Opinion ID: 2994915
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: The (Un)availability of 28 U.S.C. sec.

Text: 2241 Montenegro next argues that the district court erred in failing to consider whether his motion could be characterized as a motion under 28 U.S.C. sec. 2241. He argues that if sec. 2255 is an ineffective remedy, the savings clause of that provision allows a prisoner to seek relief under sec. 2241. We first note that this is the wrong forum for such an argument: one seeking a writ of habeas corpus must name his custodian as the respondent, and Montenegro cannot do that in this case because--as far as we can tell--he is incarcerated in Sandstone, Minnesota, not the Eastern District of Wisconsin. Second, even if this were the proper time and place, Montenegro’s argument is misplaced. Failure to comply with the requirements of the sec. 2255 statute of limitations is not what Congress meant when it spoke of the remedies being inadequate or ineffective to test the legality of his detention. 28 U.S.C. sec. 2255. The savings clause is not intended to save prisoners from the statutory restrictions delineated by Congress. Montenegro relies heavily on In re Davenport (a case distinct from the Davenport case earlier cited) in which we decided, inter alia, the issue whether a federal prisoner can ever rely on 28 U.S.C. sec. 2241 to escape the bar that the AEDPA places on successive motions under 28 U.S.C. sec. 2255. 147 F.3d 605 (7th Cir. 1998). Davenport illustrates precisely why Montenegro’s case is not one that would warrant recourse to sec. 2241. In Davenport, a prisoner was convicted of the use of a firearm in the commission of a drug offense in violation of 18 U.S.C. sec. 924(c). We affirmed the conviction, and later affirmed a denial of his sec. 2255 motion complaining of ineffective assistance of counsel. See Nichols v. United States, 28 F.3d 1216, 1994 WL 328296 (7th Cir. 1994) (mem.). Afterwards, the Supreme Court held in Bailey v. United States that use in the statute under which Nichols was convicted did not include mere possession. 516 U.S. 137 (1995). At the time Nichols brought his direct and sec. 2255 appeals, the law in this circuit was firmly settled that use did indeed constitute possession for the purpose of sec. 924(c). See Davenport, 147 F.3d at 610. Nichols could not use sec. 2255 to challenge his conviction on a successive motion, because Bailey did not change the law--it merely clarified it. Thus, he could not fit within one of the two requirements for successive appeals under sec. 2255./3 We concluded that [a] federal prisoner should be permitted to seek habeas corpus only if he had no reasonable opportunity to obtain earlier judicial correction of a fundamental defect in his conviction or sentence because the law changed after his first 2255 motion. 147 F.3d at 611. Even if Montenegro were complaining about a fundamental defect in his conviction or sentence, he has not been denied the opportunity to challenge it because of sec. 2255’s defects or because of some change in the law following his conviction. That section gave Montenegro ample opportunity to challenge his conviction; it is through his own lack of diligence that he failed to take advantage of that opportunity. It is simple: Montenegro missed a statutory deadline, and his claim could have been heard on direct appeal. Davenport’s safety net is not intended for defendants who make procedural mistakes.