Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-cand-4_14-cr-00013/USCOURTS-cand-4_14-cr-00013-2/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Isaiah Deshawnta McGary
Defendant
USA
Plaintiff

Document Text:

United States District Court 

For the Northern District of California 

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IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT 

FOR THE NORTHERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA 

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, 

 

 Plaintiff, 

 

 v. 

ISAIAH DESHAWNTA MCGARY, 

 Defendant. 

________________________________/ 

No. CR 14-0013 CW 

 

ORDER GRANTING 

§ 2255 MOTION 

Movant Isaiah McGary, represented by counsel, moves under 28 

U.S.C. § 2255 to vacate, set aside or correct his sentence. 

Respondent has filed an opposition to the motion and Movant has 

filed a reply.1 Having considered all of the papers filed by the 

parties and the record in this case, the Court will GRANT the 

motion. 

 1 The government has filed a motion to stay the proceedings 

related to this motion pending the Supreme Court’s decision in 

Beckles v. United States, Supreme Court Case No. 15-8544, which 

Movant opposes. The government argues that a stay will promote 

judicial economy. However, judicial economy is not alone enough 

to justify a potentially lengthy stay in habeas cases. Yong v. 

INS, 208 F.3d 1116, 1120-21 (9th Cir. 2000). Moreover, it appears 

that time is of the essence in this case. Accordingly, the motion 

to stay is DENIED. Docket No. 36. Execution of any new sentence 

will be stayed and contingent on the Supreme Court’s decision in 

Beckles, but the parties will be able to proceed with any appeals. 

If Movant would be eligible for release under any new sentence 

before the resolution of Beckles, the Court will entertain 

argument regarding whether he should be released on bail. 

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BACKGROUND 

A. Procedural Background 

On April 7, 2014, Movant plead guilty, pursuant to a plea 

agreement, to one count of being a felon in possession of a 

firearm in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1). The plea agreement 

contained a collateral attack waiver. Docket No. 13 at ¶ 5. 

Applying United States Sentencing Guideline (USSG) § 2K2.1(a)(2), 

the Presentence Report (PSR) indicated that Movant’s base offense 

level was 24, because Movant had one prior conviction for a crime 

of violence, theft from a person, and one prior conviction for a 

controlled substance offense, possession of a controlled substance 

with intent to distribute. Section 2K2.1(a)(2) relies on the 

Career Offender Guideline, USSG § 4B1.2, for the definition of 

crime of violence. The PSR applied a three-level downward 

adjustment for acceptance of responsibility, resulting in a total 

offense level of 21. The PSR indicated that Movant should be 

classified in Criminal History Category IV, resulting in an 

advisory Guidelines range of fifty-seven to seventy-one months. 

If Movant’s sentence had not been enhanced based on the crime of 

violence, his total offense level would have been 17, with a 

resulting advisory Guidelines range of thirty-seven to forty-six 

months. 

In the plea agreement, the parties agreed to recommend a 

sixty-eight month aggregate sentence for both the felon in 

possession offense and a violation of supervised release for a 

prior federal conviction. 

At sentencing, the Court found that Movant’s advisory 

Guidelines range was fifty-seven to seventy-one months and 

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sentenced him to sixty months of imprisonment. The Court also 

imposed a consecutive eight-month sentence for the violation of 

supervised release for a total sentence of sixty-eight months. 

Movant did not file a direct appeal but, on May 16, 2016, after 

the Supreme Court issued its decision in Johnson v. United States, 

135 S. Ct. 2551 (2015), he filed the instant § 2255 motion. 

B. Johnson v. United States 

In Johnson, the Supreme Court addressed a challenge to the 

residual clause of the Armed Career Criminal Act (ACCA), 18 U.S.C. 

§ 924(e), which provides that a defendant with three prior 

“violent felony” convictions faces a fifteen-year mandatoryminimum sentence if convicted of violating 18 U.S.C. § 922(g). 18 

U.S.C. § 924(e). The ACCA residual clause definition of “violent 

felony,” which encompasses any crime that “involves conduct that 

presents a serious potential risk of physical injury to another,” 

is identical to the residual clause of the Guidelines’ definition 

“crime of violence.” The Ninth Circuit makes “no distinction 

between the terms ‘violent felony’ as defined in the ACCA and 

‘crime of violence’ as defined in § 4B1.2(a)(2) of the Sentencing 

Guidelines for purposes of interpreting the residual clauses.” 

