2014 Decisions

Opinions of the United

States Court of Appeals

for the Third Circuit

4-29-2014

In Re: Gregory Jones

Precedential or Non-Precedential: Non-Precedential

Docket No. 14-1652

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Recommended Citation

"In Re: Gregory Jones" (2014). 2014 Decisions. Paper 437.

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1

ALD-207 NOT PRECEDENTIAL

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE THIRD CIRCUIT

___________

No. 14-1652

___________

IN RE: GREGORY JONES,

Petitioner

____________________________________

On a Petition for Writ of Mandamus from the

United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania

(Related to E.D. Pa. Crim. No. 2:06-cr-00164-001)

____________________________________

Submitted Pursuant to Rule 21, Fed. R. App. P.

April 17, 2014

Before: RENDELL, FISHER and GREENAWAY, JR., Circuit Judges

(Opinion filed: April 29, 2014)

_________

OPINION

_________

PER CURIAM

Federal prisoner Gregory Jones, proceeding pro se, petitions for a writ of 

mandamus directing the United States District Court for the Eastern District of 

Pennsylvania to unseal and provide him with a copy of a sentencing hearing transcript 

prepared in his co-conspirator’s case. For the reasons that follow, we will deny the 

petition. 
2

I.

In 2007, Jones pleaded guilty to a nine-count superseding indictment that stemmed 

from his manufacture and sale of counterfeit credit cards and identification documents. 

On May 30, 2008, District Judge Eduardo C. Robreno sentenced Jones to 144 months’ 

imprisonment and three years’ supervised release, and ordered that Jones pay more than 

$300,000 in restitution. A few days later, Jones filed a notice of appeal challenging that 

judgment. That appeal was docketed at C.A. No. 08-2638.

Shortly thereafter, District Judge William H. Yohn, Jr., sentenced Jones’s coconspirator, Brian Lee Morgan, who had pleaded guilty to five counts. Morgan, whose 

case was docketed separately from Jones’s case,1 was sentenced to 75 months’ 

imprisonment and three years’ supervised release, and was ordered to pay more than 

$400,000 in restitution.2

 Although Morgan’s sentencing was held in open court, the 

transcript of that proceeding was later sealed. In July 2008, Jones, through his lawyer, 

Jerry S. Goldman, sent a letter to Judge Yohn requesting that this transcript be unsealed. 

Judge Yohn denied that request and later denied Jones’s motion for reconsideration.

No appeal was taken from either of Judge Yohn’s rulings on the transcript issue. 

Instead, Jones attacked them in his opening brief in C.A. No. 08-2638. In June 2009, we 

affirmed the judgment of sentence imposed by Judge Robreno and concluded that Jones’s 

 1 Jones’s case was assigned District Court docket number 2:06-cr-00367-001, while 

Morgan’s case was assigned District Court docket number 2:06-cr-00164-001.

2 One of Morgan’s guilty counts was later vacated by Judge Yohn in light of an 

intervening United States Supreme Court decision. Judge Yohn then resentenced Morgan 

to 68 months’ imprisonment. Morgan’s term of supervised release and the amount of 

restitution, however, remained the same.
3

challenge to Judge Yohn’s rulings was not properly before us because Jones could have 

directly appealed from those rulings. See United States v. Jones, 332 F. App’x 801, 809 

(3d Cir. 2009) [hereinafter Jones I]. In March 2010, the Supreme Court denied Jones’s 

petition for a writ of certiorari.

In March 2011, Jones filed a pro se motion with Judge Robreno, seeking to vacate, 

set aside, or correct his sentence pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2255. One of the several claims 

raised in that motion was an allegation that Goldman had provided ineffective assistance 

of counsel when he failed to appeal from Judge Yohn’s rulings on the transcript issue. In 

December 2011, Judge Robreno denied Jones’s § 2255 motion. In doing so, Judge 

Robreno concluded that even if Goldman’s performance was deficient, Jones’s 

ineffectiveness claim still failed because Jones was not prejudiced by the failure to appeal 

from Judge Yohn’s rulings. Jones then appealed from the denial of his § 2255 motion, 

but we denied his request for a certificate of appealability. See C.A. No. 12-1811.

Undeterred, Jones now seeks a writ of mandamus directing the District Court to 

unseal the aforementioned transcript and forward a copy to him.

II.

A writ of mandamus is a drastic remedy that is available in extraordinary 

circumstances only. See In re Diet Drugs Prods. Liab. Litig., 418 F.3d 372, 378 (3d Cir. 

2005). To obtain mandamus relief, a petitioner must establish that “(1) no other adequate 

means exist to attain the relief he desires, (2) the party’s right to issuance of the writ is 

clear and indisputable, and (3) the writ is appropriate under the circumstances.” 

Hollingsworth v. Perry, 558 U.S. 183, 190 (2010) (per curiam) (internal quotation marks 
4

omitted). Mandamus is not a substitute for an appeal, and “a writ of mandamus may not 

issue if a petitioner can obtain relief by appeal.” Madden v. Myers, 102 F.3d 74, 77 (3d 

Cir. 1996).

Jones has not demonstrated that this case presents extraordinary circumstances 

warranting mandamus relief. As we explained in Jones I, he could have taken an appeal 

from Judge Yohn’s rulings refusing to unseal Morgan’s sentencing hearing transcript. 

Such an appeal provided an adequate means for Jones to challenge those rulings and 

potentially obtain the underlying relief that he seeks here — access to the transcript.3

 

Although Jones continues to blame Goldman for failing to file that appeal, that 

ineffectiveness claim was previously raised and rejected, and Jones cannot rely on it to 

obtain relief here. 

In light of the above, we will deny Jones’s mandamus petition.

 3 In making this statement, we in no way decide the merits of that challenge.