Opinion ID: 4528256
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Johnson II challenge to Count 96

Text: The jury convicted Garcia of Count 9, possessing and brandishing a firearm in furtherance of a crime of violence in violation of § 924(c)(1)(A). Count 9 charged that Garcia did knowingly possess firearms and brandish firearms, in furtherance of a crime of violence for which [he] may be prosecuted in a court of the United States, to wit: 18 U.S.C. §1951 and 18 U.S.C. §1959, referencing Aggravated Robbery, in violation of Kan. Stat. Ann. §21-5420(b)(1) (formerly §21-3427). In violation of Title 18, United States Code, 924(c)(1)(A) and Section 2. R., Vol. II at 61-62.7 The district court instructed the jury that to convict Garcia on Count 9, it had to find he “committed the crime of aggravated robbery as charged in count 9 of the indictment, which is a crime of violence.” Supp. R., Vol. 1 at 60 (emphasis added). In his § 2255 motion, Garcia made two arguments regarding Count 9: (1) § 924(c)(1)(A) applies only where the predicate “crime of violence” is one for which 6 Garcia’s request for a COA on this issue also challenges the district court’s application of procedural default to Count 6. Because we have overlooked procedural default on the Count 6 issue and affirmed the denial of relief on the merits, we confine our analysis here to Count 9. 7 Section 1951 is Hobbs Act robbery, and § 1959 is the VICAR (violent crimes in aid of racketeering) statute, which punishes certain types of crimes committed in aid of a racketeering activity, see § 1959(a). The indictment contained no separate counts of either Hobbs Act robbery or Kansas aggravated robbery. 10 a “person may be prosecuted in a court of the United States,” § 924(c)(1)(A), but Kansas aggravated robbery is not prosecutable in federal court; and (2) Kansas aggravated robbery “is not categorically a ‘crime of violence’ within the meaning of § 924(c)(3)(B) per the holding in Johnson [II],” R., Vol. II at 141. The district court addressed only the first of these two arguments, concluding it was procedurally defaulted because Garcia could have raised it at trial or on direct appeal. Id. at 210. In the alternative, the court determined the argument lacked merit. The court did not address the Johnson II component of Garcia’s argument regarding Count 9, yet it treated the entirety of the Count 9 argument as procedurally defaulted and did not provide an alternative merits analysis of the Johnson II challenge. In seeking a COA on this issue, Garcia contests only the district court’s application of procedural bar to the Johnson II part of this issue, faulting the district court for not actually examining whether that part was procedurally barred. He claims that if the court had applied Johnson II, it would have found that aggravated robbery under Kan. Stat. Ann. § 5420(b)(1) “is not a crime of violence under 18 U.S.C. § 924(c) after Johnson [II].” Aplt. Opening Br. at 7.8 The thrust of Garcia’s appellate argument is that 8 Garcia makes two other arguments based on Count 9’s reference to Hobbs Act robbery and § 1959: “Hobbs Act Robbery is not a crime of violence under . . . § 924(c),” and “a violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1959(4) . . . is also not a ‘crime of violence[’] under . . . § 924(c).” Aplt. Opening Br. at 7. We need not address these arguments because it appears neither Hobbs Act robbery nor § 1959 was the basis for the § 924(c)(1)(A) conviction. As noted, the jury was instructed that to convict Garcia on Count 9, it had to find he committed “aggravated robbery.” Supp. R., Vol. 1 at 60. And at the jury-instruction conference, the government commented that “the violent crime [in Count 9] was plead as an aggravated robbery, a state aggravated robbery.” Id., Vol. 2 at 47 (emphasis added). 11 if § 924(c)(3)’s residual clause is void for vagueness and his conviction for Kansas aggravated robbery is not a crime of violence under § 924(c)(3)’s elements clause, then his Count 9 conviction was based on an act that is not a crime of violence within the meaning of § 924(c)(1)(A). Because Davis has now confirmed that § 924(c)(3)’s residual clause is unconstitutionally vague, we can restate Garcia’s argument as follows: His Count 9 conviction is valid only if, at the time he was convicted, Kansas aggravated robbery was a crime of violence under § 924(c)(3)’s elements clause. We think reasonable jurists could debate whether the district court’s procedural ruling was wrong and whether Garcia has a facially valid claim of the denial of a constitutional right. We therefore grant a COA on this issue and undertake full consideration of whether Garcia can overcome procedural default of the Johnson II part of his Count 9 claim.
