Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca2-18-01803/USCOURTS-ca2-18-01803-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Miguel Nunez
Appellant
United States of America
Appellee

Document Text:

18-1803-pr

Nunez v. United States

1 UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

2 FOR THE SECOND CIRCUIT

3 ____________________

4

5 August Term, 2019

6

7 (Argued: August 29, 2019 Decided: March 30, 2020)

8

9 Docket No. 18-1803-pr

10

11 ____________________

12

13 MIGUEL NUNEZ,

14

15 Petitioner-Appellant,

16

17 v.

18

19 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

20

21 Respondent-Appellee.

22

23 ____________________

24

25 Before: POOLER, PARKER, and RAGGI, Circuit Judges.

26

27 Petitioner Miguel Nunez appeals from a judgment of the United States 

28 District Court for the Southern District of New York (Lewis A. Kaplan, J.) 

29 denying his 28 U.S.C. § 2255 motion as untimely. The district court held that 

30 Nunez could not show that his motion was timely pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 

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1 2255(f)(3) because the Supreme Court’s decision in Johnson v. United States, 135 S. 

2 Ct. 2551 (2015), did not recognize a retroactive right not to be sentenced based 

3 upon the residual clause in the Career Offender Guideline of the pre-Booker

4 Sentencing Guidelines. We hold that the district court properly concluded that 

5 Johnson did not give rise to the right Nunez asserts and, therefore, correctly 

6 denied his Section 2255 motion as untimely.

7 Affirmed.

8 Judge Pooler and Judge Raggi each concur in separate opinions. 

9 ____________________

10 EDWARD S. ZAS, Federal Defenders of New York, Inc., 

11 Appeals Bureau, New York, NY, for Petitioner-Appellant 

12 Miguel Nunez.

13

14 NATHAN REHN, Assistant United States Attorney 

15 (Anna M. Skotko, Assistant United States Attorney, on 

16 the brief), for Geoffrey S. Berman, United States Attorney 

17 for the Southern District of New York, New York, NY,

18 for Respondent-Appellee.

19

20

21

22

23

24

25

26

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1 POOLER, Circuit Judge:

2 Petitioner Miguel Nunez appeals from the May 24, 2018 judgment of the 

3 United States District Court for the Southern District of New York (Lewis A. 

4 Kaplan, J.) denying as untimely Nunez’s 28 U.S.C. § 2255 motion challenging his 

5 February 7, 2000 sentence for substantive and conspiratorial Hobbs Act robbery. 

6 See 18 U.S.C. § 1951(a). Nunez is currently serving 360 months’ imprisonment for 

7 these crimes, a significant upward departure from the 151-to-188 month 

8 Guidelines range calculated by the district court under the presumptively 

9 binding pre-Booker Sentencing Guidelines. See United States v. Booker, 543 U.S. 220 

10 (2005). That Guidelines range was dictated by the Career Offender Guideline, see

11 U.S.S.G. § 4B1.1, which the district court applied upon finding that Nunez’s 

12 present, and two prior, convictions were all for “crime[s] of violence,” as defined 

13 in the Guideline’s residual clause, id. § 4B1.2. Nunez argues that this residual 

14 clause is unconstitutionally vague, and thus, his sentencing violates due process. 

15 In support, Nunez relies on Johnson v. United States, 135 S. Ct. 2551 (2015), which 

16 struck down an identically worded provision of the Armed Career Criminal Act 

17 as unconstitutionally vague. The issue presented to us on appeal is whether the 

18 right Nunez asserts was recognized in Johnson, rendering his motion timely

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1 pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2255(f)(3), or whether the right he asserts has yet to be 

2 recognized, rendering his motion untimely. We hold that Johnson did not itself 

3 render the residual clause of the pre-Booker Career Offender Guideline

4 unconstitutionally vague and, thus, did not recognize the right Nunez asserts. 

5 We therefore affirm the district court’s denial of Nunez’s Section 2255 motion as 

6 untimely. 

