Source: https://case-law.vlex.com/vid/124-f-3d-361-594895018
Timestamp: 2020-06-01 15:30:33
Document Index: 65550265

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 924', '§ 846', '§ 924', '§ 924', '§ 924', '§ 2255', '§ 2255', '§ 2255', '§ 2241']

124 F.3d 361 (2nd Cir. 1997), 1270, Triestman v. United States - Federal Cases - Case Law - VLEX 594895018
Docket Nº: 1270, Docket 96-2563.
Party Name: Ben Gary TRIESTMAN, Petitioner-Appellant, v. UNITED STATES of America, Respondent-Appellee.
124 F.3d 361 (2nd Cir. 1997)
Ben Gary TRIESTMAN, Petitioner-Appellant,
Before: CALABRESI and PARKER, Circuit Judges, and POLLAK, [*] District Judge.
In February 1992, the New York state police arrested Lawrence Tutt in Auburn, New York. Tutt, who was carrying the hallucinogenic drugs LSD and MDMA (known on the street as "Ecstasy"), agreed to cooperate with the police and identified Petitioner Ben Gary Triestman as his Ecstasy supplier. On April 21, 1992, acting on this information, the state police placed Triestman under arrest and executed search warrants at his residence and at his rural drug lab. Triestman was indicted and charged with two counts of narcotics conspiracy, five counts of substantive drug offenses, and four counts of using and carrying a firearm in connection with a drug trafficking offense, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 924(c). 1
Triestman subsequently entered into a plea agreement with the government that required him to plead guilty to two counts of drug conspiracy in violation of 21 U.S.C. §§ 846 and 861, and one count of violating § 924(c). The plea agreement specified the conduct giving rise to the § 924(c) violation: "on April 21, 1992, the defendant possessed a
firearm ... in part, for the purpose of protecting himself and [his co-defendant] Anya Scheckley at the MDMA laboratory site as they were manufacturing the drug."
Triestman, still acting pro se, filed a supplemental brief in the Supreme Court addressing the effect of Bailey on his petition for certiorari. The United States filed a brief opposing certiorari. In that brief, the government argued that, even if Triestman was no longer guilty of "using" a firearm, he had pleaded guilty to all of the elements of "carrying" a firearm, such that his § 924(c) conviction remained valid. The Supreme Court denied certiorari without comment on April 22, 1996. See Triestman v. United
States, --- U.S. ----, 116 S.Ct. 1547, 134 L.Ed.2d 650 (1996). 2
A second or successive motion must be certified as provided in section 2244[ 3] by a panel of the appropriate court of appeals to contain--
Nine days after the AEDPA went into effect, Triestman filed another § 2255 motion in the district court, raising his Bailey argument (which had previously been made only in his supplemental pro se certiorari brief). 4 When he later learned of the requirement that his second or successive § 2255 petition had to be certified by the court of appeals before it could proceed in the district court,
Triestman sent a letter to this court requesting certification.
On August 16, 1996, we responded to that letter by issuing an order in which we found that Triestman's Bailey claim did not appear to rely on the existence of newly discovered evidence or a new rule of constitutional law, and therefore did not seem to meet the literal requirements of § 2255. We noted, however, that the possibility that an actually innocent person--who could not have effectively raised his claim of innocence at an earlier time--might be held without recourse to the judicial system could raise serious constitutional questions. We further noted that Triestman's claim of innocence under Bailey might be cognizable in a petition for a writ of habeas corpus pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2241(c)(3),...