Court Opinion

ID: 9368507
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-02-04 01:00:30.826013+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:16:08.631303
License: Public Domain

Case: 22-60423         Document: 00516635047             Page: 1      Date Filed: 02/03/2023

              United States Court of Appeals
                   for the Fifth Circuit
                                      ____________                             United States Court of Appeals
                                                                                        Fifth Circuit

                                                                                      FILED
                                       No. 22-60423                             February 3, 2023
                                     Summary Calendar
                                     ____________                                Lyle W. Cayce
                                                                                      Clerk
   Denzil Earl McKathan,

                                                                   Petitioner—Appellant,

                                             versus

   R. Treadway, Acting Warden Yazoo City (Low),

                                                Respondent—Appellee.
                      ______________________________

                      Appeal from the United States District Court
                        for the Southern District of Mississippi
                                USDC No. 3:22-CV-246
                      ______________________________

   Before Wiener, Elrod, and Engelhardt, Circuit Judges.
   Per Curiam: *
          Denzil Earl McKathan, federal prisoner # 09015-003, appeals the
   dismissal, for lack of jurisdiction, of his 28 U.S.C. § 2241 petition challenging
   the legality of his 188-month sentence for possession and receipt of child
   pornography. The district court determined that McKathan could not

          _____________________
          *
              This opinion is not designated for publication. See 5th Cir. R. 47.5.
Case: 22-60423      Document: 00516635047           Page: 2   Date Filed: 02/03/2023

                                     No. 22-60423

   challenge his sentence under § 2241 because he failed to satisfy the “savings
   clause” of 28 U.S.C. § 2255(e).
          A § 2241 petition is the proper procedural vehicle for challenging the
   conditions of a prisoner’s confinement, while a § 2255 motion is the primary
   vehicle for collaterally attacking a federal sentence. Reyes-Requena v. United
   States, 243 F.3d 893, 900-01 (5th Cir. 2001). But a prisoner may challenge
   the basis of his federal custody in a § 2241 petition if he shows that the
   remedy under § 2255 is inadequate or ineffective to test the legality of his
   detention. § 2255(e); Reyes-Requena, 243 F.3d at 901. To make that showing,
   a prisoner must present a claim “(i) that is based on a retroactively applicable
   Supreme Court decision which establishes that [he] may have been convicted
   of a nonexistent offense and (ii) that was foreclosed by circuit law at the time
   when the claim should have been raised in the petitioner’s trial, appeal, or
   first § 2255 motion.” Id. at 904.
          The district court correctly found that McKathan failed to identify a
   retroactively applicable Supreme Court decision establishing his innocence
   or, further, that he could not have brought his arguments at the time he filed
   his initial § 2255 motion. McKathan’s contention that he is not challenging
   his conviction is meritless as his request for release is premised on his
   contention that his conviction and resultant sentence was invalid because of
   an alleged immunity agreement.          That McKathan is challenging his
   conviction rather than just his incarceration is clear by inference: the reason
   he gives for why he should be released is that the conviction was improperly
   obtained. Accordingly, McKathan fails to show that the district court erred
   by dismissing his § 2241 petition for lack of jurisdiction. See Pack v. Yusuff,
   218 F.3d 448, 451-52 (5th Cir. 2000) (“A section 2241 petition that seeks to
   challenge the validity of a federal sentence must either be dismissed or
   construed as a section 2255 motion.”). AFFIRMED.

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