In the

United States Court of Appeals

For the Seventh Circuit ____________________

No. 18-3340

ZENON GRZEGORCZYK,

Petitioner-Appellant,

v.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

Respondent-Appellee.

____________________

Appeal from the United States District Court for the

Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division.

No. 1:16-cv-08146 — Elaine E. Bucklo, Judge.

____________________

ARGUED NOVEMBER 3, 2020 — DECIDED MAY 13, 2021

____________________

Before KANNE, SCUDDER, and ST. EVE, Circuit Judges.

ST. EVE, Circuit Judge. In the spring of 2012, Zenon Grzegorczyk hired two men to kill his ex-wife and five of her 

friends in exchange for $48,000. Fortunately, his plan was destined to fail—the two men he sought out for the task were undercover law enforcement officers. A grand jury returned a 

four-count indictment charging him with three counts of using a facility of interstate commerce with intent that murder 

be committed (“murder-for-hire”) in violation of 18 U.S.C. 
2 No. 18-3340

§ 1958(a), and one count of possession of a firearm in furtherance of a crime of violence in violation of 18 U.S.C. 

§ 924(c)(1)(A). In July 2014, pursuant to a written plea agreement with the government, Grzegorczyk pled guilty to one 

count of murder-for-hire and the firearm charge. The district 

court sentenced him to 151 months in prison for the murderfor-hire count and a consecutive 60 months for the firearm 

count.

Grzegorczyk now seeks relief from his § 924(c) conviction 

pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2255. But because he signed an unconditional plea agreement, the district court found his challenge 

waived and denied relief. We affirm.

I. Background

A. Factual Background

In April 2012, Grzegorczyk hired two men to kill his exwife and several other individuals whom he deemed responsible for his divorce and the loss of custody of his son. Grzegorczyk was unaware at the time that the two men he hired

were undercover law enforcement officers. 

Grzegorczyk met the men at a fast-food restaurant in Chicago two weeks later to put his plan in motion. After meeting

them in the parking lot of the restaurant, he got into their vehicle and directed them to the residences of his intended victims. Grzegorczyk produced photographs of some of his intended victims and described them in more detail. He also 

provided license plate numbers for two of the intended victims’ vehicles. Grzegorczyk told the men that he wanted the

murders completed before June 2012 because he would have 

an alibi during that time. He agreed to a $3,000 down payment for the murders. 
No. 18-3340 3

The following week, Grzegorczyk met the men for a final 

time. He entered their vehicle again, this time carrying a small 

duffle bag. Grzegorczyk showed the men photos of additional 

individuals he wanted murdered, bringing the total to six. 

Grzegorczyk then opened the duffle bag and gave the undercover officers $3,000 in cash as the down payment he had 

promised. He also showed them the remaining contents of the 

bag: $45,000 in cash that he intended to pay upon completion 

of the murders, a 9mm semi-automatic handgun, and two 

magazines loaded with 40 live rounds of ammunition. Grzegorczyk left the officers’ vehicle and returned to his car. He 

was then arrested. 

B. Procedural Background

On July 17, 2014, Grzegorczyk pled guilty to one count of 

murder-for-hire in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1958(a) and one 

count of possession of a firearm in furtherance of a crime of 

violence in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 924(c)(1)(A). Pursuant to 

the written plea agreement, Grzegorczyk waived, among 

other rights, the right to “all appellate issues that might have 

been available if he had exercised his right to trial.” Under the 

agreement, he could only appeal the validity of his guilty plea 

and the sentence imposed. On October 24, 2014, the district 

court imposed a within-Guidelines sentence of 151 months for 

the murder-for-hire offense, and a consecutive 60 months for 

the firearm offense. We affirmed that sentence on appeal. 

United States v. Grzegorczyk, 800 F.3d 402 (7th Cir. 2015).

That same year, the Supreme Court decided Johnson v. 

