Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-azd-3_10-cv-08221/USCOURTS-azd-3_10-cv-08221-5/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Ivan Ray Begay
Petitioner
United States of America
Respondent

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The pending motions are two of many post-judgment motions that

Begay has filed seeking to get his conviction overturned. See Order (Doc. 31),

entered on June 12, 2013, setting forth the procedural post-judgment history of this

action to that date.

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IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

FOR THE DISTRICT OF ARIZONA

United States of America,

 Plaintiff,

vs.

Ivan Ray Begay,

 Defendant/Movant.

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No. CV-10-08221-PCT-PGR 

No. CR-00-01222-PCT-PGR

 ORDER

 

 

Defendant Begay has moved, in two essentially duplicative motions (Docs. 35

and 36 in CV-10-08221), to reopen his § 2255 habeas petition pursuant to

Fed.R.Civ.P. 60(b)(4). This Court dismissed Begay’s § 2255 action as time-barred

on March 7, 2011 and the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals dismissed his appeal of the

judgment of dismissal on August 27, 2912 when it denied the issuance of a

certificate of appealability.1

 Begay now argues that his § 2255 action must be

reopened because the Court failed previously to consider Ground Five of his § 2255

petition, which was his claim of actual innocence. The Court finds that the motions

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The Court has previously rejected as meritless Begay’s argument

that the Court lacked subject matter jurisdiction over him because he is a Navajo. 

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should be denied.

Begay brings his motions solely pursuant to Rule 60(b)(4), which permits the

Court to relieve a party of a final judgment if “the judgment is void[.]” A judgment is

void for purposes of Rule 60(b)(4) “only if the court that considered it lacked

jurisdiction, either as to the subject matter of the dispute or over the parties to be

bound, or acted in a manner inconsistent with due process of law.” United States v.

Berke, 170 F.3d 882, 883 (9th Cir.1999). The Court construes Begay’s motions as

being brought pursuant to the lack of due process aspect of the rule.2

Begay argues that the Court should consider the instant motions because they

do not constitute a second or successive § 2255 petition. To the extent that Begay

is contending that the Court’s dismissal of his § 2255 action as time-barred was in

error because the Court failed to consider his claim of actual innocence as it was

then presented, the Court concludes that the motion may be properly brought

pursuant to Rule 60(b). See Jones v. Ryan, 733 F.3d 825, 834 (9th Cir.2013) (Court

noted that a motion asserting that a previous ruling precluding the determination of

the merits of a habeas petition due to a statute-of-limitations bar was in error is a

proper Rule 60(b) motion.) However, only the second of Begay’s pending motions

(Doc. 36), which argues that his guilty plea was involuntary because he was never

properly informed of the nature of the charges against him, refers to a basis for relief

that can be deemed to have been raised in some respect in his original § 2255

petition.

As to this motion, the Court presumes that Begay is arguing that the judgment

in his habeas action is void because the Court did not determine whether his claim

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Begay’s Ground Five merely stated the following as supporting facts:

“Federal Public Defender said it was a weak ‘Doubtful’ that I had

actually sexually assaulted Julie Ann Cornfield [Roan], my commonlaw wife, but still advised I to go ahead and plead guilty, if I still care

about Julie Cornfield and Renita Blackgoat. It was a ‘Domestic

Violence Case’ he said.”

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of actual innocence was sufficient to serve as a Schlup gateway to reach the merits

of his habeas claims notwithstanding the bar of the AEDPA’s statute of limitations.

In order to avoid a miscarriage of justice, the Court may entertain a time-barred §

2255 petition if the petitioner raises a convincing claim of actual innocence, i.e., one

in which the petitioner shows “that it is more likely than not that no reasonable juror

would have convicted him in light of the new evidence” presented in his habeas

petition. McQuiggin v. Perkins, 133 S.Ct. 1924, 1935 (2013). The Court did not

consider Begay’s Ground Five, his actual innocence claim, in determining that the

statute of limitations should not be tolled because his claim was patently insufficient

inasmuch as it contained no evidence of actual innocence.3

 Since Begay did not

even come close to meeting the demanding Schlup standard in his original § 2255

petition and related documents, the Court’s decision not to reach the merits of the

§ 2255 petition did not violate Begay’s right to due process.

Begay’s other pending motion (Doc. 35) is not properly brought as a Rule

60(b) motion. In that motion, Begay raises new bases for his actual innocence claim

that were not set forth in his original § 2255 petition, i.e., that at the time he

committed the eight counts of aggravated sexual abuse to which he pleaded guilty

he was highly intoxicated from a combination of alcohol and marijuana consumption

and that this alleged intoxication (1) prevented him from forming an intent to abuse,

(2) caused him to have a severe diminished capacity, temporary insanity and a

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severe deranged mind, and (3) left him sexually impotent and incapable of achieving

a penis erection. These new contentions regarding his intoxication, the factual

predicates for which existed and were ripe when Begay’s first § 2255 petition was

filed, are in substance a new claim of error regarding his underlying conviction which

is properly treated as a disguised § 2255 motion. United States v, Washington, 653

F.3d 1057, 1063 (9th Cir.2011). Because this motion constitutes a second or

successive § 2255 petition, the Court has no jurisdiction to consider it due to Begay’s

failure to first obtain the required certification from the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.

Id. at 1065; 28 U.S.C. § 2255(h). Therefore, 

IT IS ORDERED that defendant Begay’s Motion to Re-Open Habeas Corpus

Petition, pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2255 (Doc. 35 in CV-10-08221-PCT-PGR) is

denied for lack of subject matter jurisdiction.

IT IS FURTHER ORDERED that defendant Begay’s Motion to Re-Open

Habeas Corpus (Doc. 36 in CV-10-08221-PCT-PGR) is denied.

IT IS FURTHER ORDERED that no certificate of appealability shall issue and

that the defendant is not entitled to appeal in forma pauperis because he has failed

to show that reasonable jurists would find this Court’s assessment of the

constitutional claims debatable or wrong, or that reasonable jurists would find it

debatable whether he has stated a valid claim of the denial of a constitutional right

or debatable whether the Court was correct in its procedural ruling.

DATED this 27th day of July, 2015.

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