UNPUBLISHED

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT

No. 16-7759

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

Plaintiff - Appellee,

v.

AMAAD JAMAAL BRANTLEY,

Defendant - Appellant.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, at 

Norfolk. Raymond A. Jackson, District Judge. (2:11-cr-00058-RAJ-FBS-5; 2:16-cv00383-RAJ)

Submitted: May 27, 2021 Decided: July 28, 2021

Before DIAZ, RICHARDSON, and RUSHING, Circuit Judges.

Vacated and remanded by unpublished per curiam opinion.

Frances H. Pratt, Assistant Federal Public Defender, OFFICE OF THE FEDERAL 

PUBLIC DEFENDER, Alexandria, Virginia, for Appellant. Aidan Taft Grano, Assistant 

United States Attorney, OFFICE OF THE UNITED STATES ATTORNEY, Alexandria, 

Virginia, for Appellee.

Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.
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PER CURIAM:

Amaad Jamaal Brantley appeals the district court’s order denying his 28 U.S.C. 

§ 2255 motion. Brantley pleaded guilty, pursuant to a written plea agreement, to a RICO 

offense, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1962(c), and possession of a firearm during and in 

relation to a crime of violence, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 924(c)(1)(A). The predicate for 

the § 924(c) offense was assault with a dangerous weapon in aid of racketeering activity, 

which, in turn, was predicated on two Virginia state offenses. He received a total sentence 

of 144 months’ imprisonment. The district court denied Brantley’s § 2255 motion as 

untimely. 

On appeal, we granted a certificate of appealability on the following issues: 

(1) whether, in light of United States v. Davis, 139 S. Ct. 2319 (2019), the district court 

erred in dismissing Brantley’s § 2255 motion as untimely; and (2) whether Brantley’s 

§ 924(c) conviction is invalid because the Virginia state offenses upon which the 

conviction was based do not qualify as predicates under § 924(c)’s force clause. The 

Government now withdraws its timeliness defense to Brantley’s § 2255 motion but 

nevertheless suggests that we may affirm Brantley’s § 924(c) conviction because it remains 

lawful after Davis. Brantley moves to remand this case to the district court to consider the 

merits of his claims in the first instance.

When the district court considered Brantley’s § 2255 motion, it did not have the 

benefit of our recent decision in In re Thomas, 988 F.3d 783 (4th Cir. 2021). In Thomas, 

we held that “Davis applies retroactively to cases on collateral review.” 988 F.3d at 786. 

We concluded that the Davis rule is substantive because it placed individuals “who had 
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committed a crime . . . that satisfied the [crime of violence] definition in . . . [§ 924(c)’s]

residual clause . . . beyond the government’s power to prosecute,” id. at 789, and noted that 

the Supreme Court made Davis retroactive because the Court “has held that new 

substantive rules of constitutional law generally apply retroactively to cases on collateral 

review.” Id. at 790 (internal quotation marks omitted). The district court determined that 

the § 2255 motion was untimely, therefore the court did not reach the merits of Brantley’s 

§ 2255 motion in the first instance. Because “we are a court of review, not of first view,” 

Lovelace v. Lee, 472 F.3d 174, 203 (4th Cir. 2006) (internal quotation marks omitted), we 

vacate the district court’s order and grant Brantley’s motion to remand to the district court 

for consideration of the § 2255 motion in light of Thomas. We dispense with oral argument 

because the facts and legal contentions are adequately presented in the materials before this 

court and argument would not aid the decisional process.

VACATED AND REMANDED