Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca10-15-02153/USCOURTS-ca10-15-02153-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Marcus Hahn
Petitioner

Document Text:

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS 

FOR THE TENTH CIRCUIT 

_________________________________ 

In re: MARCUS HAHN, 

 Movant. 

No. 15-2153 

(D.C. Nos. 1:04-CV-00044-JAP-ACT 

& 1:00-CR-00082-JAP-1) 

(D. N.M.) 

_________________________________ 

ORDER

_________________________________ 

Before HARTZ, O’BRIEN, and PHILLIPS, Circuit Judges. 

_________________________________ 

Marcus Hahn has filed a motion for remand and an alternative motion for 

authorization to file a second or successive 28 U.S.C. § 2255 motion. We deny both 

motions. 

I. Background 

During a search of Mr. Hahn’s home pursuant to a warrant, law enforcement 

officials found firearms and marijuana plants. See United States v. Hahn, 191 F. App’x 

758, 759 (10th Cir. 2006). After a jury trial, Mr. Hahn was convicted of: manufacturing 

marijuana; maintaining a place to manufacture, distribute and use marijuana; possessing a 

firearm in furtherance of manufacturing marijuana; and possessing a firearm in 

furtherance of maintaining a place to manufacture, distribute and use marijuana. Id. 

The district court determined that one of the firearm-possession convictions was a 

“second or subsequent” conviction under 18 U.S.C. § 924(c)(1)(C), which required the 

court to impose a mandatory 25-year consecutive sentence. See United States v. Hahn, 

FILED 

United States Court of Appeals 

Tenth Circuit 

November 3, 2015

Elisabeth A. Shumaker 

Clerk of Court

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38 F. App’x 553, 554 (10th Cir. 2002). Mr. Hahn appealed, arguing “the statute does not 

authorize treating his second firearm conviction as ‘second or subsequent’ to the first for 

purposes of the statute’s sentencing enhancement, because the underlying drug crimes 

were part of a ‘continuing incident’ and were ‘coterminous in space and time.’” Id. We 

rejected his argument and affirmed his sentence. Id. at 555. 

Mr. Hahn then sought relief from his sentence by filing a § 2255 motion. The 

district court dismissed the motion, and we granted a certificate of appealability. On 

appeal, Mr. Hahn argued that “‘it is not clear that Congress intended to prescribe two 

punishments for the unitary possession of a firearm in furtherance of two predicate drug 

trafficking offenses that were spatially and temporally co-extensive.’” Hahn, 191 F. 

App’x at 760 (quoting Aplt. Br. at 20). We concluded that Mr. Hahn had raised this 

argument in his direct appeal and noted that a § 2255 motion may not be used to raise an 

argument that had been raised in a direct appeal. 

In July of 2015, Mr. Hahn filed a motion for relief from judgment pursuant to 

Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 60(b)(4). The district court determined that the 60(b) 

motion should be treated as an unauthorized second or successive § 2255 motion and 

transferred it to this court. 

Mr. Hahn contends in his motion for remand that the district court erred in treating 

his 60(b) motion as an unauthorized second or successive § 2255 motion. He requests a 

remand for the district court to consider the merits of the 60(b) motion. Alternatively, he 

asserts he is entitled to authorization to file a second or successive § 2255 motion. 

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II. Motion for Remand 

“[A] 60(b) motion is a second or successive petition if it in substance or effect 

asserts or reasserts a federal basis for relief from the petitioner’s underlying conviction.” 

Spitznas v. Boone, 464 F.3d 1213, 1215 (10th Cir. 2006). A proper 60(b) motion, on the 

other hand, “either (1) challenges only a procedural ruling of the habeas court which 

precluded a merits determination of the habeas application; or (2) challenges a defect in 

the integrity of the federal habeas proceeding, provided that such a challenge does not 

itself lead inextricably to a merits-based attack on the disposition of a prior habeas 

petition.” Id. at 1215-16 (citation omitted). 

In Mr. Hahn’s 60(b) motion, he alleged that the magistrate judge, the district court 

and this court failed to “address[] the ‘unit of prosecution’ claim raised in [his] § 2255 

motion.” Id. at 6. He therefore argued that his Rule 60(b) motion raised a defect in the 

integrity of the habeas proceedings. The district court disagreed, concluding that 

Mr. Hahn’s 60(b) motion was a “continued attack on the Court’s imposition of a 25-year 

consecutive sentence under § 924(c) for a second firearm offense and the Court’s related 

denial of his § 2255 motion.” R., Doc. 37 at 9. 