United States, invalidating as unconstitutionally vague the 

definition of a “violent felony” under the residual clause of 

the Armed Career Criminal Act. 576 U.S. 591, 606 (2015); see 

18 U.S.C. § 924(e)(2)(B)(ii). The Court later extended the logic 
4 No. 18-3340

of Johnson to the residual clause of § 924(c), invalidating the 

definition of “crime of violence” in that statute’s residual 

clause as unconstitutionally vague. United States v. Davis, 139 

S. Ct. 2319 (2019); see § 924(c)(3)(B). Following Davis, a § 924(c) 

conviction based on a crime of violence may rely only on the 

statute’s “elements clause.” See § 924(c)(3)(A). 

Grzegorczyk petitioned the district court pursuant to 28 

U.S.C. § 2255 for relief from his § 924(c) conviction in light of 

Johnson and Davis.* The district court denied relief, finding 

that Grzegorczyk waived his Johnson challenge when he pled 

guilty to a crime of violence. United States v. Grzegorczyk, No. 

1-16-cv-08146, 2018 WL 10126077, at *1 (N.D. Ill. Oct. 17, 2018). 

The court did not address the merits of his claim. Grzegorczyk 

timely appealed.

II. Discussion

On appeal, Grzegorczyk asks us to vacate his § 924(c) conviction and remand for resentencing because, after Johnson

and Davis, a predicate crime of violence must be a felony that 

satisfies § 924(c)’s elements clause and, he asserts, murder-forhire is not such a felony. We agree with the district court that 

Grzegorczyk waived this challenge to the legal sufficiency of 

the § 924(c) charge by pleading guilty. Thus, we need not decide whether murder-for-hire is a crime of violence under 

§ 924(c)(3)(A).

* Davis had not yet been decided when Grzegorczyk filed his § 2255 

petition, but he argued—and we had already held—that Johnson’s reasoning extended to the definition of “crime of violence” in § 924(c)(1)(B). 

United States v. Cardena, 842 F.3d 959, 996 (7th Cir. 2016).
No. 18-3340 5

We denied similar challenges in Davila v. United States, 843

F.3d 729 (7th Cir. 2016), and United States v. Wheeler, 857 F.3d 

742 (7th Cir. 2017). In Davila, the petitioner pled guilty to conspiring to commit robbery in violation of the Hobbs Act, 18 

U.S.C. § 1951, and to violating § 924(c)’s residual clause by 

possessing a firearm in connection with the planned robbery

and in connection with a separate drug trafficking crime. Following Johnson, he filed a § 2255 petition seeking relief from 

his § 924(c) conviction on the theory that conspiracy to commit robbery could only be considered a crime of violence under § 924(c)’s residual clause. We rejected Davila’s arguments 

and held that Davila had relinquished his right to challenge 

his § 924(c) conviction as a condition of his plea agreement.

Davila, 843 F.3d at 732. Absent a lack of subject-matter jurisdiction or a constitutional problem with “the very institution 

of the criminal charge,” Davila’s guilty plea foreclosed his collateral attack. Id. at 733 (citing United States v. Broce, 488 U.S. 

563, 569 (1989)). 

We addressed an almost-identical challenge in Wheeler, 

where we reiterated that a criminal defendant who pleads 

guilty to a § 924(c) charge cannot automatically “reopen the 

subject and ask a court of appeals to upset the conviction” 

based on Johnson. 857 F.3d at 744. To the contrary, “an unconditional guilty plea waives any contention that an indictment 

fails to state an offense.” Id. at 745.

Grzegorczyk pled guilty. In doing so, he admitted to 

knowingly using a facility of interstate commerce with intent 

that a murder be committed in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1958(a), 

as well as to “possession of a firearm, in furtherance of a crime 

of violence,”—murder-for-hire—in violation of § 924(c)(1)(A).

