UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS 

FOR THE TENTH CIRCUIT 

 

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, 

 Plaintiff–Appellee, 

v. 

ALEXANDER CHRISTIAN MILES, 

 Defendant–Appellant. 

No. 13-6110 

(D.C. Nos. 5:06-CR-00096-HE-1 & 

5:11-CV-00198-HE) 

(W.D. Okla.)

 

ORDER AND JUDGMENT*

 

Before LUCERO and BALDOCK, Circuit Judges, and BRORBY, Senior Circuit 

Judge. 

 

 

 Alexander Christian Miles appeals the district court’s denial of his petition for 

a writ of error coram nobis. We have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291 and affirm. 

I

The parties are familiar with the previous proceedings and we summarize them 

only briefly. In July 2001, Miles applied for a K-1 visa to bring his fiancée from 

Cambodia to the United States for the purpose of marriage. He told immigration 

 *

After examining the briefs and appellate record, this panel has determined 

unanimously that oral argument would not materially assist the determination of this 

appeal. See Fed. R. App. P. 34(a)(2); 10th Cir. R. 34.1(G). The case is therefore 

ordered submitted without oral argument. This order and judgment is not binding 

precedent, except under the doctrines of law of the case, res judicata, and collateral 

estoppel. It may be cited, however, for its persuasive value consistent with 

Fed. R. App. P. 32.1 and 10th Cir. R. 32.1. 

FILED 

United States Court of Appeals 

Tenth Circuit 

February 3, 2014

Elisabeth A. Shumaker 

Clerk of Court
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officials that his bride-to-be was aged eighteen, although he knew that she was only 

fourteen. The visa was granted and the couple married in New York later that year. 

In February 2002, Miles filed an application for adjustment of status in which he 

again falsely stated his wife’s age. Miles and his wife moved to Oklahoma that 

summer and shortly thereafter he was indicted under the Mann Act for transporting a 

minor across state lines with the intent to engage in sexual activity. See 18 U.S.C. 

§ 2423(a). Miles successfully challenged the legal sufficiency of the indictment and 

it was dismissed without prejudice. 

 The government obtained a new indictment under the Mann Act that specified 

the underlying state crime as forcible rape under Okla. Stat. tit. 21, §§ 1111B and 

1114. Miles moved to dismiss, this time on double jeopardy grounds. The district 

court denied the motion and we affirmed on interlocutory review. See United States 

v. Miles, 327 F. App’x 797 (10th Cir. 2009) (unpublished). 

 In exchange for dismissal of the Mann Act charges, Miles pled guilty to a 

superseding information that charged him with knowingly making a false and 

material statement about his fiancée’s age on the K-1 visa application in violation of 

18 U.S.C. § 1001(a)(3). As part of the agreement, Miles waived his right to 

collaterally challenge his plea or any aspect of his conviction except with regard to 

sentencing error. He did not appeal the conviction but did unsuccessfully challenge 

his sentence. See United States v. Miles, 411 F. App’x 126 (10th Cir. 2010) 

(unpublished). 
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 Miles then filed a motion for relief under 28 U.S.C. § 2255. The district court 

enforced the collateral-attack waiver and denied the motion. This court denied 

Miles’ request for a certificate of appealability (“COA”). United States v. Miles, 

No. 12-6011, 2012 WL 9570723 (10th Cir. July 9, 2012) (unpublished). 

 Upon his release from custody in February 2013, Miles filed a petition for a 

writ of coram nobis. The district court denied the writ on two grounds: (1) the 

petition fell within the scope of the collateral-attack waiver contained in the plea 

agreement and (2) this court had rejected the same arguments raised by Miles in our 

order and judgment denying a COA. 

II 

“When reviewing a denial of a coram nobis petition, we review questions of 

law de novo, but review the district court’s decision to deny the writ for an abuse of 

discretion.” United States v. Thody, 460 F. App’x 776, 778 (10th Cir. 2012) 

(unpublished). “A district court abuses its discretion when it renders a judgment that 

is arbitrary, capricious, whimsical, or manifestly unreasonable.” United States v. 

Lewis, 594 F.3d 1270, 1277 (10th Cir. 2010) (quotation omitted). 