United States v. Spencer, 724 F.3d 1133, 1138 (9th Cir. 2013) 

(quoting United States v. Crews, 621 F.3d 849, 852 n.4 (9th Cir. 

2010) (internal alteration marks omitted). 

The Johnson Court held that the residual clause is so vague 

that it “both denies fair notice to defendants and invites 

arbitrary enforcement by judges.” 135 S. Ct. at 2557. 

Accordingly, the Johnson Court held that an increase to a 

defendant’s sentence under the clause “denies due process of law.” 

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In Welch v. United States, 136 S. Ct. 1357 (2016), the Supreme 

Court held that Johnson is retroactive as applied to the ACCA. 

However, neither the Supreme Court nor the Ninth Circuit has 

addressed whether Johnson is retroactive as to the identical 

language in the Sentencing Guidelines. 

LEGAL STANDARD 

 A prisoner in custody under sentence of a federal court, 

making a collateral attack against the validity of his or her 

conviction or sentence, must do so by way of a motion to vacate, 

set aside or correct the sentence pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2255 in 

the court which imposed the sentence. Tripati v. Henman, 843 F.2d 

1160, 1162 (9th Cir. 1988). Section 2255 was intended to 

alleviate the burden of habeas corpus petitions filed by federal 

prisoners in the district of confinement by providing an equally 

broad remedy in the more convenient jurisdiction of the sentencing 

court. United States v. Addonizio, 442 U.S. 178, 185 (1979). 

Under 28 U.S.C. § 2255, a federal sentencing court may grant 

relief if it concludes that a prisoner in custody was sentenced in 

violation of the Constitution or laws of the United States. 

DISCUSSION 

 The government agrees that Johnson applies to the Sentencing 

Guidelines and agrees that, if Movant were challenging his 

sentence on direct appeal, his sentence would be subject to 

reversal. However, the government argues that Movant waived his 

right to bring the current motion. In addition, the government 

argues that Movant procedurally defaulted his claim under Johnson 

by failing to file a direct appeal and that Johnson’s application 

to the Sentencing Guidelines is not retroactive. 

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I. Waiver 

 The government first notes that Movant’s plea agreement 

provided, 

I knowingly and voluntarily agree to waive any right I 

may have to file any collateral attack on my conviction 

or sentence, including a petition under 28 U.S.C. § 2255 

or 28 U.S.C. § 2241 . . . 

Docket No. 13 at ¶ 5. Accordingly, the government argues that 

Movant has waived his right to bring this motion. However, the 

Ninth Circuit has held that a waiver “will not apply if . . . the 

sentence violates the law.” United States v. Bibler, 495 F.3d 

621, 624 (9th Cir. 2007). A sentence violates the law if it 

“exceeds the permissible statutory penalty for the crime or 

violates the Constitution.” Id. Here, the government concedes 

that Movant was sentenced under a provision of the Sentencing 

Guidelines that is unconstitutionally vague after Johnson. 

Accordingly, Movant’s sentence is illegal and the waiver in his 

plea agreement does not bar the instant motion. See United States 

v. Torres, 2016 U.S. App. LEXIS 12941, *27 (9th Cir.). 

II. Procedural Default 

 As a general rule, “claims not raised on direct appeal may not 

be raised on collateral review unless the petitioner shows cause 

and prejudice.” Massaro v. United States, 538 U.S. 500, 504 

(2003). In order to overcome this procedural default resulting 

from the failure to raise his claims on direct appeal, Movant must 

show cause for the default and actual prejudice, or actual 

innocence. Sanchez-Llamas v. Oregon, 548 U.S. 331, 350-51 (2006). 

A movant shows cause by demonstrating “that the procedural default 

is due to an ‘objective factor’ that is ‘external’ to the 

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petitioner and that ‘cannot be fairly attributed to him.’” 

