill, 442 F. App’x 76, 77 (4th Cir. 2011) (denying a certificate of 

appealability and dismissing Hill’s appeal of the district court’s order denying his motion for 

reconsideration of his second § 2255 habeas corpus petition); United States v. Hill, 158 F. App’x 

436, 437 (4th Cir. 2005) (denying a certificate of appealability and dismissing Hill’s appeal of 

the district court’s order granting summary judgment to the Government and denying his first 

§ 2255 habeas corpus petition). 

In May 2014, Hill filed the motion now under review, a § 2241 habeas corpus petition, in 

the Eastern District of Kentucky.2 In light of the Supreme Court’s decision in Descamps v. 

United States, 133 S. Ct. 2276 (2013), and, subsequently, the Fourth Circuit’s decision in United 

States v. Royal, 731 F.3d 333 (4th Cir. 2013), Hill alleges that his “second degree assault 

conviction no longer qualifies as a ‘crime of violence’” and that “he is now serving an erroneous 

career offender sentence that violates the laws of the United States.” R. 1, PageID 1; R. 4, 

PageID 52-53. Hill contends that without the enhancement, his guideline range would have been 

235 to 293 months rather than 292 to 365 months. Moreover, he argues that as a career offender, 

he is “categorically ineligible” for subsequent retroactive amendments to the guidelines that 

could place his range as low as 188 to 235 months and reduce his sentence by “as many as nine 

years.” (Appellant Br. at 18, 22.) 

Finding § 2241 inapposite to Hill’s petition because he did not claim to be “actually 

innocent of the underlying battery offense,” the district court denied Hill’s motion, citing our 

unpublished case law. R. 7, PageID 75-76 (citing Jones v. Castillo, 489 F. App’x 864, 866 

(6th Cir. 2012) (per curiam)). Hill then filed a notice of appeal, R. 10, PageID 100, which was 

held in abeyance pending resolution of a previously filed post-judgment motion for 

 1

Because Hill incorrectly filed his first § 2241 habeas corpus petition in the District of South Carolina after 

he had been transferred to the penitentiary in Inez, Kentucky, his petition was dismissed for lack of subject-matter 

jurisdiction. R. 1, PageID 1. See 28 U.S.C. § 2243 ¶2 (“The writ [of habeas corpus] . . . shall be directed to the 

person having custody of the person detained.”). 

2

Hill was later transferred to Federal Correctional Institution–McDowell in Welch, West Virginia, and the 

previous warden defendant was replaced by McDowell Warden Bart Masters. R. 14, PageID 113. The motions 

panel determined that Hill’s unauthorized transfer did not deprive this court of jurisdiction to review the judgment 

below. Id. at 114. 

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reconsideration, R. 9, PageID 78. On February 27, 2015, the district court denied Hill’s motion 

for reconsideration and this appeal was reinstated. R. 11, PageID 108. 

II. ANALYSIS

A challenge to the validity of a federal conviction or sentence is generally brought as a 

habeas corpus petition pursuant to § 2255, while a petition concerning the manner or execution 

of a sentence is appropriate under § 2241. United States v. Peterman, 249 F.3d 458, 461 

(6th Cir. 2001). Though presenting two distinct avenues for a prisoner’s challenge to his 

incarceration, these petitions overlap through the savings-clause mechanism of § 2255(e). 

Because this case concerns the interrelationship between § 2255 and § 2241, both are addressed 

here. We begin with § 2255. 

“Second or successive motions” under § 2255 are typically barred unless a petition 

(1) contains newly discovered evidence that “would be sufficient to establish by clear and 

convincing evidence that no reasonable factfinder would have found the movant guilty,” or (2) is 

based on “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). However, where a 

petitioner seeks to file a successive habeas petition but cannot meet the requirements of the 

§ 2255(h) exception, the petitioner may look to the “savings clause” of 28 U.S.C. § 2255(e) for 

recourse: 

An application for a writ of habeas corpus in behalf of a prisoner who is 

authorized to apply for relief by motion pursuant to this section, shall not be 

entertained if it appears that the applicant has failed to apply for relief, by motion, 

to the court which sentenced him, or that such court has denied him relief, unless 

it also appears that the remedy by motion is inadequate or ineffective to test the 

legality of his detention. 

