Court Opinion

ID: 9391509
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-05-02 16:00:42.962354+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:18:43.440350
License: Public Domain

USCA11 Case: 22-10016    Document: 36-1      Date Filed: 05/02/2023   Page: 1 of 10

                                                   [DO NOT PUBLISH]
                                    In the
                 United States Court of Appeals
                         For the Eleventh Circuit

                           ____________________

                                 No. 22-10016
                           Non-Argument Calendar
                           ____________________

        DARIUS TAUREAN CALDWELL,
                                                     Petitioner-Appellant,
        versus
        UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

                                                   Respondent-Appellee.

                           ____________________

                  Appeal from the United States District Court
                     for the Northern District of Georgia
                     D.C. Docket No. 1:21-cv-02884-MHC
                           ____________________
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        2                      Opinion of the Court                 22-10016

        Before WILSON, NEWSOM, and BRANCH, Circuit Judges.
        PER CURIAM:
                In April 2018, a jury convicted Darius Taurean Caldwell on
        multiple counts stemming from an armed bank robbery. The dis-
        trict court sentenced him to a total of 384 months and one day of
        imprisonment. This court aﬃrmed Caldwell’s conviction and sen-
        tence in June 2020, see United States v. Caldwell, 963 F.3d 1067 (11th
        Cir. 2020), and the Supreme Court denied his petition for a writ of
        certiorari in November 2020, see Caldwell v. United States, No. 20-
        5957, 141 S. Ct. 836 (2020).
               In February 2021, Caldwell ﬁled a pro se 28 U.S.C. § 2255 mo-
        tion, asserting four grounds for relief. In May 2021, following the
        government’s response, Caldwell ﬁled a motion to withdraw that
        motion, which the district court granted. A few weeks later, in
        June, Caldwell submitted a series of motions requesting the ap-
        pointment of counsel and identifying perceived reasons for a sen-
        tence reduction. The district court construed Caldwell’s ﬁrst sub-
        mission in this series as both a request for counsel and a motion to
        vacate his sentence under § 2255 (the “June Motion”). In doing so,
        the court did not provide all the warnings required by Castro v.
        United States, 540 U.S. 375, 383 (2003). The government responded
        in early August, and a month later, the magistrate judge issued a
        Report and Recommendation (R&R), which recommended deny-
        ing Caldwell’s June Motion.
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        22-10016               Opinion of the Court                          3

                In October 2021, prior to the district court ruling on the June
        Motion, Caldwell ﬁled another pro se motion to vacate, set aside, or
        correct his sentence under § 2255 (the “October Motion”). The dis-
        trict court ordered the government to respond.
               Then, in November 2021, the district court adopted the mag-
        istrate judge’s R&R and denied Caldwell’s June Motion. Subse-
        quently, the government moved to dismiss the October Motion as
        an impermissible second or successive motion under 28 U.S.C.
        § 2255(h).
                In December 2021, Caldwell ﬁled a motion for a certiﬁcate
        of appealability for the denial of his June Motion. In March 2022,
        after clearing up jurisdictional concerns, this court granted the cer-
        tiﬁcate on the following issue:
               Whether the district court erred by recharacterizing
               Mr. Caldwell’s ﬁrst motion for appointment of coun-
               sel as a 28 U.S.C. § 2255 motion to vacate, without
               considering Mr. Caldwell’s intentions, and when it did
               not give any warning under Castro v. United States, 540
               U.S. 375 (2003), and whether the court erred by not
               treating Mr. Caldwell’s October 2021 § 2255 motion
               as either an amendment to the construed § 2255 mo-
               tion or as the new operative pleading?

        Caldwell v. United States, No. 22-10016-E, Order at 2–3 (11th Cir. June
        7, 2022). This court subsequently appointed the Federal Public De-
        fender for the Northern District of Georgia to represent Mr. Cald-
        well. Caldwell v. United States, No. 22-10016E, Order (11th Cir. Sept.
        1, 2022).
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        4                         Opinion of the Court                     22-10016