7 BACKGROUND

8 I. Nunez’s Conviction

9 On October 5, 1999, Miguel Nunez pled guilty to Hobbs Act robbery and 

10 conspiracy to commit Hobbs Act robbery in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1951(a). 

11 Nunez and two co-conspirators had broken into the apartment of a male and 

12 female couple who ran a florist business and stole between $12,000 and $14,000 

13 in cash, along with other personal items of value. During the course of the 

14 robbery, Nunez and one of his co-conspirators tied both victims up with rope 

15 and raped the female proprietor of the florist business. 

16 At the time of Nunez’s sentencing, a defendant was considered a career 

17 offender under the Sentencing Guidelines if,

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1 (1) the defendant was at least eighteen years old at the time the 

2 defendant committed the instant offense of conviction, (2) the instant 

3 offense of conviction is a felony that is either a crime of violence or a 

4 controlled substance offense, and (3) the defendant has at least two 

5 prior felony convictions of either a crime of violence or a controlled 

6 substance offense. 

7

8 U.S.S.G. § 4B1.1 (1998). Nunez stipulated that he was eighteen years old at the 

9 time of his Hobbs Act offenses, he had two prior felony convictions for New 

10 York first-degree robbery, and Hobbs Act robbery was a crime of violence. 

11 The Career Offender Guideline defined a crime of violence as “any offense 

12 under federal or state law, punishable by imprisonment for a term exceeding one 

13 year that—”

14 (1) has as an element the use, attempted use, or threatened use of physical 

15 force against the person of another, or

16 (2) is burglary of a dwelling, arson, or extortion, involves the use of 

17 explosives, or otherwise involves conduct that presents a serious potential risk of 

18 physical injury to another.”

19

20 U.S.S.G. § 4B1.2(a) (1998) (emphasis added). The first definition is known as the 

21 elements clause. The second definition is known as the enumerated offenses 

22 clause. The italicized part of the second definition is known as the residual 

23 clause. The district court concluded that Nunez’s Hobbs Act robbery, and two 

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1 prior felony convictions, were “crimes of violence” under the residual clause. 

2 Thus, Nunez constituted a career offender. 

3 As a career offender, Nunez’s Guidelines range was 151 to 188 months of 

4 imprisonment, as opposed to 121 to 151 months. The district court departed 

5 upwards from even this higher Guidelines range under provisions of the 

6 Guidelines that permit doing so when a defendant has caused extreme 

7 psychological injury in the victim and the conduct was extreme. Accordingly, the 

8 district court sentenced Nunez to 240 months for Hobbs Act robbery and 120 

9 months for Hobbs Act conspiracy, for a total of 360 months of imprisonment. On 

10 appeal, this court upheld the sentence. United States v. Nunez, 8 F. App’x 81 (2d 

11 Cir. 2001). 

12 II. Subsequent Supreme Court Decisions

13 Some years later, the Supreme Court decided United States v. Booker, 543 

14 U.S. 220 (2005), which held that a mandatory application of the Sentencing 

15 Guidelines was unconstitutional, see id. at 245−46, and to avoid that result, 

16 construed the Guidelines as advisory, see id. at 245, 259.

17 More recently, the Supreme Court decided Johnson v. United States, 135 S. 

18 Ct. 2551 (2015). The Court in Johnson held that “imposing an increased sentence 

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1 under the residual clause of the Armed Career Criminal Act”which contained 

2 a residual clause identical to that in the crime of violence definition of the Career 

3 Offender Guideline“violate[d] the Constitution’s guarantee of due process” 

4 because the clause was unconstitutionally vague. Id. at 2563. Using the rationale

5 in Johnson, the Court subsequently struck down similarly worded residual 

6 clauses in the crime of violence definitions of the Immigration and Nationality 

7 Act, see Sessions v. Dimaya, 138 S. Ct. 1204 (2018), and in 18 U.S.C. § 924(c)(3)(B), 

8 see United States v. Davis, 139 S. Ct. 2319 (2019). 

9 The Supreme Court also dealt with a vagueness challenge to the residual 

10 clause of the Career Offender Guideline as applied after Booker in Beckles v. 