Thus, where the remedy under § 2255 is inadequate or ineffective, the savings clause allows a 

federal prisoner to “bring a claim challenging his conviction or imposition of sentence under 

§ 2241.” Charles v. Chandler, 180 F.3d 753, 756 (6th Cir. 1999) (per curiam). A § 2241 

petition is not subject to the general rule against second or successive motions in the absence of 

newly discovered evidence or a new rule of constitutional law. See 28 U.S.C. § 2241. Our 

review of the dismissal of a § 2241 petition is de novo. Charles, 180 F.3d at 755. 

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The petitioner carries the burden to establish that the savings clause applies to his petition 

and “[t]he circumstances in which § 2255 is inadequate and ineffective are narrow.” Peterman, 

249 F.3d at 461. As we have cautioned, § 2255 is not “inadequate or ineffective” merely 

because habeas relief has previously been denied, a § 2255 motion is procedurally barred, or the 

petitioner has been denied permission to file a successive motion. Charles, 180 F.3d at 756. 

A. Successive Habeas Corpus Petitions Pursuant to § 2241

On a successive challenge to a conviction, a petitioner may test the legality of his 

detention under § 2241 through the § 2255(e) savings clause by showing that he is “actually 

innocent.” Wooten v. Cauley, 677 F.3d 303, 307 (6th Cir. 2012). Where a petitioner asserts 

factual innocence of his crime of conviction due to a change of law, he may show that his 

remedy under § 2255 is inadequate or ineffective by satisfying four conditions: (1) “the 

existence of a new interpretation of statutory law,” (2) “issued after the petitioner had a 

meaningful time to incorporate the new interpretation into his direct appeals or subsequent 

motions,” (3) that is retroactive, and (4) applies to the petition’s merits such that it is “more 

likely than not that no reasonable juror would have convicted” the petitioner. Id. at 307-08. 

We do not have published precedent on the issue presented here, where the target of the 

petition is a sentence enhancement, not a conviction. The test that applies in this factual 

context—set out by our sister circuits and agreed upon by the parties before us—specifies the 

petitioner’s burden to come within the savings clause of § 2255(e). When seeking to petition 

under § 2241 based on a misapplied sentence, the petitioner must show (1) a case of statutory 

interpretation, (2) that is retroactive and could not have been invoked in the initial § 2255 

motion, and (3) that the misapplied sentence presents an error sufficiently grave to be deemed a 

miscarriage of justice or a fundamental defect. See Brown v. Caraway, 719 F.3d 583, 586 

(7th Cir. 2013); see also Williams v. Warden, Fed. Bureau of Prisons, 713 F.3d 1332, 1343 

(11th Cir. 2013) (interpreting prior precedent to allow application of the savings clause “when a 

fundamental defect in sentencing occurred and the petitioner [has] not had an opportunity to 

obtain judicial correction of that defect earlier” (internal quotation marks omitted)). 

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The parties agree that Hill has established the first and second conditions for satisfying 

the requirements of the savings clause and employing § 2241. They dispute whether he satisfies 

the third condition. We begin with the new interpretation of statutory law. 

1. Descamps v. United States

In Descamps v. United States, 133 S. Ct. 2276 (2013), the Supreme Court clarified the 

correct approach for determining whether state-law offenses qualify as “violent felonies” for the 

purpose of a sentence enhancement under the Armed Career Criminal Act (ACCA) of 1984.3 

18 U.S.C. § 924(e)(1). The Court foreclosed the use of the modified categorical approach for 

criminal statutes that consist of a single set of elements that define the crime “more broadly than 

the generic offense.” Descamps, 133 S. Ct. at 2283. Instead, it directed the lower courts to use 

the categorical approach to compare the elements of the generic crime to the elements in the 

statute that forms the basis of the defendant’s prior conviction. Id. at 2281-82. To the extent the 

statute covers a “broader swath of conduct” than the generic offense, the former cannot serve as 

a predicate felony for an ACCA enhancement. Id. at 2281-82. 

