Opinion ID: 2810983
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: introduction

Text: After multiple attempts over the course of fourteen years to attack his federal convictions on various drug and firearm charges, Jeffrey Dan Williams filed a motion in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Oklahoma seeking to withdraw his guilty plea based on newly discovered evidence. Specifically, Mr. Williams submitted affidavits in support of his claim that his guilty plea was involuntarily entered because the law enforcement officers investigating his case planted evidence, gave false testimony, and used threats and intimidation to suborn perjury from other witnesses. After conducting an evidentiary hearing, the district court vacated Mr. Williams’s convictions. It concluded that the officers had perpetrated a fraud on the court and that vacating Mr. Williams’s convictions was necessary to correct the fraud and to prevent a miscarriage of justice. The government appeals, asserting the district court lacked jurisdiction over Mr. Williams’s motion due to his failure to first obtain certification from this court, as required by 28 U.S.C. § 2255, permitting him to file a second or successive petition for habeas corpus relief. Exercising jurisdiction pursuant to 28 U.S.C. §§ 1291 and 2244, we hold that the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (AEDPA) limits the courts’ power to correct fraud on the court and to prevent a miscarriage of justice when the court vacates a conviction in response to a second or successive habeas petition. Although a district court may invoke these powers sua sponte, the district court here acted on Mr. Williams’s motion to withdraw his guilty plea, which is a second or successive 2 petition. We therefore reverse the district court’s order vacating Mr. Williams’s conviction for lack of jurisdiction. But we exercise our discretion to treat Mr. Williams’s appellate brief as a request to file a second or successive motion under 28 U.S.C. § 2255(h), and we grant that request in part.