11 United States, 137 S. Ct. 886 (2017). In Beckles, the defendant argued that the 

12 Guideline’s residual clause was void for vagueness, making his sentencing 

13 pursuant to the clause unconstitutional. Id. at 890-91. The Supreme Court rejected 

14 the argument, refusing to extend Johnson’s reasoning to the post-Booker

15 Guidelines. Id. at 891−92. The Court explained that unlike the ACCA’s residual 

16 clause, which mandated certain, higher sentence ranges, “the advisory 

17 Guidelines do not fix the permissible range of sentences.” Id. at 892. The advisory 

18 Guidelines were for this reason not subject to a vagueness challenge. Id. In her 

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1 concurring opinion, Justice Sotomayor noted that “[t]he Court’s adherence to the 

2 formalistic distinction between mandatory and advisory rules at least leaves 

3 open the question whether defendants sentenced to terms of imprisonment 

4 before our decision in United States v. Booker . . . may mount vagueness attacks on 

5 their sentences.” Id. at 903 n.4 (Sotomayor, J., concurring in the judgment)

6 (internal quotation marks and citation omitted). 

7 III. Nunez’s Section 2255 Motion

8 On June 21, 2016, eighteen years after his federal conviction, but less than 

9 one year after Johnson was decided, Nunez filed a motion under 28 U.S.C. § 2255

10 to vacate his 30-year sentence. He argued that Johnson renders the residual clause 

11 of the pre-Booker Career Offender Guideline unconstitutionally vague, so he 

12 should not have been sentenced as a career offender. See Nunez v. United States, 

13 No. 16-cv-4742, 2018 WL 2371714, at *1-2 (S.D.N.Y. May 24, 2018). The district 

14 court decided the motion was untimely because “the Supreme Court has not 

15 itself extended its holding in Johnson to the pre-Booker guidelines.” Id. at *2.

16 Nunez timely appealed. 

17

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1 DISCUSSION

2 On appeal from the denial of a Section 2255 motion, we review a district 

3 court’s conclusions of law de novo. Sapia v. United States, 433 F.3d 212, 216 (2d 

4 Cir. 2005).

5 Motions under Section 2255 are subject to a one-year statute of limitations 

6 that runs from several possible dates, only one of which is relevant here: “[T]he 

7 date on which the right asserted was initially recognized by the Supreme Court, 

8 if that right has been newly recognized by the Supreme Court and made 

9 retroactively applicable to cases on collateral review.” 28 U.S.C. § 2255(f)(3). 

10 Nunez claims that his motion is timely under Section 2255(f)(3) because he 

11 filed it less than one year after the Supreme Court in Johnson first recognized the 

12 right he invokes. Nunez argues that his Section 2255 motion challenging a career13 offender sentence imposed under the mandatory Guidelines asserts the same due 

14 process right recognized in Johnson. He argues that, like the ACCA’s residual 

15 clause, the residual clause of the mandatory Career Offender Guideline “fixed” 

16 his sentencing range and was subject to the same concerns articulated in Johnson. 

17 Because the ACCA and residual clause of the Career Offender Guideline are 

18 identically worded and interpreted, Nunez claims the holding in Johnson applies 

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1 equally to the residual clause in the Guideline and, thus, compels the conclusion 

2 that Johnson recognized the right he asserts. 

3 We, however, conclude that Johnson did not itself render the residual 

4 clause of the mandatory Career Offender Guideline vague, as required for 

5 Section 2255 purposes. Our decision aligns with that of the majority of circuits to 

6 have addressed the issue. United States v. London, 937 F.3d 502 (5th Cir. 2019); 

7 United States v. Blackstone, 903 F.3d 1020 (9th Cir. 2018); Russo v. United States, 902 

8 F.3d 880 (8th Cir. 2018); United States v. Green, 898 F.3d 315 (3d Cir. 2018); United 

9 States v. Greer, 881 F.3d 1241 (10th Cir. 2018); United States v. Brown, 868 F.3d 297 

10 (4th Cir. 2017); Raybon v. United States, 867 F.3d 625 (6th Cir. 2017). 