In the same year, the Fourth Circuit applied Descamps to Maryland’s second-degree 

assault statute—one of Hill’s predicate felonies—and concluded it was not a “violent felony” 

under the ACCA because the statute defined assault more broadly than the generic crime. Royal, 

731 F.3d at 342. “Maryland’s second-degree assault statute reaches any unlawful touching, 

whether violent or nonviolent and no matter how slight”; thus, “‘convictions under the statute . . . 

cannot categorically be crimes of violence.’” Id. (quoting Karimi v. Holder, 715 F.3d 561, 568 

(4th Cir. 2013)). 

The Government concedes that, after Descamps and Royal, Maryland’s second-degree 

assault statute no longer constitutes a crime of violence for the purpose of the career-offender 

enhancement. USSG § 4B1.2(a) (2001). Thus, were Hill to be sentenced today, he would not 

qualify as a career offender. The Government further concedes that Descamps and Royal apply 

retroactively. The problem lies with the third condition—whether a misapplied sentence 

 3

The same approach is used to determine whether a crime constitutes a “crime of violence” for a careeroffender enhancement under the sentencing guidelines or a “violent felony” under the ACCA. See United States v. 

Covington, 738 F.3d 759, 762-63 (6th Cir. 2014). 

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enhancement calculated under the mandatory Sentencing Guidelines Manual constitutes a 

fundamental error that may be redressed in a successive habeas corpus proceeding. 

2. Application of the Career-Offender Enhancement 

Hill claims that, in light of Descamps and Royal, his “unlawfully imposed career offender 

status infected his entire sentencing proceeding with error, resulting in a sentence that was 

improperly divorced from his individualized criminal history and offense characteristics.” 

(Appellant Br. at 11.) He asserts that § 2255 is ineffective to test the legality of his sentence 

enhancement because § 2255(h) precludes him from bringing an additional § 2255 petition, and 

that the intervening change of law requires recourse under the savings clause and § 2241. 

The Government fairly concedes that “[s]entencing claims are challenges to detention 

that are at least in theory redressable under the savings clause” if they are “fundamental,” which 

it defines as “on par with a conviction for a non-existent offense or a sentence above the 

otherwise-applicable statutory maximum.” (Appellee Br. at 36, 38.) It argues that 

misapplication of the career-offender enhancement does not render Hill’s sentence “illegal” 

because it did not result in a sentence that exceeds the statutory maximum term of life 

imprisonment. Because Hill has not presented a fundamental error in his sentence, the 

Government concludes, he has failed to demonstrate that § 2255 is inadequate and he therefore 

cannot satisfy the savings clause to enable a § 2241 petition. 

We agree with both parties that the district court erred in holding that § 2241 can never 

support a sentence challenge. We have acknowledged, albeit in dicta, that a § 2241 petition may 

be used to challenge the “imposition of sentence” when remedies under § 2255 are inadequate or 

ineffective.4

 See Charles, 180 F.3d at 756. We also agree with the Government’s position that a 

habeas petition may be brought pursuant to § 2241 when a sentence exceeds the maximum 

prescribed by statute. To deny relief where a sentence enhancement exceeds the statutory range 

set by Congress would present separation-of-powers concerns. See e.g., Jones v. Thomas, 

 4

We have also held otherwise in unpublished decisions, stating that petitioners may not challenge 

misapplied sentence enhancements under § 2241 because such challenges do not claim actual innocence of the 

offense of conviction. See, e.g., Jones, 489 F. App’x at 866; Brown v. Hogsten, 503 F. App’x 342, 343 (6th Cir. 

2012) (per curiam); Green v. Hemingway, 67 F. App’x 255, 256-57 (6th Cir. 2003). For the reasons stated in this 

opinion, we do not find these opinions persuasive. 

