Opinion ID: 4534345
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: the panel opinion misreads canty, petite, and

Text: BRYANT. Our circuit has three published cases holding that the government may not change its position about which predicate convictions support an ACCA enhancement after the sentence has been imposed. See Bryant v. Warden, FCC Coleman-Medium, 738 F.3d 1253, 1279 (11th Cir. 2013), overruled on other grounds by McCarthan, 851 F.3d 1076 (en banc); Petite, 703 F.3d at 1292 n.2; United States v. Canty, 570 F.3d 1251, 1256–57 (11th Cir. 2009). Nevertheless, the panel opinion deprives Mr. Tribue of the benefits of this precedent by interpreting them so narrowly that they render him no assistance. Our circuit’s caselaw requires both the government and the defendant to object to the sentencing court’s findings of fact and conclusions of law at the initial sentence hearing. Canty, 570 F.3d at 1256–57. When a district court imposes a longer sentence based on specified prior convictions and the government does not object, the government waives its right to later justify that sentence by substituting in another conviction later in the proceedings. Bryant, 738 F.3d at 1279; Petite, 703 F.3d at 1292 n.2. 11 Case: 18-10579 Date Filed: 05/14/2020 Page: 12 of 23 The panel says a number of factors distinguish these cases from Mr. Tribue’s. First, the panel rejects the relevance of Bryant and Canty by saying that “the defendants [in those cases] expressly objected to their ACCA classification at the original sentencing.” Tribue, 929 F.3d at 1333. But again, this assertion creates a false equivalency. The question here is not whether Mr. Tribue waived an argument he should have raised earlier, but rather whether the government should have objected to the District Court’s finding that Tribue’s ACCA sentence was based on the three prior convictions identified in the PSR. Beyond that, the Bryant panel’s waiver ruling had nothing to do with whether Mr. Bryant objected to a particular predicate conviction. Rather, Bryant said “the government waived this . . . issue” when it “never objected to” the district court’s finding at sentencing “that Bryant had at most three qualifying predicate convictions.” Bryant, 738 F.3d at 1279. The government’s failure to object to the district court’s reasons for imposing the ACCA sentence was all that mattered to the Bryant panel’s decision to deny the government’s effort to rely upon a new predicate offense on appeal. See id. And then there is Petite. It said “[t]he government cannot offer for the first time on appeal a new predicate conviction in support of an enhanced ACCA sentence.” 703 F.3d at 1292 n.2. Although this statement would seem to be directly on point with the question in Mr. Tribue’s case, the panel discounts it as 12 Case: 18-10579 Date Filed: 05/14/2020 Page: 13 of 23 “pure dicta.” Tribue, 929 F.3d at 1334 n.10. It was not dicta. Even though the Court affirmed Mr. Petite’s sentence, it still rejected the government’s argument that it could avoid the question at the heart of his case by substituting in a conviction that had not been previously relied upon for his ACCA sentence. See Petite, 703 F.3d at 1292 n.2. As with Bryant and Canty, the panel notes that Mr. Petite “had objected [to his ACCA enhancement] at sentencing and on direct appeal.” Tribue, 929 F.3d at 1334 n.10. But again here, this argument puts a burden upon Mr. Tribue to have objected to proof not offered by the government. Petite does not require this. Third, the panel notes that in Canty the government explicitly disclaimed reliance on additional facts in the PSR, while in Mr. Tribue’s case the government did not do so. Id. at 1333. But as I’ve said, this fact is not relevant to the legal question presented in Mr. Tribue’s case. And more to the point, this fact was also not relevant to the Canty panel’s holding that the government “is entitled to [only one] opportunity to offer evidence and seek rulings from the sentencing court in support of an enhanced sentence.” Canty, 570 F.3d at 1257. The government’s disclaimer of certain facts was relevant only to the remedy offered to Mr. Canty. See id. at 1256–57. Because the government disclaimed the facts, once Mr. Canty’s sentence was vacated, his case was returned to the district court with instructions not to rely on those facts in resentencing him. Id. at 1257. This did 13 Case: 18-10579 Date Filed: 05/14/2020 Page: 14 of 23 nothing to dilute Canty’s broader holding that the government must assert all grounds for an ACCA sentence at the original sentencing. See id. at 1256–57. Finally, the panel says, even if Canty, Petite, and Bryant say what Mr. Tribue and I read them to say, it doesn’t matter because there is a more directly onpoint case that allows us to reject Tribue’s § 2255 petition. The panel points to United States v. Martinez, 606 F.3d 1303 (11th Cir. 2010), which the panel says limited Canty to its facts and established that the government can introduce evidence of new and different predicates on collateral review. Tribue, 929 F.3d at 1333 n.9. However, Martinez was a direct appeal case that had nothing to do with a type of retroactive relief the Supreme Court has instructed us to make available to defendants serving faulty ACCA sentences. See 606 F.3d at 1304. Also, in Martinez, the record did not establish that the government waived reliance on the evidence allowed to be introduced on remand. See id. at 1304–05. But perhaps most importantly for our purposes, Martinez acknowledged that in Canty the government was properly denied a “second bite at the apple” because it had waived reliance on the evidence it subsequently sought to introduce. Id. at 1304–05 (quotation marks omitted); see also United States v. Washington, 714 F.3d 1358, 1362 (11th Cir. 2013) (denying the government the ability to present additional evidence on remand when it was aware of the defendant’s objection during sentencing). In the same way that certain factors motivated this Court to allow 14 Case: 18-10579 Date Filed: 05/14/2020 Page: 15 of 23 introduction of additional evidence in the resentencing of Mr. Martinez, there are “powerful reasons” to hold the government to its waiver at sentencing in this context. See Martinez, 606 F.3d at 1306. Our circuit precedent prevents the government from offering a prior conviction as an ACCA predicate after it failed to do so at the time of the sentence was imposed. The panel’s attempts to distinguish this precedent on their facts— facts that do not relate to our consideration of Mr. Tribue’s legal claim—should not prevent us from remaining clear-eyed in our application of binding circuit law.2