Grzegorczyk’s challenge to his § 924(c) conviction is the exact 
6 No. 18-3340

type of claim we deemed waived by an unconditional guilty 

plea in Davila and Wheeler. Indeed, his argument that murderfor-hire cannot be deemed a crime of violence “not only could

have been presented by pretrial motion but also had to be so 

presented under Fed. R. Crim. P. 12(b)(3)(B)(v), which provides that ‘failure to state an offense’ is the sort of contention 

that ‘must’ be raised before trial.” Id. at 744. Grzegorczyk 

acknowledges as much. Undeterred, he asks that we overrule 

those cases in light of the Supreme Court’s more recent decision in Class v. United States, 138 S. Ct. 798 (2018).

In Class, the defendant pled guilty to possession of a firearm on U.S. Capitol grounds in violation of 40 U.S.C. § 5104(e)

after he left a firearm locked in his car parked in a lot on the 

grounds of the Capitol. He expressly waived several rights by 

the terms of the plea agreement, but nonetheless appealed his 

conviction on the grounds that the statute violated the Second 

Amendment and the Due Process Clause. The Supreme Court 

reversed the D.C. Circuit’s decision to dismiss Class’s claims 

as waived, stressing that his claims “challenge[d] the Government’s power to criminalize Class’ (admitted) conduct.” Class, 

138 S. Ct. at 805. The Court explained that while, in general, 

“a valid guilty plea relinquishes any claim that would contradict the ‘admissions necessarily made upon entry of a voluntary plea of guilty,’” id. (quoting Broce, 488 U.S. at 573–74), 

Class’s claims were different. In challenging the constitutional 

validity of his conviction, he did “not in any way deny that he 

engaged in the conduct to which he admitted.” Id.

Here, unlike in Class, Grzegorczyk’s claim does contradict 

the terms of his plea agreement. See id. at 804. In Grzegorczyk’s written plea agreement, he specifically admitted that 

he “knowingly possessed a firearm, namely, a Taurus PT99 
No. 18-3340 7

9mm semi-automatic pistol, in furtherance of a crime of violence”—murder-for-hire—in violation of § 924(c)(1)(A). Although Davis invalidated the residual clause’s definition of a 

crime of violence, it left the elements clause intact. Grzegorczyk’s conviction thus remains constitutionally permissible as

long as murder-for-hire falls within the definition of a crime 

of violence under the elements clause. Grzegorczyk does not 

disagree, but nonetheless asserts that his challenge is constitutional in nature because, he argues, murder-for-hire is not a 

crime of violence under the elements clause. 

Grzegorczyk misunderstands Class to mean that even 

though he pled guilty, he may nonetheless raise a constitutional challenge to his conviction, as long as his claim does not 

contradict the terms of the plea agreement (which, as we have 

explained, it does) and can be resolved by the facts in the record. We do not find Class so broad. Indeed, we recently rejected this argument in Oliver v. United States, 951 F.3d 841 (7th 

Cir. 2020). There, petitioners pled guilty to charges under 

§ 924(c) for brandishing a firearm during a crime of violence—theft from a federally licensed firearm dealer in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 922(u). Oliver, 951 F.3d at 843. The petitioners sought relief pursuant to § 2255, arguing that, after Davis, 

theft from a federally licensed firearm dealer no longer 

counted as a crime of violence sufficient to sustain a conviction under § 924(c). Relying on Class, the petitioners asserted 

that their claims were nonwaivable because they challenged 

the constitutionality of the statute of their convictions. We determined, however, that “Class is not as sweeping as [petitioners] contend,” and dismissed their petitions as waived. Id. at 

846.
8 No. 18-3340

Class, we explained, held only that “a guilty plea, by itself, 

does not implicitly waive a defendant’s right to challenge the 

constitutionality of his statute of conviction.” Id. But as we 

have also explained, an unconditional plea of guilty is sufficient to waive a defendant’s right to contest the proper interpretation of the statute of conviction. See Wheeler, 857 F.3d at 