Manning v. Foster, 224 F.3d 1129, 1133 (9th Cir. 2000) (quoting 

Coleman v. Thompson, 501 U.S. 722, 731-32 (1991)). 

 The government argues that “a defendant who failed to raise a 

claim on direct appeal must show ineffective assistance of counsel 

to establish cause.” Docket No. 34 at 7. This narrow 

interpretation of cause is not supported by case law. Although, 

in most cases, a failure to object or failure to file a direct 

appeal that is not attributable to ineffective assistance of 

counsel is a procedural default, there are circumstances in which 

cause may be found. See, e.g., Reed v. Ross, 468 U.S. 1, 13 

(1984) (“Underlying the concept of cause, however, is at least the 

[] notion that, absent exceptional circumstances, a defendant is 

bound by the tactical decisions of competent counsel.”) The 

Supreme Court has held that cause is found when “the factual or 

legal basis for a claim was not reasonably available to counsel” 

at the time a direct appeal was or could have been filed. Murray 

v. Carrier, 477 U.S. 478, 488 (1986). Accordingly, the failure to 

file a direct appeal when the appeal “would have been futile, 

because a solid wall of circuit authority” precluded the appeal 

does not constitute procedural default. English v. United States, 

42 F.3d 473, 479 (9th Cir. 1994) (internal quotation marks and 

citations omitted); see also Kimes v. United States, 939 F.2d 776, 

778 (1991) (“failure to object . . . is not fatal to [a § 2255] 

petition, since well settled law precluded [the] claim at the 

time”). 

 In Reed, the Supreme Court held that when one of its 

decisions explicitly overrules one of its prior decisions or 

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overturns “a longstanding and widespread practice to which [the 

Supreme Court] has not spoken, but which a near unanimous body of 

lower court authority has expressly approved” and the new decision 

is given retroactive application, there will almost 

certainly have been no reasonable basis upon which an 

attorney previously could have urged a []court to adopt 

the position that this Court had ultimately adopted. 

Consequently, the failure of a defendant’s attorney to 

have pressed such a claim . . . is sufficiently 

excusable to satisfy the cause requirement. 

Id. at 17 (internal quotation marks omitted). Here, Johnson 

expressly overrules prior Supreme Court cases upholding the 

analogous residual clause in the ACCA and the Supreme Court has 

held that Johnson is retroactive with respect to ACCA claims. 

Welch v. United States, 136 S. Ct. 1257 (2016). 

 Moreover, it is indisputable that, at the time Movant could 

have filed a direct appeal, a claim that the residual clause in 

§ 4B1.2’s definition of crime of violence was void for vagueness 

would not have succeeded and that “the legal basis for the claim 

was not reasonably available to counsel” at that time. Murray, 

477 U.S. at 488. Vagueness challenges to the residual clauses in 

the ACCA and the Sentencing Guidelines were foreclosed by the 

Supreme Court decisions in James v. United States, 550 U.S. 192 

(2007), and Sykes v. United States, 131 S. Ct. 2267 (2011). 

Accordingly, Movant has demonstrated cause for his procedural 

default. 

 As stated above, Movant must also demonstrate prejudice by 

showing that the alleged error “worked to his actual and 

substantial disadvantage, infecting his entire trial with error of 

constitutional dimensions.’” United States v. Braswell, 501 F.3d 

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1147, 1150 (9th Cir. 2007) (quoting United States v. Frady, 456 

U.S. 152, 170 (1982)). The Supreme Court has not defined the 

level of prejudice necessary to overcome procedural default but it 

has held that the level is “significantly greater than that 

necessary under the more vague inquiry suggested by the words 

‘plain error.’” Murray, 477 U.S. at 493-94 (quoting Engle v. 

Isaac, 456 U.S. 107, 135 (1982)). To show prejudice under the 

plain error standard, a defendant must “show her substantial 

rights were affected, and to do so, must establish that the 

probability of a different result is sufficient to undermine 

confidence in the outcome of the proceeding.” United States v. 