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491 U.S. 376, 381 (1989) (noting the importance of “the limits prescribed by the legislative 

branch of government, in which lies the substantive power to define crimes and prescribe 

punishments” in the multiple-punishments context); United States v. Penson, 526 F.3d 331, 336 

(6th Cir. 2008) (vacating and remanding a sentence that exceeded the statutory maximum). The 

Government’s interpretation of what constitutes a fundamental defect in sentencing, however, 

can lead to problematic results, as discussed below. Mindful of the limitations of this “beyond 

the maximum penalty” approach, we examine whether § 2241 may also support a challenge to a 

misapplied enhancement resulting in a sentence that does not exceed the statutory maximum. 

B. Application of § 2241 to Sentence-Enhancement Challenges 

Lacking published precedent in our circuit directly considering a § 2241 collateral 

challenge to a sentence enhancement, we turn first to our related caselaw and then to cases in our 

sister circuits that address this issue. 

Although we have yet to determine the “exact scope of the savings clause,” we have held 

that when a petitioner fails to identify a new case of statutory interpretation on which to base his 

§ 2241 habeas claim, he fails to satisfy the savings clause and cannot reach § 2241. Peterman, 

249 F.3d at 462 (declining to consider a co-conspirator’s sentence reduction on direct appeal as a 

change in the law). Peterman, relying heavily on Charles’s reasoning in the conviction (not 

sentencing) context, stated in dicta that the petitioners had not shown “an intervening change in 

the law that establishes their actual innocence.” Id. Insofar as the petitioners challenged the 

duration of their sentences, the opinion noted that “[c]ourts have generally declined to 

collaterally review sentences that fall within the statutory maximum.” Id. 

In the intervening years, notable cases of statutory interpretation, including Begay v. 

United States, 553 U.S. 137 (2008), have revised the landscape governing what constitutes a 

predicate offense for the enhancement of a sentence. The Supreme Court’s instruction has 

provided the occasion to refine our review of challenges to misapplied enhancements. In Kirk v. 

United States, for example, the petitioner’s § 2255 petition argued that his classification as an 

armed career criminal was erroneous because “intervening case law” held that his prior 

conviction was not a predicate “violent felony.” We held that the sentence enhancement 

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“undoubtedly represents a miscarriage of justice, making relief under § 2255 appropriate.” 

481 F. App’x 249, 249 (2012) (per curiam). Explaining that the erroneous classification resulted 

in a sentence “well above the . . . statutory maximum,” and thus led to a sentence that “the law 

cannot impose upon” the petitioner, we reversed the denial of the petition. Id. (internal quotation 

marks omitted) (citing with approval Narvaez v. United States, 674 F.3d 621, 628-29 (7th Cir. 

2011)). Logic suggests that whether a misapplied enhancement results in a miscarriage of justice 

should not depend on whether the new statutory interpretation was announced before or after a 

prisoner filed a first § 2255 petition, when the timing of the decision invalidating the 

enhancement is beyond the prisoner’s control. 

The Seventh Circuit invoked this logic in Brown v. Caraway, 719 F.3d 583 (7th Cir. 

2013), a case where the sentence did not exceed the statutory maximum. Relying on Narvaez, a 

prior case involving a first-time habeas petition under § 2255—a case we cited as authority in

Kirk—the Seventh Circuit explained that: 

[t]o classify an individual as belonging to a “subgroup of defendants, repeat 

violent offenders” is to “increase, dramatically, the point of departure of his 

sentence” and accordingly is “certainly as serious as the most grievous 

misinformation that has been the basis for granting habeas relief.” Thus, the 

misapplication of the sentencing guidelines, at least where (as here) the defendant 

was sentenced in the pre-Booker era, represents a fundamental defect that 

constitutes a miscarriage of justice corrigible in a § 2241 proceeding. 

Id. at 587-88 (internal citation omitted) (quoting Narvaez, 674 F.3d at 629); see also Webster v. 

