Opinion ID: 4534345
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: the panel opinion removes the government’s

Text: BURDEN OF PROVING ELIGIBILITY FOR ACCA. This Court has long recognized that the government “bears the burden of proving that a sentencing enhancement under the ACCA is warranted.” United States v. Lee, 586 F.3d 859, 866 (11th Cir. 2009). The panel opinion departs from this rule by allowing district courts to rely on prior convictions, not considered by the court at the original sentencing, to keep in place the harsher ACCA sentence when a defendant seeks habeas corpus relief. The burden of the government to show that a person is legally eligible for a harsher sentence under ACCA is fundamental to the integrity of federal sentencing. This is particularly true of people serving ACCA sentences that have been called into question by rulings of the Supreme Court. The government was never required to prove that Mr. Tribue’s 2007 cocaine conviction meets the statutory requirements to justify his sentence under ACCA. Yet now that Mr. Tribue seeks relief from his sentence by way of his § 2255 motion, the panel requires him to prove this 2007 conviction is not a proper basis for ACCA to apply. See Beeman, 871 F.3d at 1221–22. The panel opinion shifting the burden to Mr. Tribue is fundamentally unfair to him and others like him. The Fourth Circuit has recognized as much. That court has ruled that permitting the government to introduce new justifications for an ACCA sentence upon collateral review “unfairly deprive[s] petitioner[s] of an adequate opportunity to respond.” United States v. Hodge, 902 F.3d 420, 429 (4th 7 Case: 18-10579 Date Filed: 05/14/2020 Page: 8 of 23 Cir. 2018) (second alteration in original) (quoting Giordenello v. United States, 357 U.S. 480, 488, 78 S. Ct. 1245, 1251 (1958)). This is so not only because of the improper switch of the burden of proof, but also because the habeas process is a more demanding arena for inmates seeking relief. A defendant who believes a prior conviction was unlawfully designated as an ACCA predicate at sentencing has the right to challenge that decision before the district court and appeal it to our Court. When a challenge is raised in a habeas petition—as it must for prisoners bringing claims under Johnson and related decisions—“the opportunities for review . . . are far more limited,” given the need to secure a certificate of appealability. Id. at 430 (citing 28 U.SC. § 2253(c)(1)). If the government wanted to use Mr. Tribue’s 2007 cocaine conviction to support his ACCA sentence, it should have carried its burden of proving that conviction met the legal requirements at the time he was sentenced. Mr. Tribue should have had the opportunity to challenge the propriety of using the 2007 conviction at the time the sentencing court was calculating his sentence. His due process rights are violated by having the government now spring this new justification for his ACCA sentence upon him in the context of collateral review of his sentence. See id. at 427, 430; see also Dotson v. United States, 949 F.3d 317, 321 (7th Cir. 2020) (“Fair notice underpins due process precisely because it prevents surprise and affords opportunities to respond.”). 8 Case: 18-10579 Date Filed: 05/14/2020 Page: 9 of 23 The panel justifies this impermissible switch in burdens in three ways. None relieve my concerns. First, the panel points out that Mr. Tribue did not dispute the factual existence of his 2007 cocaine conviction at any time during his sentencing proceedings. Tribue, 929 F.3d at 1332. That may be so, but the panel conflates the factual existence of Mr. Tribue’s 2007 cocaine conviction with the question of whether it qualifies as a serious drug offense under ACCA. See McCarthan v. Dir. of Goodwill Indus.-Suncoast, Inc., 851 F.3d 1076, 1120–21 (11th Cir. 2017) (Martin, J., dissenting). These are distinct questions with different burdens. Id. There is simply no justice in faulting Mr. Tribue because he did not raise a fruitless objection to the factual existence of his 2007 cocaine conviction, when this conviction was never raised at his sentencing hearing. Second, the panel says Mr. Tribue’s failure to object to the fleeing and eluding predicate “alone suffices” as a reason to deny him habeas relief. See Tribue, 929 F.3d at 1332. This ignores the development of the law, and the Supreme Court’s direct instruction that inmates should be given retroactive relief under Johnson. At the time Mr. Tribue was sentenced, the state of the law was clear that his 2006 conviction for fleeing and eluding was a valid ACCA predicate. See United States v. Petite, 703 F.3d 1290, 1296, 1300–01 (11th Cir. 2013) (holding that Florida fleeing and eluding qualifies as a violent felony under ACCA’s residual clause), abrogated by Johnson, 135 S. Ct. 2551. Ordinarily, we 9 Case: 18-10579 Date Filed: 05/14/2020 Page: 10 of 23 expect litigants to seek relief from the courts only when they have a good-faith basis for asking the court for it. The panel’s rule now imposes an after-the-fact duty upon federal defendants to make objections on any topic that could someday be the subject of constitutional challenges. In this way, the panel opinion invites the overtaxing of our federal courts, the defense bar, and federal prosecutors. Finally, the panel says its rule is not, in fact, unfair: “If Tribue had no way to anticipate Johnson’s invalidation of the residual clause in the ACCA, and therefore did not object, then the government equally did not either.” Tribue, 929 F.3d at 1332. This statement equates the power of the prosecutor and the prosecuted. Mr. Tribue’s 2007 conviction was available to support his ACCA sentence only if the government met its burden of showing that it was a proper predicate. See Lee, 586 F.3d at 866. Since the government never mentioned the 2007 conviction, Mr. Tribue had no reason to think the government was relying on it. Thus, the panel’s suggestion that its rule disadvantages both parties equally is simply not so. The government gets to keep the longer sentence it always wanted for Mr. Tribue, while he is deprived of a fresh look at the acknowledged constitutional problems with the sentence that was imposed on him in 2013.