In the

United States Court of Appeals

For the Seventh Circuit ____________________

No. 13-2857

PRESSE D. MATHEWS, JR.,

Petitioner-Appellant,

v.

RICARDO RIOS,

Warden,

Respondent-Appellee.

____________________

Appeal from the United States District Court 

for the Central District of Illinois.

No. 1:11-cv-01245-JBM — Joe Billy McDade, Judge.

____________________

SUBMITTED APRIL 21, 2014* — DECIDED AUGUST 11, 2014

____________________

Before EASTERBROOK, RIPPLE, and ROVNER, Circuit Judges.

 * After examining the briefs and record, we have concluded that oral argument is unnecessary. Thus, the appeal is submitted on the briefs and 

record. See Fed. R. App. P. 34(a)(2)(C).
2 No. 13-2857

PER CURIAM. Presse D. Mathews, Jr., is in federal custody 

following his conviction for possession of a firearm by a felon. See 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1). He was sentenced to 180 

months’ imprisonment under the Armed Career Criminal 

Act (“ACCA”), see 18 U.S.C. § 924(e). One of the predicate 

state felony convictions upon which the district court relied 

was a federal conviction under Illinois’s felon-in-possession 

statute, 720 ILCS 5/24-1.1. We affirmed his conviction and 

sentence on direct appeal. We decided that the district court 

had construed correctly the Illinois statute and that 

Mr. Mathews had been convicted in state court of being a 

felon in possession of a knife with the intent to harm a specific person. United States v. Mathews, 453 F.3d 830, 834–37 

(7th Cir. 2006).

Mr. Mathews then brought a collateral attack on his sentence under 28 U.S.C. § 2255. See Mathews v. United States,

550 F. Supp. 2d 842 (C.D. Ill. 2007). He argued once again 

that the sentencing court had misconstrued the text of the 

Illinois statute. Id. at 844. The district court held that this issue had been decided by this court and therefore was not 

open to further review. Id. at 845. Both the district court and 

this court denied certificates of appealability. The district 

court also denied a successive § 2255 motion, which was not 

appealed.

Mr. Mathews then filed this petition for a writ of habeas 

corpus. See 28 U.S.C. § 2241. Although he cited Begay v. United States, 553 U.S. 137 (2008), he argued, once again, that, 

under a proper construction of the Illinois statute, his prior 

Illinois conviction for unlawful possession of a weapon by a 

felon was not a conviction for a “violent felony.” In support 

of that view, he made essentially the same arguments that he 
No. 13-2857 3

had made previously and that we had rejected on direct appeal and upon our denial of the certificate of appealability. 

The district court nevertheless determined that Mr. Mathews 

could proceed under § 2241 and held that, under Begay, a 

felon’s possession of a knife with the intent to harm a person 

was a violent felony under the ACCA. On this basis, the district court denied Mr. Mathews’s petition.

After examination of the entire record, we must conclude 

that Mr. Mathews’s petition is blocked by 28 U.S.C. 

§ 2255(e), which restricts a prisoner from applying for habeas review where a prisoner’s § 2255 motion already has been 

denied and that motion was not “inadequate or ineffective to 

test the legality of his detention.” In the district court and in 

this court, Mr. Mathews does not argue, even in the alternative, that, under Begay, a felon’s possession of a knife with 

the intent to injure a person does not constitute a crime of 

violence under the ACCA. Indeed, in his reply brief in this 

court, he specifically denies making such an argument. Rather, he seeks relief solely on the ground that, in our earlier 

encounters with this case, we misconstrued the text of the 

Illinois statute—the same argument that he made to the initial sentencing court, to this court on appeal and to the district court in his motion for relief under § 2255. We decided 

this issue squarely on direct appeal. His citation to Begay is 

simply artful pleading. Nothing in that decision in any way 

implicates any aspect of this court’s earlier analysis of Illinois law.
4 No. 13-2857

Because Mr. Mathews’s petition was blocked by 28 

U.S.C. 2255(e), we affirm the district court’s denial of his petition.

AFFIRMED

NO COSTS IN THIS COURT