Daniels, 784 F.3d 1123, 1125-26 (7th Cir. 2015) (en banc) (vacating a prior judgment on 

rehearing and extending the savings clause to petitioner’s § 2241 petition based on the discovery 

of “new evidence that would demonstrate categorical ineligibility for the death penalty”).5

In Brown, the sentencing court applied a career-offender enhancement to Brown’s 

sentence (for drugs and firearm possession) in light of a prior conviction of third-degree arson in 

Delaware; his subsequent § 2255 petition was unsuccessful. Brown, 719 F.3d at 584-85. Brown 

later filed a § 2241 petition challenging the enhancement because his prior offense no longer 

 5

The Seventh Circuit has declined to extend the holding in Narvaez to § 2255 petitions challenging 

sentences where the petitioner was sentenced under the advisory Guidelines Manual post-United States v. Booker, 

543 U.S. 220 (2005). See Hawkins v. United States, 706 F.3d 820, 822-24 (7th Cir. 2013). 

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constituted a crime of violence under Begay, 553 U.S. 137. Id. at 585. The district court 

dismissed the petition. The Seventh Circuit reversed, finding that Brown’s petition had satisfied 

the three conditions to fall within the savings-clause exception and was, therefore, properly heard 

under § 2241. First, Brown relied on a case of statutory interpretation (rather than a 

constitutional case, which would have satisfied one of the conditions for a successive challenge 

under § 2255(h)). Id. at 586-87. Second, the case was retroactive and could not have been 

invoked in his original petition. Id. Finally, the court determined that the error Brown 

complained of was sufficiently grave to be “deemed a miscarriage of justice,” or, put another 

way, a “fundamental defect” corrigible in a habeas corpus proceeding. Id. at 586. 

In response to the argument that the savings clause requires “a claim of actual innocence 

directed to the underlying conviction, not merely the sentence,” id. at 585, the Seventh Circuit 

stood on the clear language of the savings clause, § 2255(e), id. at 588. Noting that the savings 

clause makes no reference to “convictions” and instead makes relief available when the “§ 2255 

remedy is ‘inadequate or ineffective to test the legality of his detention,’” it held that for a 

prisoner sentenced when the guidelines were mandatory by law, “a § 2241 habeas petition 

raising a guidelines error ‘tests the legality of his detention.’” Id. (emphasis in original). The 

Seventh Circuit thus found Brown entitled to relief under § 2241. Id. at 585. 

The Fourth Circuit, sitting en banc, recently heard similar arguments on a split-panel 

decision that refused, over a well-reasoned dissent, to authorize a petition under § 2241. 

See United States v. Surratt, 797 F.3d 240, reh’g en banc granted (Dec. 2, 2015); see also id. at 

269-76 (Gregory, J., dissenting). There, the Fourth Circuit panel had considered a successive 

challenge to a mandatory-minimum life sentence under 21 U.S.C. § 841 based on a number of 

underlying drug convictions that were later deemed not to constitute predicate offenses. Id. at 

244-46. The panel majority denied the prisoner’s § 2241 petition on the basis that he had not 

shown actual innocence of the underlying conviction and that he could not be “actually innocent” 

of a sentence enhancement. Id. at 247-49. The majority left open the possibility that § 2241 

could support a challenge to a sentence exceeding the statutory maximum—the position taken by 

the Government in this case—but found this exception inapplicable because the statutory 

maximum sentence authorized for Surratt’s conviction was life imprisonment, which his 

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mandatory minimum life sentence did not exceed. Id. at 255-56. Thus, Surratt was barred from 

seeking relief under § 2241 for a misapplied life sentence because it did not exceed the statutory 

maximum life sentence where he was sentenced to life imprisonment as a mandatory minimum. 