744–45. Here, as in Wheeler, Grzegorczyk does not maintain 

that § 924(c) is invalid. See id. at 745. He has not challenged the

government’s power to criminalize his admitted conduct. See 

Class, 138 S. Ct. at 805. Instead, Grzegorczyk merely asserts 

that murder-for-hire is not a “crime of violence” under the elements clause. This is an issue of statutory construction, not a 

claim of constitutional immunity from prosecution. See 

Wheeler, 857 F.3d at 745. As we have explained before, an unconditional guilty plea implicitly waives such challenges. See 

id. (“[A]n unconditional guilty plea waives any contention 

that an indictment fails to state an offense.”); see also United 

States v. Grayson Enterprises, Inc., 950 F.3d 386, 402 (7th Cir. 

2020). Grzegorczyk’s claim is waived. 

In a final attempt to avoid waiver, Grzegorczyk challenges 

the validity of his plea altogether. A valid guilty plea is one 

that a criminal defendant has made voluntarily and intelligently. See Bousley v. United States, 523 U.S. 614, 618 (1998). An 

“intelligent” plea requires that the defendant have “real notice of the true nature of the charge against him.” Id. Grzegorczyk argues that because Johnson and Davis changed the scope 

of conduct supporting a conviction under § 924(c), he lacked 

“real notice” of the charges against him when he entered his 

plea agreement in 2014.

Grzegorczyk faces two procedural obstacles in challenging the validity of his plea. First, he did not attack the validity
No. 18-3340 9

of his plea on direct appeal. Thus, he may only raise the issue 

in a § 2255 petition if he “can first demonstrate either ‘cause’ 

and actual ‘prejudice,’ or that he is ‘actually innocent.’” Bousley, 523 U.S. at 622 (citations omitted). He has failed to do so. 

Second, Grzegorczyk did not raise this issue in his § 2255 petition before the district court. He asserts this argument for 

the first time on appeal. Construing Grzegorczyk’s pro se petition liberally, as we must, see McNeil v. United States, 508 U.S. 

106, 113 (1993), Grzegorczyk did not raise any arguments suggesting he was contesting the validity of his plea in his § 2255 

petition. This second default is decisive—the issue is waived.

That is because Grzegorczyk “has made no attempt to demonstrate why his case qualifies as one of these ‘rare civil case[s] 

where exceptional circumstances exist’” warranting plain-error review. S.E.C. v. Yang, 795 F.3d 674, 679 (7th Cir. 2015) 

(quoting Jackson v. Parker, 627 F.3d 634, 640 (7th Cir. 2010)); see 

also Bourgeois v. Watson, 977 F.3d 620, 629–30 (7th Cir. 2020).

Even if we were to consider Grzegorczyk’s claim forfeited 

rather than waived and review for plain error, his plea-withdrawal argument still fails. Grzegorczyk cannot prove that 

there was any error, let alone one that was “clear and obvious,” affected his substantial rights, and that “seriously affects the fairness, integrity, or public reputation of judicial 

proceedings,” as is required to satisfy plain error review. See 

United States v. Williams, 946 F.3d 968, 971 (7th Cir. 2020). A 

change in the law after a defendant pleads guilty does not 

change the voluntariness of the plea at the time it was entered 

and does not justify a defendant withdrawing his plea. See 

United States v. Mays, 593 F.3d 603, 607 (7th Cir. 2010) (highlighting defendant’s inability to “point to any authority that 

holds that the mere possibility of a change in Supreme Court 

precedent is a fair and just reason for withdrawal of a guilty 
10 No. 18-3340

plea”). Grzegorczyk has long waived his right to contest the 

validity of his plea agreement, and in any event, cannot 

demonstrate any error justifying withdrawal of the agreement. 

III. Conclusion

Grzegorczyk pled guilty to possession of a firearm in furtherance of a crime of violence, murder-for-hire, in violation 

of § 924(c). By unconditionally pleading guilty, he waived his 

right to challenge the legal sufficiency of the § 924(c) charge. 

AFFIRMED