Bonilla-Guizar, 729 F.3d 1179, 1187 (9th Cir. 2013) (internal 

quotation marks omitted). 

 The government argues that Movant cannot demonstrate 

prejudice because the Sentencing Guidelines are only advisory. 

Accordingly, the government notes that this Court “had nearly 

unfettered discretion to impose any sentence that Congress made 

applicable to his offense.” Docket No. 34 at 9. However, even 

though the Guidelines are advisory, the Supreme Court has 

consistently held that sentencing courts “must treat the 

Guidelines as ‘the starting point and the initial benchmark.’” 

Kimbrough v. United States, 552 U.S. 85, 108 (2007) (quoting Gall 

v. United States, 552 U.S. 38, 49 (2007); see also Peugh v. United 

States, 133 S. Ct. 2072, 2083 (2013) (“federal sentencing scheme 

aims to achieve uniformity by ensuring that sentencing decisions 

are anchored by the Guidelines”); Gall, 552 U.S. at 50 n.6 

(“district courts must begin their analysis with the Guidelines 

and remain cognizant of them throughout the sentencing process.”). 

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The Supreme Court recently observed that “when a Guidelines range 

moves up or down, offenders’ sentences move with it.” Peugh, 133 

S. Ct. at 2084. An improperly calculated Guidelines range would 

“derail[] the sentencing proceeding before it even began.” United 

States v. Doe, 705 F.3d 1134, 1154 (9th Cir. 2013). 

 Accordingly, the Ninth Circuit has long held that, on direct 

review, miscalculation of the Guidelines range constitutes plain 

error that affects a defendant’s substantial rights. See, e.g., 

id. at 1188 (“We have held that when a sentencing judge 

incorrectly calculates the Guidelines range, potentially resulting 

in the imposition of a greater sentence, the error affects the 

defendant’s substantial rights and the fairness of the judicial 

proceedings.”). Moreover, the Supreme Court recently held that, 

absent “unusual circumstances,” when a sentencing court improperly 

calculates the Guidelines range, the sentence constitutes plain 

error, even if the sentence imposed is within the correct 

Guidelines range. Molina-Martinez v. United States, 136 S. Ct. 

1338, 1347 (2016). 

 Here, this Court considered the enhancement based on the 

definition of crime of violence in imposing its sentence. The 

Court finds that the constitutional error in calculating Movant’s 

Guidelines range “worked to his actual and substantial 

disadvantage.” Frady, 456 U.S. at 171 (emphasis in original). 

 Accordingly, the Court finds that Movant has shown cause and 

prejudice sufficient to overcome his failure to file a direct 

appeal challenging his sentence. 

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III. Retroactivity 

 The government next argues that, under Teague v. Lane, 489 

U.S. 288 (1989), Johnson does not apply retroactively to cases in 

which an enhancement based on the definition of crime of violence 

in the Career Offender Guideline was applied. In Teague, the 

Supreme Court held that newly announced constitutional rules apply 

to all criminal cases still on direct review but only apply 

retroactively on collateral review if the rule (1) “places certain 

kinds of primary, private individual conduct beyond the power of 

the criminal law-making authority to proscribe” or (2) is a 

“watershed rule[] of criminal procedure.” Id. at 304, 311 

(internal quotation marks omitted). 

 As stated above, the Supreme Court has held that Johnson is a 

new substantive rule because it “changed the substantive reach of 

the Armed Career Criminal Act, altering ‘the range of conduct or 

the class of persons that the [Act] punishes.’” Welch, 136 S. Ct. 

at 1265 (quoting Schriro v. Summerlin, 542 U.S. 348, 353 (2004)). 

Movant argues that, because the decision in Johnson similarly 

limits the application of certain Guidelines provisions and 

because it has been found to be retroactive with respect to the 

ACCA, it should be retroactive as to those Guidelines provisions 

as well. Movant contends that the retroactivity analysis in Welch 

applies to the rule set out in Johnson, and does not depend on the 

type of case in which the rule is applied. 

