BLD-032 NOT PRECEDENTIAL

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE THIRD CIRCUIT

___________

No. 15-1707

___________

PATRICK JONES,

 Appellant

v.

WARDEN LEWISBURG USP

____________________________________

On Appeal from the United States District Court

for the Middle District of Pennsylvania

(D.C. Civ. No. 3-13-cv-03105)

District Judge: Honorable Malachy E. Mannion

____________________________________

Submitted for Possible Summary Action 

Pursuant to Third Circuit LAR 27.4 and I.O.P. 10.6 

October 29, 2015

Before: FUENTES, KRAUSE and SCIRICA, Circuit Judges

(Opinion filed: November 5, 2015)

_________

OPINION*

_________

PER CURIAM

Patrick Jones (federal prisoner number 60763-080) appeals pro se from the 

 

* This disposition is not an opinion of the full Court and pursuant to I.O.P. 5.7 does not 

constitute binding precedent.
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District Court’s dismissal of his habeas petition and denial of reconsideration. We will 

affirm.

I.

Jones is serving concurrent sentences of life imprisonment for convictions relating 

to the distribution of crack cocaine. Those sentences were imposed in 2003 by the United 

States District Court for the Western District of Texas. Jones has challenged his 

convictions and sentences in numerous proceedings, including a motion under 28 U.S.C. 

§ 2255 in his sentencing court and a habeas petition under 28 U.S.C. § 2241 in at least 

one of his prior courts of confinement. See Jones v. Fox, 326 F. App’x 320, 320-21 (5th 

Cir. 2009).

Jones filed the § 2241 petition at issue here after being transferred to a federal 

prison within the Middle District of Pennsylvania. The petition has two aspects. First, 

Jones claims to be innocent of the charges underlying his life sentences on the grounds 

that his sentencing court imposed them on the basis of facts and charges that were not 

found by the jury. Jones has cited no authority in support of his claims in that regard, but 

they appear to be based on Apprendi v. New Jersey, 530 U.S. 466 (2000). Second, Jones 

claims that officials at a federal prison in Kentucky denied him due process during three 

hearings. Two of those hearings were disciplinary proceedings that resulted in Jones’s 

transfer to a Special Management Unit in Pennsylvania (but not the loss of any good 

conduct time), and the third was a hearing on his designation for that transfer.

The District Court dismissed Jones’s petition. The District Court concluded that 

Jones could not challenge his sentences by means of a § 2241 petition because he did not 
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show that a § 2255 motion in his sentencing court was or would have been inadequate or 

ineffective to raise his claims. See 28 U.S.C. § 2255(e); Okereke v. United States, 307 

F.3d 117, 120-21 (3d Cir. 2002); cf. In re Dorsainvil, 119 F.3d 245, 248-49 (3d Cir. 

1997). The District Court further concluded that Jones’s challenges to his disciplinary 

proceedings and transfer to the Special Management Unit are not cognizable in habeas 

because they do not implicate the duration of his confinement or the execution of his 

sentence. See Cardona v. Bledsoe, 681 F.3d 533, 537 (3d Cir. 2012); Leamer v. Fauver, 

288 F.3d 532, 542 (3d Cir. 2002). Jones filed a motion for reconsideration, which the 

District Court denied, and Jones now appeals.1

II.

We will affirm for the reasons adequately explained by the District Court. We 

separately address only two of Jones’s arguments on appeal, all of which relate solely to 

his criminal sentences. First, Jones argues that he may proceed under § 2241 because the 

sentences he challenges are not based on facts found by the jury and thus are not based on 

any actual “conviction” that he can challenge under § 2255. This argument is frivolous. 

Section 2255 expressly permits challenges to a sentence in the sentencing court, and 

Jones’s substantive claims are based on alleged occurrences before that court at trial and 

at sentencing. There is no reason why Jones could not have raised his claims before that 

 

1

Jones does not require a certificate of appealability to appeal from the denial of his § 

2241 motion, see Vasquez v. Strada, 684 F.3d 431, 433 (3d Cir. 2012), and we thus have 

jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291. We exercise plenary review over the District 

Court’s legal conclusions and otherwise review its denial of reconsideration only for 

abuse of discretion. See Blystone v. Horn, 664 F.3d 397, 415 (3d Cir. 2011).
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court, if indeed he has not done so already. 

Second, Jones argues that he may proceed under § 2241 because he is innocent. 

He relies for that argument on Dorsainvil and McQuiggin v. Perkins, 133 S. Ct. 1924 

(2013). In Dorsainvil, we held that a federal prisoner could proceed under § 2241 

because he had no prior opportunity to raise an intervening Supreme Court decision that 

rendered his conduct non-criminal. See Dorsainvil, 119 F.3d at 251. The Supreme 

Court’s decision in McQuiggin, however, does not render Jones’s conduct non-criminal. 

Instead, McQuiggin holds that actual innocence constitutes an equitable exception to the 

statute of limitations set forth in 28 U.S.C. § 2244(d). See McQuiggin, 133 S. Ct. at 

1931-32. McQuiggin thus has nothing to do with Jones’s conduct of conviction. It also 

has nothing to do with his substantive claims, which he could have raised before. And 

even if his claims had merit, which we do not suggest, they would not establish his 

innocence in the first place.

For these reasons, we will affirm the judgment of the District Court. Jones’s 

motion for appointment of counsel in this Court is denied.