Coram nobis is an “extraordinary remedy” to be invoked “only under 

circumstances compelling such action to achieve justice.” United States v. Morgan, 

346 U.S. 502, 511 (1954). “[T]he burden is on the petitioner to demonstrate that the 

asserted error is jurisdictional or constitutional and results in a complete miscarriage 

of justice.” Klein v. United States, 880 F.2d 250, 253 (10th Cir. 1989). “[A] 
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colorable showing of factual innocence” demonstrates a fundamental miscarriage of 

justice. Beavers v. Saffle, 216 F.3d 918, 923 (10th Cir. 2000). The factual innocence 

“exception is intended for those rare situations where the [government] has convicted 

the wrong person of the crime.” Klein v. Neal, 45 F.3d 1395, 1400 (10th Cir. 1995) 

(quotation omitted). 

Moreover, Miles is not entitled to a writ of coram nobis “unless relief under 

28 U.S.C. § 2255 was unavailable or would have been inadequate.” United States v. 

Payne, 644 F.3d 1111, 1112 (10th Cir. 2011). That Miles failed to obtain relief “does 

not establish that the remedy so provided [was] either inadequate or ineffective.” 

Prost v. Anderson, 636 F.3d 578, 585 (10th Cir. 2011) (quotation omitted), cert. 

denied, 132 S. Ct. 1001 (2012). 

 Miles’ argument for issuance of a writ of coram nobis is based on the date of 

the offense in the superseding indictment. As this court explained in denying Miles’ 

request for a COA, “Miles had actually lied on two different documents submitted to 

the INS: he falsely stated his fiancee’s age on the K-1 visa application in July 2001, 

and then again falsely stated her age, after she had become his wife, on an application 

for adjustment of status in February 2002.” Miles, 2012 WL 9570723, at *1. The 

superseding information, however, “conflated the two incidents, charging Mr. Miles 

with lying in connection with the K-1 visa application [in July 2001], but doing so in 

or about February 2002.” Id. At the time Miles entered his plea, the mistake went 

unnoticed. 
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We rejected Miles’ request for a COA because the collateral-attack waiver 

“barred his legal objections relating to the indictment and his actual-innocence claim 

clearly failed on the merits,” meaning it could not constitute an exception to the 

waiver. Id. at *3-4. Regarding the date of the offense, we concluded that “Miles 

himself affirmed both the alleged date and document in his colloquy with the court 

establishing the factual basis for his plea at the plea hearing.” Id. at *1. 

Miles now asserts that he did not know about the error until this court issued 

its order and judgment in July 2012. He claims his lawyer advised him that the 

factual basis for his guilty plea was “intentionally misstating the date of birth of his 

wife in [the February 2002 application], whereas, according to the Tenth Circuit 

Court of Appeals’ July 9, 2012, Order and Judgment . . . the misstatement had been 

made in [the July 2001 application].” According to Miles, he was ignorant of “the 

true nature of the charge to which he pled guilty” until this court issued its July 2012 

decision. 

We reject Miles’ argument. Setting aside the fact that Miles offers no 

evidence as to what his lawyer told him, the record belies his claim. For example, in 

his petition to enter a guilty plea, Miles wrote: “I made a statement knowing it to be 

false that [my fiancée] was 18 on the visa application.” (Emphasis added.) The plea 

agreement itself states that the false statement was made in connection with “an 

Alien Fianceé [sic] Visa application.” And the plea colloquy confirms Miles 

understood that the false statement related to the visa application. Finally, Miles 
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acknowledged the government’s contention that he pled guilty to filing a false 

affidavit in connection with the visa application in the brief supporting his request for 

a COA. Thus, there is no merit to Miles’ argument that he first learned of the error in 

July 2012. 

III 

Because Miles had an adequate remedy under § 2255 and there was no 

miscarriage of justice, the judgment of the district court is AFFIRMED. Because 

Miles has not advanced a reasoned, non-frivolous argument on appeal, his motion to 

proceed in forma pauperis is DENIED. See DeBardeleben v. Quinlan, 937 F.2d 502, 

505 (10th Cir. 1991). 

 Entered for the Court 

 Carlos F. Lucero 

 Circuit Judge