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

Heading: the panel opinion strays from our circuit

Text: PRECEDENT. The panel’s decision to deny Mr. Tribue relief also deviates from two lines of Eleventh Circuit precedent. The first is a group of cases that holds the 10 Case: 18-10579 Date Filed: 05/14/2020 Page: 11 of 23 government to its submissions at sentencing when examining an ACCA sentence retroactively. The second is Beeman, which sets forth a two-step inquiry governing all § 2255 petitions for Johnson relief.
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
Under Beeman, a Johnson petitioner must make two showings before he can receive collateral relief. First, he must show that his original ACCA sentence was imposed based solely on the residual clause. Beeman, 871 F.3d at 1221. Second, he must show he did not have at least three other prior convictions that could have qualified as a serious drug offense, or as a violent felony under either the enumerated clause or elements clause. Id. In Mr. Tribue’s case, the panel never asks the step one question and heads straight to step two. Tribue, 929 F.3d at 1331. I acknowledge that Beeman uses the word “and” between steps one and 2 I note that the Fourth Circuit has also read the line of cases I’ve discussed here to prevent the government from justifying an old ACCA sentence in new ways. See Hodge, 902 F.3d at 430–31 (discussing Bryant and Petite); see also id. at 429 (citing Canty, 570 F.3d at 1256). 15 Case: 18-10579 Date Filed: 05/14/2020 Page: 16 of 23 two, indicating a defendant must pass both. I also acknowledge that I have expressed my disagreement with Beeman’s test. See Beeman v. United States, 899 F.3d 1218, 1226–29 (11th Cir. 2018) (Martin, J., dissenting from the denial of rehearing en banc); see also Beeman, 871 F.3d at 1228–30 (Williams, J., dissenting). But this is not about that. My difference with the panel is this: I say that in order to read Beeman as a cohesive statement of the law, the “prior convictions” considered at step two must be limited to those that were considered by the sentencing court at the time it imposed the sentence. In contrast, the Tribue panel opinion interprets Beeman to allow any conviction that was listed in the PSR to be resurrected on habeas review so as to keep the harsher ACCA sentence in place. In practical application, the panel opinion’s reading of Beeman reaps absurd results and strays from this Court’s previous interpretation of Johnson. In doing so, it denies Mr. Tribue and others like him the habeas relief they deserve. Under the panel opinion’s interpretation of Beeman, the district court may in all cases skip the question of whether the defendant was sentenced under the residual clause. No matter the record at sentencing, a court reviewing a sentence in the collateral context may ask only whether the defendant had other prior offenses that could have supported that same sentence. The first problem with this approach is that it treats similarly defendants who are, for relevant purposes, not alike. For example, Mr. Tribue’s is the rare case in which a defendant can show 16 Case: 18-10579 Date Filed: 05/14/2020 Page: 17 of 23 that his ACCA sentence could only have been imposed by relying on the residual clause. See Br. of Appellee at 11. It is clear then, to me, that he is deserving of relief because he was “sentenced solely per the residual clause.” See Beeman, 871 F.3d at 1224 n.5. But the panel opinion ignores this reality by asking whether any other facts exist that could have supported his sentence. In other words, the panel opinion treats Mr. Tribue identically to a defendant whose ACCA sentence was imposed without regard to any particular prior offenses.3 This outcome does not strike me as logical or fair. In addition, we know the panel opinion’s decision to skip straight to step two strays from Beeman’s heavy focus on the habeas court’s search for the “historical fact.” See 871 F.3d at 1224 n.5. Specifically, the Beeman Court said habeas courts must ask whether the defendant was “sentenced solely per the residual clause.” Id. Again, the panel opinion ignores this crucial question. Beeman also refers to a § 2255 movant losing on his petition because of a “silent record.” Id. at 1224–25 & nn.4, 5. I have always understood this to mean, on the one hand, that if a § 2255 petitioner is penalized for a silent record, then, on the other hand, someone like Mr. Tribue (who can show how his sentence was a product of the residual clause) would fare better. Not so under the ruling of the Tribue panel. 3 Worse, the panel opinion’s approach would deny relief even to a defendant who was told by the sentencing court, “I am sentencing you based solely on the residual clause.” 17 Case: 18-10579 Date Filed: 05/14/2020 Page: 18 of 23 The panel opinion’s approach to Beeman means step one can only be used when it disqualifies someone like Mr. Tribue from getting relief but not when it qualifies him for relief. This approach is not in keeping with Beeman, which requires that we look to what happened at sentencing. Our review was meant to be limited to what the sentencing court considered at the time it imposed sentence.