 It is true that the rule announced in Johnson applies only by 

analogy to the definition of crime of violence in the Career 

Offender Guideline. Johnson found that the language in the ACCA 

is unconstitutionally vague. While courts, including the Supreme 

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Court and the Ninth Circuit, routinely look to interpretation of 

language in the ACCA when considering nearly identical language in 

the Guidelines and vice versa, it cannot be assumed that a finding 

that Johnson is retroactive as to the ACCA definitively means that 

it is retroactive as to the Guidelines. Indeed, the Supreme Court 

recently granted certiorari in Beckles v. United States, 2016 U.S. 

LEXIS 4142. Among the issues presented in Beckles is whether 

Johnson applies retroactively to collateral challenges to federal 

sentences enhanced based on the definition of crime of violence in 

the Career Offender Guideline. 

 As the government points out, those who meet the criteria of 

the ACCA are subject to a statutory mandatory minimum sentence. 

In contrast, those who are eligible for enhancements under the 

Sentencing Guidelines pursuant to language similar to that found 

unconstitutional in Johnson are subject to higher advisory 

Guidelines ranges. Therefore, the government argues that, as 

applied to defendants who are challenging Guidelines enhancements, 

the rule in Johnson is procedural because it “does not alter the 

statutory sentencing range or prevent reimposition of the same 

sentence without the career offender enhancement.” Docket No. 34 

at 13. In effect, the government argues that any new 

constitutional rules applicable to Guidelines calculations are 

neither substantive nor watershed procedural rules under Teague 

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and thus cannot be applied retroactively.2 As a district court in 

the District of Oregon recently observed, there is no Ninth 

Circuit or Supreme Court authority to support this position. See 

United States v. Dean, 2016 WL 1060229, at *13 (D. Or.). 

 Indeed, in Reina-Rodriguez v. United States, the Ninth 

Circuit determined that an en banc decision which “altered the 

conduct that substantively qualifies as burglary under the 

categorical approach” for purposes of the ACCA was a substantive 

rule and therefore eligible for retroactive application under 

Teague. 655 F.3d 1182, 1189 (9th Cir. 2011). Without addressing 

whether the retroactivity analysis should be different for cases 

under the Guidelines as opposed to under the ACCA, the Ninth 

Circuit applied the decision retroactively to a case challenging a 

Guidelines enhancement based on the § 4B1.2 definition of crime of 

violence. Id. at 1189-90. 

 Moreover, in Welch, the Supreme Court made clear that it 

“determine[s] whether a new rule is substantive or procedural by 

considering the function of the rule.” 136 S. Ct. at 1265. The 

Welch Court held that the rule in Johnson was substantive because 

it “affected the reach of the underlying statute rather than the 

judicial procedures by which the statute is applied.” Id. 

Applying Johnson to the Guidelines likewise affects the reach of 

those Guidelines that rely on the definition of crime of violence 

 2 The government also argues that any Guidelines calculation 

error is a “procedural error” rather than “substantive error.” 

However, the terms “procedural error” and “substantive error” are 

terms of art related to direct appellate review of sentences and 

are not applicable here. See Gall v. United States, 522 U.S. 38, 

51 (2007). 

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in the Career Offender Guideline but “has nothing to do with the 

range of permissible methods a court might use to determine” 

whether those Guidelines apply. Id. As it does for the ACCA, 

“Johnson substantively changes the conduct by which federal courts 

may enhance the sentence of a defendant under the Guidelines.” 

Dean, 2016 WL 1060229, at *16. Accordingly, Johnson applies 

retroactively to Movant’s case. 

CONCLUSION 

For the foregoing reasons, the Court will GRANT Movant’s 

§ 2255 motion. Docket No. 25. The Court will vacate and set 

aside the judgment at Docket Number 20. A sentencing hearing will 

be held on October 18, 2016 at 2:00 PM. The Probation Office is 

directed to prepare an updated Presentence Investigation Report, 

including post-conviction information such as the extent of any 

post-conviction rehabilitation. The parties shall file their 

sentencing memoranda at least one week prior to the hearing. 

IT IS SO ORDERED. 

Dated: August 3, 2016 

CLAUDIA WILKEN 

United States District Judge 

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