“Where a defendant has procedurally defaulted a claim by failing to raise it on direct review, the claim may be raised in habeas only if the defendant can first demonstrate either cause and actual prejudice, or that he is actually innocent.” United States v. Challoner, 583 F.3d 745, 749 (10th Cir. 2009) (internal quotation marks omitted). We address cause and prejudice in turn, and because we conclude there is cause and prejudice here, we need not consider actual innocence.
Cause excusing procedural default exists where a claim “is so novel that its legal basis was not reasonably available to counsel at the time of the direct appeal.” United 12 States v. Snyder, 871 F.3d 1122, 1127 (10th Cir. 2017) (brackets and internal quotation marks omitted)). And we have said that a Johnson II claim regarding ACCA’s residual clause is such a claim. Id. As Garcia points out, Johnson II was decided only eighteen days before this court issued its decision in his direct appeal. He could have filed a notice of supplemental authority in his direct appeal, but that would have required broaching a whole new issue that he did not first present to the district court, and it was then questionable whether Johnson II’s holding that ACCA’s residual clause was unconstitutionally vague extended to other similar residual clauses. Based on the timing here, it would be unfair to conclude Garcia should have raised his Johnson II issue regarding Count 9 as part of his direct appeal, let alone at trial. Our conclusion is buttressed by the fact that the source of the constitutional principle relevant to § 924(c)(3)’s residual clause is not found in Johnson II but in Davis, see 139 S. Ct. at 2336 (holding that § 924(c)(3)’s residual clause, “§ 924(c)(3)(B)[,] is unconstitutionally vague”), which was decided well after Garcia’s direct appeal was final. Indeed, given that it is Davis that cements the viability of Garcia’s legal theory, which we earlier endorsed in Salas, there is cause to excuse Garcia from not raising this claim at trial or on direct appeal. We find unpersuasive the government’s argument that this is just a Johnson I claim Garcia could have raised at trial or on direct appeal. As Garcia points out, this claim relies not only on Johnson I but on an extension of Johnson II to § 924(c)(3)(B), because to obtain relief, he must show that the predicate crime for the Count 9 conviction does not qualify as a crime of violence under § 924(c)(3)’s elements clause or its residual 13 clause. Absent Johnson II, and now Davis, a Johnson I argument on direct appeal would have failed to show that the predicate crime did not qualify under the residual clause, which was then a novel legal theory.
We also conclude Garcia would be prejudiced if procedural default bars him from raising his Count 9 issue in his § 2255 motion. Prejudice exists where the alleged error is one “of constitutional dimensions that worked to [a defendant’s] actual and substantial disadvantage.” Snyder, 871 F.3d at 1128 (internal quotation marks omitted). If Garcia is correct that Kansas aggravated robbery was not a crime of violence within § 924(c)(3)’s elements clause at the time of his conviction, and given that Davis’s holding (that § 924(c)(3)’s residual clause is unconstitutional) is retroactively applicable to cases on collateral review per Bowen, 936 F.3d at 1100, then Garcia’s Count 9 conviction was “not authorized by law,” which “is certainly an actual and substantial disadvantage of constitutional dimensions,” Snyder, 871 F.3d at 1128 (internal quotation marks omitted). The assumption in the preceding sentence—that Kansas aggravated robbery was not a crime of violence within the elements clause at the time Garcia was convicted— implicates a number of cases decided during the pendency of this appeal or not addressed in the district court. And testing the truth of the assumption is intertwined with a merits analysis. In the district court, neither the government nor the court addressed the merits of this issue, and the government does not address them on appeal. Rather than seek additional briefing from the parties and decide this issue in the first instance ourselves, we think the better course is to remand to the district court for full development and 14 consideration of the issue, including, if necessary, additional briefing from the parties on how (if at all) the recent developments in the law bear on the issue. Those recent developments include, without limitation, the Supreme Court’s decisions in Davis and Stokeling v. United States, 139 S. Ct. 544 (2019), and a number of our decisions, including, but not limited to, Bowen, United States v. Driscoll, 892 F.3d 1127, 1135 (10th Cir. 2018) (explaining that at the merits stage of a first § 2255 motion, a movant “must prove that the sentencing court, more likely than not, relied on the residual clause”), and United States v. Bong, 913 F.3d 1252, 1259-60 (10th Cir. 2019) (holding that “Kansas convictions for robbery and aggravated robbery do not constitute ‘violent felonies’ for purposes of the ACCA”).