11 In coming to the same conclusion, we are mindful that the Supreme Court 

12 has admonished lower courts “against framing [its] precedents at . . . a high level 

13 of generality” in reviewing claims under the Antiterrorism and Effective Death 

14 Penalty Act of 1996 (“AEDPA”), of which Section 2255 is a component. See Lopez 

15 v. Smith, 574 U.S. 1, 4, 6 (2014) (internal quotation marks and citation omitted);

16 Nevada v. Jackson, 569 U.S. 505, 512 (2013). Instead, the Court has required 

17 identification of precedent related to “the specific question presented by th[e] 

18 case.” Lopez, 574 U.S. at 6. 

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1 Johnson by its own terms addresses only the ACCA. The Court articulated 

2 its holding in that case specifically with regard to the ACCA: “We hold that 

3 imposing an increased sentence under the residual clause of the Armed Career 

4 Criminal Act violates the Constitution’s guarantee of due process.” 135 S. Ct. at 

5 2563 (emphasis added). In addition, the Court cited exclusively to cases that dealt 

6 with the residual clause of the ACCA. See id. at 2558-60 (citing Sykes v. United 

7 States, 564 U.S. 1 (2011); Chambers v. United States, 555 U.S. 122 (2009); James v. 

8 United States, 550 U.S. 192 (2007)). Furthermore, in Welch v. United States, 136 S. 

9 Ct. 1257 (2016), which applied Johnson retroactively, the Court referred only to 

10 the effect of its holding on the ACCA. Id. at 1265 (“By striking down the residual 

11 clause as void for vagueness, Johnson changed the substantive reach of the Armed 

12 Career Criminal Act . . . .” (emphasis added)). These factors strongly signal that 

13 the rule established in Johnson was specific to the residual clause of the ACCA. 

14 Our conclusion that the Court was not speaking to contexts beyond the 

15 ACCA in Johnson is reinforced by the fact that the Court has considered 

16 challenges to identical residual clauses in other statutes piecemeal. See Session v. 

17 Dimaya, 138 S. Ct. 1204 (2018); United States v. Davis, 139 S. Ct. 2319 (2019). Nor 

18 were the applications in these cases necessarily straightforward. As the Ninth 

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1 Circuit observed, “[i]t is not always obvious whether and how the Supreme 

2 Court will extend its holdings to different contexts,” and in Dimaya, “it took a 

3 lengthy discussion to reach [the] conclusion, and four justices disagreed.” United 

4 States v. Blackstone, 903 F.3d at 1026. These decisions further undermine Nunez’s 

5 contention that Johnson in and of itself dictates the result of a vagueness 

6 challenge to the residual clause in the pre-Booker Career Offender Guideline. 

7 Nunez relies on Beckles v. United States, 137 S. Ct. 886 (2017), a case holding 

8 that the post-Booker advisory Guidelines are not subject to vagueness challenges, 

9 to argue that the pre-Booker mandatory Guidelines are so subject. This, however, is 

10 not a conclusion reached in Johnson. Indeed, Justice Sotomayor’s concurrence in 

11 Beckles explained that the question remains open. See id. at 903 n.4 (Sotomayor, J., 

12 concurring in the judgment) (stating that the Court “leaves open the question 

13 whether defendants sentenced to terms of imprisonment before our decision in 

14 United States v. Booker—that is, during the period in which the Guidelines did fix 

15 the permissible range of sentences—may mount vagueness attacks on their 

16 sentences” (internal quotation marks and citations omitted)). In sum, while we 

17 agree that Beckles does not foreclose a vagueness challenge to the mandatory 

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1 Sentencing Guidelines, we cannot agree with Nunez that Johnson articulated the 

2 right he seeks to assert.

