[DO NOT PUBLISH]

In the

United States Court of Appeals

For the Eleventh Circuit

____________________

No. 21-10112

Non-Argument Calendar

____________________

SONNY AUSTIN RAMDEO, 

Petitioner-Appellant,

versus

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, 

 Respondent- Appellee.

____________________

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the Southern District of Florida

D.C. Docket Nos. 9:18-cv-81452-KAM,

9:12-cr-80226-KAM-1

____________________

USCA11 Case: 21-10112 Date Filed: 08/17/2022 Page: 1 of 5
2 Opinion of the Court 21-10112

Before ROSENBAUM, GRANT, and ANDERSON, Circuit Judges.

PER CURIAM:

Sonny Ramdeo, a federal prisoner proceeding with counsel, 

appeals the district court’s denial of his 28 U.S.C. § 2255 motion to 

vacate his convictions and sentences. We granted a certificate of 

appealability (“COA”) on one issue: whether the district court 

erred by imposing a limit on the number of claims that Ramdeo 

could raise in his second amended § 2255 motion. 

A prisoner in federal custody may file a motion to vacate, set 

aside, or correct his sentence, “claiming the right to be released 

upon the ground that the sentence was imposed in violation of the 

Constitution or laws of the United States . . . or is otherwise subject 

to collateral attack.” 28 U.S.C. § 2255(a). In reviewing the denial 

of a § 2255 motion, we review de novo questions of law and findings of fact for clear error. Tannenbaum v. United States, 148 F.3d 

1262, 1263 (11th Cir. 1998). In an appeal brought by an unsuccessful § 2255 movant, review is limited to the issue specified in the 

COA. Murray v. United States, 145 F.3d 1249, 1250-52 (11th Cir. 

1998). We review for abuse of discretion a district court’s use of its 

inherent power to impose filing restrictions. See, e.g., Johnson v. 

27th Ave. Caraf, Inc., 9 F.4th 1300, 1317 (11th Cir. 2021).

Access to the courts is a right of considerable constitutional 

significance. Miller v. Donald, 541 F.3d 1091, 1096 (11th Cir. 2008). 

However, this right is not absolute or unconditional because 

USCA11 Case: 21-10112 Date Filed: 08/17/2022 Page: 2 of 5
21-10112 Opinion of the Court 3

restrictions on access are necessary to preserve judicial resources 

for all other litigants. Id. Therefore, federal courts can protect their 

dockets from abusive litigators so long as the restrictions are a reasonable response to such abuse and access to the courts is not entirely foreclosed. 27th Ave. Caraf, Inc., 9 F.4th at 1317-18 (holding 

that the district court did not abuse its discretion by requiring court 

permission before an abusive Americans with Disabilities Act 

(“ADA”) litigant could file an ADA complaint). 

In Procup v. Strickland, 792 F.2d 1069 (11th Cir. 1986) (en 

banc), we held that the district court’s injunction was overbroad 

and violated a prisoner’s right to access courts because it barred 

him from filing any case in the district court without an attorney, 

which, given the facts of his case, effectively prevented him from 

filing any future suit. 792 F.2d at 1070-71. However, we held that 

injunctive restrictions were necessary and that the “[f]ederal courts 

have both the inherent power and the constitutional obligation to 

protect their jurisdiction from conduct which impairs their ability 

to carry out Article III functions.” Id. at 1071, 1073. We noted that 

district courts must be careful to avoid impermissible restrictions 

on a prisoner’s right to court access, but we provided a list of legitimate restraints, including limiting the number of filings by a particular inmate, requiring a filing fee for an inmate to bring other 

claims, and imposing page limits. Id. at 1072-73. We clarified that 

this list was not exhaustive and stated that the judiciary, with its 

“considerable discretion,” must respond with imaginative new 

techniques to protect court access for all litigants, but it may not 

USCA11 Case: 21-10112 Date Filed: 08/17/2022 Page: 3 of 5
4 Opinion of the Court 21-10112

completely foreclose a prisoner from “any access to the court.” Id.

at 1073-74. The Supreme Court, citing our opinion in Procup, imposed a filing restriction on a habeas petitioner. In re McDonald, 

489 U.S. 180, 184 & n.8 (1989) (preventing petitioner from proceeding in forma pauperis in the future when seeking extraordinary 

writs from the Supreme Court). 

Here, the district court did not abuse its discretion by limiting Ramdeo to 12 claims in his second amended § 2255 motion. 

First, the claim limit was within the district court’s considerable

discretion to impose because limiting Ramdeo to 12 claims did not 

completely foreclose him from any access to the court. Second, the 

restriction was reasonable in this case given Ramdeo’s abusive litigation habits in his underlying criminal case and in the present case. 

In his criminal case, Ramdeo submitted nine motions to withdraw 

or otherwise set aside his guilty plea after the district court denied 

his initial motion to withdraw and found that he told blatant lies at 

an evidentiary hearing on the motion. In the present case, two 

magistrate judges noted Ramdeo’s attempts to circumvent the 

page limit and one found that his noncompliance with local rules 

was a vexatious litigation tactic. Even after Ramdeo limited his 

motion to 12 claims, Judge Matthewman found that the “rambling, 

vague, speculative, and conclusory” motion presented meritless 

and frivolous claims that were “unnecessarily difficult and timeconsuming” to address. Based on these concerns and Ramdeo’s 

litigation habits in the underlying case that his § 2255 motion targeted, it was not an abuse of discretion for Judge Reid to limit 

USCA11 Case: 21-10112 Date Filed: 08/17/2022 Page: 4 of 5
21-10112 Opinion of the Court 5

Ramdeo to 12 claims in his second amended § 2255 motion. See 

27th Ave. Caraf, Inc., 9 F.4th at 1317.

AFFIRMED. 

USCA11 Case: 21-10112 Date Filed: 08/17/2022 Page: 5 of 5