Judge Gregory’s dissent anchors his reasoning on the history and text of the “Great 

Writ,” tracks the impact of legislation on it, and then applies those principles and Fourth Circuit 

precedent to determine that the majority’s holding violates them all. The core of his argument 

resides in the constitutional prohibition on suspension of the writ. Id. at 270 (citing U.S. Const. 

art. I, § 9, cl. 2). He traces the legislative actions addressing the writ, concluding that “[h]istory 

therefore confirms that Congress meant for the writ of habeas corpus to remain unabridged even 

in the face of some limits on collateral review found in § 2255, and that the savings clause plays 

a distinct and crucial role within the statute.” Id. at 270-71. Judge Gregory then analyzes the 

text, applying “the traditional savings clause analysis” (the analysis set out in this case above) to 

show why § 2255 is “inadequate or ineffective” and § 2241 is available to address a misapplied 

enhancement. Id. at 273-76. Woven throughout is practicality—that it begs reason to expect a 

prisoner to bring a claim before the intervening law is decided, id. at 274, and that the dissent’s 

argument would not open the floodgates because it would affect only a very small group of 

prisoners (eight in the Western District of North Carolina), id. at 275. 

We acknowledge the wisdom of Judge Gregory’s reasoning. Surveying the authority of 

our sister circuits, which have split on the issue,6

 we are persuaded by the approach outlined in 

the Seventh Circuit’s decision in Brown, and Judge Gregory’s dissent in Surratt, now before the 

Fourth Circuit en banc. 

As in Brown, Hill was sentenced pre-Booker when courts were required to sentence 

within the guidelines range, absent specific limited circumstances. Serving a sentence imposed 

under mandatory guidelines (subsequently lowered by retroactive Supreme Court precedent) 

shares similarities with serving a sentence imposed above the statutory maximum. Both 

sentences are beyond what is called for by law, see Brown, 719 F.3d at 588 (explaining pre-

 6

Panels in the Eleventh and Fifth Circuits have also had occasion to consider this issue and citing concerns 

of finality and judicial economy, have reached a different conclusion. See Gilbert v. United States, 640 F.3d 1293, 

1323 (11th Cir. 2011); In re Bradford, 660 F.3d 226, 230 (5th Cir. 2011) (per curiam).

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Booker guidelines “had the force and effect of law”), and both raise a fundamental fairness issue. 

The facts of Hill’s case illustrate why he should not be foreclosed from “test[ing] the legality of 

his detention” using the savings clause, § 2255(e). First, the Government concedes that 

Descamps and Royal apply retroactively. Second, had the career-offender enhancement been 

properly considered under now-applicable Supreme Court precedent, Hill would not have been 

treated as a career offender, and the sentencing court would have been required to impose a 

sentence within a lesser range. Finally, Congress, through the Sentencing Commission, intended 

that prisoners in Hill’s position be eligible for certain further reductions. His characterization as 

a career offender wrongly renders him ineligible for that relief. 

In authorizing a petition under § 2241, we reiterate that our decision addresses only a 

narrow subset of § 2241 petitions: (1) prisoners who were sentenced under the mandatory 

guidelines regime pre-United States v. Booker, 543 U.S. 220 (2005), (2) who are foreclosed from 

filing a successive petition under § 2255, and (3) when a subsequent, retroactive change in 

statutory interpretation by the Supreme Court reveals that a previous conviction is not a predicate 

offense for a career-offender enhancement. Hill’s challenge to his misapplied career-offender 

enhancement is properly brought under § 2241 because he was sentenced under the mandatory 

Guidelines Manual; is barred from filing a successive § 2255 petition; and received the 

enhancement based on a prior conviction that a subsequent, retroactive change in Supreme Court 

jurisprudence reveals is not a predicate offense. To require that Hill serve an enhanced sentence 

as a career offender, bearing the stigma of a “repeat violent offender” and all its accompanying 

disadvantages, is a miscarriage of justice where he lacks the predicate felonies to justify such a 

characterization. Hill has therefore satisfied the requirements of the savings clause of § 2255(e) 

and his petition is properly brought under § 2241. 

III. CONCLUSION

For these reasons, we REVERSE the order of the district court denying Hill’s § 2241 

petition and REMAND the case for further proceedings consistent with this opinion. 

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