Opinion ID: 176339
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Mr. Washington's post-conviction motions

Text: In 1994, Mr. Washington filed his first post-conviction motion, seeking information under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), 5 U.S.C. § 552. In 1996, the district court recharacterized a part of that motion as a habeas petition under 18 U.S.C. § 2255, and then denied it. Mr. Washington did not appeal. In 1997, Mr. Washington filed a § 2255 motion which the district court transferred to this court as a request for authorization to file a second or successive § 2255 motion. This court denied authorization. In 1999, Mr. Washington filed a Rule 60(b)(6) motion for relief from the district court's judgment that recharacterized his FOIA motion. The district court denied the motion. We vacated the district court's decision for lack of jurisdiction to address what we considered to be another second and successive motion, and we denied authorization to file the motion. In 2002, Mr. Washington filed a motion to reduce his sentence based on the sentencing commission's 1994 amendment to the sentencing guidelines, U.S.S.G. § 2D1.1(c)(1), which reduced the highest potential base offense level for drug offenses from 42 to 38. The district court granted the motion and reduced Mr. Washington's base offense level to 38. As a result, after adding the four-level enhancements, Mr. Washington's guideline range became 360 months to life for each of the three counts of conviction. The district court reduced Mr. Washington's sentence to a total of thirty years on each count, to be served concurrently rather than consecutively. In 2003, in Castro v. United States, the Supreme Court held: [W]hen a court recharacterizes a pro se litigant's motion as a first § 2255 motion ... the district court must notify the pro se litigant that it intends to recharacterize the pleading, warn the litigant that this recharacterization means that any subsequent § 2255 motion will be subject to the restrictions on second or successive motions, and provide the litigant an opportunity to withdraw the motion or to amend it so that it contains all the § 2255 claims he believes he has. 540 U.S. 375, 383, 124 S.Ct. 786, 157 L.Ed.2d 778 (2003). Relying on Castro, Mr. Washington renewed his Rule 60(b)(5) motion seeking relief from the district court's judgment that recharacterized his FOIA motion. The district court denied the motion for failure to meet the Rule 60(b)(5) requirements. We reversed and remanded, authorizing Mr. Washington to file an initial § 2255 motion. In doing so, we held that [b]y sua sponte treating his motion as one under § 2255, the [district] court essentially used up [Mr. Washington's] one shot at attacking his convictions and sentence. Washington v. United States, No. 05-335 (10th Cir.2006) (unpublished) (citation and quotation marks omitted) (alterations in original).