Opinion ID: 6499343
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Successive Habeas Petition

Text: The first question on appeal is whether, in a habeas case, a motion for relief pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 60(b) is subject to the additional restrictions that apply to “second or successive” habeas corpus petitions under the provisions of the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (“AEDPA”). See 28 U.S.C. § 2244(b). A prisoner “claiming the right to be released upon the ground that the sentence was imposed in violation of the Constitution or laws of the United States, or that the court was without jurisdiction to impose such sentence, or that the sentence was in excess of the maximum authorized by law, or is otherwise subject to collateral attack,” may move to vacate, set aside, or correct their sentence. 28 U.S.C. § 2255(a). “A 1- year period of limitation shall apply to a motion under this section,” running “from the latest of … the date on which the judgment of conviction becomes final” or “the date on which the right asserted was initially recognized by the Supreme Court, if that right has been newly recognized by the Supreme Court and made retroactively applicable to cases on collateral review.” Id. at § 2255(f)(1), (f)(3). Notably, as relevant here, any “second or successive motion must be certified as provided in section 2244 by a panel of the appropriate court of appeals to contain … a new rule of constitutional law, made retroactive to cases on collateral review by the Supreme Court, that was previously unavailable.” Id. at § 2255(h). Absent certification to file a successive habeas petition, a district 8 No. 20-3082 court must dismiss an unauthorized successive § 2255 petition for lack of subject matter jurisdiction. See Adams, 911 F.3d at 403. Blitch’s motion to reopen the judgment pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 60(b)(6) states that “since the [resolution] of the movant’s § 2255 proceeding, the United States, on January 25th, 2019 has conceded that in light of Mathis v. United States … a conviction under Illinois statute 720 ILCS 570/40[2] does not qualify for enhancement pursuant to 21 U.S.C. § 851 as its definition of cocaine was overbroad because it includes ‘positional’ isomers, whereas § 802(44) does not.” In ruling on the 60(b) motion, the district court found Blitch’s Rule 60(b) motion was actually a second § 2255 petition and dismissed it on jurisdictional grounds. Supreme Court caselaw indicates that a petitioner’s motion to reconsider the denial of his or her first federal habeas petition “on the basis of the merits of the underlying decision can be regarded as a second or successive application.” Calderon v. Thompson, 523 U.S. 538, 553 (1998). Thus, “a Rule 60(b) motion that seeks to revisit the federal court’s denial on the merits of a claim for relief should be treated as a successive habeas petition”—but a Rule 60(b) motion that attacks “some defect in the integrity of the federal habeas proceedings” should not. Gonzalez, 545 U.S. at 532, 534. The determination whether a motion counts as a successive appeal does not rest on the “characterization” applied to it; instead, we must focus on the actual relief sought. See Calderon, 523 U.S. at 554; Gonzalez, 545 U.S. at 531 (noting that the “substance,” not the “label[]” of the motion is determinative). Whether Blitch’s Rule 60(b) motion challenged the merits or attacked a defect in the integrity of the federal habeas No. 20-3082 9 proceeding is a close call. On one hand, although Blitch’s Rule 60(b) motion raises caselaw absent from his first habeas petition, the two filings advance the same basic claim: The § 841(b) enhancement was improper. See Melton v. United States, 359 F.3d 855, 857 (7th Cir. 2004) (“Prisoners cannot avoid the AEDPA’s rules by inventive captioning. Any motion filed in the district court that imposed the sentence, and substantively within the scope of § 2255 … is a motion under § 2255, no matter what title the prisoner plasters on the cover…. [T]he name makes no difference. It is substance that controls.” (citations and internal quotation marks omitted)). On the other hand, Blitch’s Rule 60(b) motion focuses on a defect of the relevant habeas proceedings: The district court did not acknowledge or rule on the Mathis argument raised in Blitch’s motion to amend his § 2255 petition. When weighing the common ground between the two motions’ claims against the hiccup of not acknowledging the motion to amend, Blitch’s pro se status at the time of filing tips the scales against treating this as a successive § 2255 petition. 2 We construe the motion liberally, see Erickson v. Pardus, 551 U.S. 89, 94 (2007), and as such, we conclude that Blitch asserted the previous § 2255 denial precluded a merits determination, Gonzalez, 545 U.S. at 532 n.4 (noting a movant is not making a habeas corpus claim “when he merely asserts that a 2 We acknowledge that Blitch’s initial habeas petition, motion to amend his habeas petition, and Rule 60(b) filing were all pro se. See Bates v. Jean, 745 F.2d 1146, 1150 (7th Cir. 1984) (“Pro se litigants are commonly required to comply with standards less stringent than those applied to expertly trained members of the legal profession.”); see also Lewis v. Sternes, 390 F.3d 1019, 1025 (7th Cir. 2004) (“As [petitioner] prepared the petition without the assistance of counsel, we owe it a generous interpretation.”). 10 No. 20-3082 previous ruling which precluded a merits determination was in error-for example, a denial for such reasons as failure to exhaust, procedural default, or statute-of-limitations bar”).