We agree with the district court that Mr. Hahn’s 60(b) motion is a merits-based 

attack on the disposition of his previous § 2255 motion. He argued in his § 2255 appeal 

that the district court erred in treating what he alleged were two distinct arguments as the 

same argument. In our decision affirming the district court’s dismissal of Mr. Hahn’s 

§ 2255 motion, we rejected this position, concluding that Mr. Hahn’s arguments were 

“identical.” Hahn, 191 F. App’x at 760 n.1. He then filed a petition for rehearing en 

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banc, arguing that “[t]he Panel Decision erroneously mis-characterized the issue raised in 

Mr. Hahn’s § 2255 motion as the same issue which was previously raised in Mr. Hahn’s 

direct appeal.” United States v. Hahn, Nos. 04-2344 & 05-2033, Pet. for Reh’g at 7 (filed 

Aug. 28, 2006). We denied the petition for rehearing. 

In his 60(b) motion, Mr. Hahn seeks to relitigate this issue, arguing that “[i]n 

addition to the District Court’s misapprehension of, and failure to address Hahn’s unit of 

prosecution claim, a panel of the Tenth Circuit similarly mis-characterized the issue 

raised in Hahn’s § 2255 motion as the same issue which was previously raised in Hahn’s 

Direct Appeal.” R., Doc. 34 at 7. The impetus for seeking to relitigate this issue—nine 

years after we affirmed the denial of his § 2255 motion—is our recent decision in 

United States v. Rentz, 777 F.3d 1105 (10th Cir. 2015) (en banc). 

As Mr. Hahn argued in his 60(b) motion, the Rentz decision “in its recent statutory 

analysis of § 924(c)(1)(A), made clear beyond cavil for all parties, the substantive 

differences between the issue raised in Hahn’s Direct Appeal and his § 2255 Motion, 

thereby shedding light on the defect in the integrity of the federal habeas proceeding.” 

R., Doc. 34 at 8. And he asserts in his motion for remand, that the “Rentz decision makes 

clear that the two issues are similar, yet distinct.” Mot. for Remand at 4. 

Mr. Hahn’s reliance on Rentz provides further support for the district court’s 

determination that he is attempting to reassert a substantive challenge to his sentence. 

When a prisoner relies on a subsequent change in the substantive law to justify relief 

under 60(b), “[v]irtually every Court of Appeals to consider the question has held that 

such a pleading, although labeled a Rule 60(b) motion, is in substance a successive 

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habeas petition and should be treated accordingly.” Gonzalez v. Crosby, 545 U.S. 524, 

531 (2005). Because Mr. Hahn seeks to reassert a substantive basis for relief from his 

sentence through a merits-based attack on the previous disposition of his § 2255 motion, 

the district court properly characterized his 60(b) motion as an unauthorized second or 

successive § 2255 motion. See Spitznas, 464 F.3d at 1215-16. 

III. Motion for Authorization 

In the alternative, Mr. Hahn seeks authorization to file a second or successive 

§ 2255 motion. To be entitled to authorization, he must show that his proposed § 2255 

claims rely on “(1) newly discovered evidence that, if proven and viewed in light of the 

evidence as a whole, would be sufficient to establish by clear and convincing evidence 

that no reasonable factfinder would have found the movant guilty of the offense,” or 

“(2) 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). 

Mr. Hahn has failed to show that he is entitled to authorization. For his first new 

claim, he asserts that he is actually innocent of a second § 924(c)(1)(A) offense, citing to 

our decision in Rentz as a “new rule of law” that supports his claim. Mot. for Auth. at 9. 

But Rentz does not meet the requirements in § 2255(h)(2) because it is a Tenth Circuit 

decision, not a Supreme Court decision. 

For his second claim, Mr. Hahn asserts that the limitations on second or successive 

motions codified at § 2255(h)(2) “run[] contrary to the Suspension Clause of the United 

States Constitution, Article I, § 9.” Mot. for Auth. at 9. He notes, however, that “the . . . 

restrictions on second or successive § 2255 Motion[s] ha[ve] been upheld, see Felker v. 

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Turpin, 518 U.S. 651 (1996) . . . .” Mot. for Auth. at 9. And he concedes that this claim 

does not rely on a new rule of law or on newly discovered evidence. See id. at 9-10. He 

has therefore failed to meet the requirements for authorization in § 2255(h). 

IV. Conclusion 

For the foregoing reasons, we deny the motion for remand and the motion for 

authorization. The denial of authorization “shall not be appealable and shall not be the 

subject of a petition for rehearing or for a writ of certiorari.” 28 U.S.C. § 2244(b)(3)(E). 

Entered for the Court 

ELISABETH A. SHUMAKER, Clerk 

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