3 Nunez attempts to circumvent this inevitable conclusion by arguing that 

4 any discussion of how the Supreme Court defines the right in Johnson is not 

5 relevant to the timeliness of his petition. He relies on Dodd v. United States, 545 

6 U.S. 353 (2005) and the Seventh Circuit’s decision in Cross v. United States, 892 

7 F.3d 288 (7th Cir. 2018). We are not persuaded. 

8 Dodd is inapplicable here. That case established that a petitioner is required 

9 to bring a claim within one year after the Supreme Court announces a new rule—

10 not within one year after the Supreme Court announces the rule is retroactive. 

11 545 U.S. at 358-59. In deciding so, the Supreme Court noted that the first clause in 

12 Section 2255(f)(3), which states “the date on which the right asserted was initially 

13 recognized by the Supreme Court,” is “the operative date.” Id. at 358. The second 

14 clause, which states “if that right has been newly recognized by the Supreme 

15 Court and made retroactively applicable to cases on collateral review,” merely 

16 imposes a condition on the applicability of the subsection. Id. Nunez reads Dodd 

17 as requiring us to focus on the first clause of Section 2255(f)(3) regardless of 

18 whether the petitioner has framed the right asserted in a manner consistent with 

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1 how the Supreme Court articulated it. Dodd cannot, however, be stretched to 

2 accommodate this interpretation. No aspect of Dodd supports Nunez’s 

3 interpretation that a defendant moving for Section 2255 relief may assert any 

4 right suggested by the Supreme Court within the past year for his motion to

5 qualify as timely. Dodd simply stands for the proposition that the one-year 

6 statute of limitations period begins to run following the Supreme Court’s 

7 recognition of a right, as opposed to the Court’s retroactive application of the 

8 right. Nunez’s invocation of Dodd is unavailing. 

9 Nor are we persuaded by Cross v. United States, 892 F.3d 288 (7th Cir. 2018), 

10 the only Circuit decision holding that a Section 2255 motion challenging the 

11 residual clause of the pre-Booker Career Offender Guidelines is timely if filed 

12 within a year of Johnson. Cross, 892 F.3d at 293-94. In coming to this conclusion, 

13 the Seventh Circuit reasoned that the government’s argument that Johnson did 

14 not recognize the right asserted because the Supreme Court has not extended the 

15 logic of Johnson to the pre-Booker mandatory guidelines “suffers from a 

16 fundamental flaw. It improperly reads a merits analysis into the limitations 

17 period.” Id. at 293. But this conclusion “effectively reads ‘recognized’ out of 28 

18 U.S.C. § 2255(f)(3) by not engaging in an inquiry into whether the right asserted 

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1 by the petitioner is the same right that was recognized by the Supreme Court.” 

2 United States v. Green, 898 F.3d 315, 322 (3d Cir. 2018). For this reason, we decline 

3 to adopt the Seventh Circuit’s reasoning in Cross. 

4 Rather, we join the majority of our sister circuits and hold that Section

5 2255(f)(3) requires courts to consider whether the right a petitioner asserts has 

6 been recognized by the Supreme Court as part and parcel of deciding whether a 

7 petition is timely. As such, though Nunez filed his petition within one year after

8 Johnson, Nunez’s petition may only be considered timely if the right he asserts 

9 was in fact recognized in Johnson. While Nunez asserts that the reasoning of 

10 Johnson can apply to the pre-Booker Guidelines, Johnson did not itself hold the

11 residual clause of the pre-Booker Career Offender Guideline unconstitutionally 

12 vague. Johnson cannot be read so broadly, particularly in light of Supreme Court 

13 cautions against expansively construing its precedents in the AEDPA context,

14 and Justice Sotomayor’s concurring opinion in Beckles indicating that the 

15 question raised by Nunez remains open in the Supreme Court. Because Johnson 

16 has not recognized the right Nunez asserts, his Section 2255 motion is untimely. 

17

18

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1 CONCLUSION

2 We hold that Johnson v. United States, 135 S. Ct. 2551 (2015) did not 

3 recognize a constitutional right not to be sentenced under the residual clause of

4 the pre-Booker Career Offender Guideline. The order and judgment of the district 

5 court is therefore AFFIRMED. 

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