               Importantly, both Caldwell’s October § 2255 motion and the
        government’s responsive motion to dismiss remain pending before
        the district court.
                                              I.
               “On an appeal of a § 2255 motion to vacate, we review legal
        issues de novo and factual ﬁndings for clear error.” McKathan v.
        United States, 969 F.3d 1213, 1222 (11th Cir. 2020).
                “Federal courts have long recognized that they have an obli-
        gation to look behind the label of a motion ﬁled by a pro se inmate
        and determine whether the motion is, in eﬀect, cognizable under a
        diﬀerent remedial statutory framework.” Gooden v. United States,
        627 F.3d 846, 847 (11th Cir. 2010) (quoting United States v. Jordan,
        915 F.2d 622, 624–25 (11th Cir. 1990)). Courts may ultimately de-
        cide to recharacterize a pro se ﬁling “in order to avoid an unneces-
        sary dismissal, to avoid inappropriately stringent application of for-
        mal labeling requirements, or to create a better correspondence be-
        tween the substance of a pro se motion's claim and its underlying
        legal basis.” Castro, 540 U.S. at 381–82 (citations omitted). Recog-
        nizing the potential adverse consequences that may result from a
        district court taking the exceptional step of sua sponte recharacter-
        izing a pro se motion into a § 2255 motion, 1 the Supreme Court

        1 28 U.S.C. § 2255(h) places heightened restrictions on “second or successive”
        motions brought under the section. In particular, a litigant must have an ap-
        pellate court certify that the new motion contains newly discovered evidence
        “sufficient to establish by clear and convincing evidence that no reasonable
        factfinder would have found the movant guilty of the offense” or “a new rule
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        22-10016                 Opinion of the Court                             5

        fashioned what this court has described as a “categorical and man-
        datory” rule “not subject to exception.” Figuereo-Sanchez v. United
        States, 678 F.3d 1203, 1206 (11th Cir. 2012). The Supreme Court
        held that when a district court recharacterizes a pro se motion as a
        ﬁrst § 2255 motion, the district court must provide three warn-
        ings—what have become known as the “Castro warnings.” See Cas-
        tro, 540 U.S. at 383. More speciﬁcally, the district court must 1) “no-
        tify the pro se litigant that it intends to recharacterize the pleading,”
        2) “warn the litigant that this recharacterization means that any
        subsequent § 2255 motion will be subject to the restrictions on ‘sec-
        ond or successive’ motions,” and 3) “provide the litigant an oppor-
        tunity to withdraw the motion or to amend it so that it contains all
        the § 2255 claims he believes he has.” Id. If a district court fails to
        provide a pro se litigant with these warnings, then that litigant’s
        “motion cannot be considered to have become a § 2255 motion for
        purposes of applying to later motions the law's ‘second or succes-
        sive’ restrictions.” Id. That is, as a result of the district court’s fail-
        ure to provide the warnings after the ﬁrst § 2255 motion, the next
        § 2255 motion cannot be considered second or successive.

        of constitutional law, made retroactive to cases on collateral review by the
        Supreme Court, that was previously unavailable.”
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        6                          Opinion of the Court                        22-10016

                                               II.
             The parties agree that the district court failed to provide
        Caldwell with the requisite warnings when it characterized his June
        Motion as a § 2255 motion. We join them in that agreement.2
               The parties disagree, however, on the appropriate remedy.
        For his part, Caldwell notes that Castro dealt with an appeal from
        the denial of a § 2255 motion as second or successive. In cases like

        2 Because we agree that the requisite Castro warnings were not given, and be-
        cause of the remedy provided in the discussion below, we need not address
        whether it was proper to construe the June Motion as a § 2255 motion in the
        first instance.
                In addition, Caldwell argues that the district court abused its discretion
        by not sua sponte construing his October Motion as an amendment to his June
        Motion. However, Caldwell’s two motions raised very different issues. As
        the magistrate judge noted, Caldwell’s June Motion—in combination with his
        other motions in the “series” noted above—argued that 1) his convictions for
        armed bank robbery are not crimes of violence under 18 U.S.C. § 924(c); 2) his
        crimes are akin to a Hobbs Act Robbery and are therefore not qualifying of-
        fenses under the relevant criminal statutes; 3) U.S.S.G. § 4b1.2 is constitution-
        ally vague; and 4) there is an unjustifiable disparity between his sentence and
        similarly situated defendants today. In contrast, Caldwell’s October Motion
        argued that 1) his counsel was ineffective; 2) the government failed to show
        he was in possession of a firearm; 3) testimony at trial regarding an incriminat-
        ing piece of evidence was false or misleading; 4) evidence clearly showed he
        was not the bank robber; and 5) he was actually innocent. While we may have
        treated the October Motion differently, given the stark differences between
        the two pleadings, and given Caldwell filed his October Motion more than
        two months after the government responded to his June Motion, we cannot
        say the district court abused its discretion by not sua sponte recharacterizing
        the October Motion as a motion to amend.
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        22-10016                  Opinion of the Court                               7

        that, where a court fails to give Castro warnings for the ﬁrst motion
        and subsequently denies the second motion for being second or
        successive, the remedy is clear: the court must consider the second
        motion unburdened by § 2255(h)’s restrictions. Caldwell argues
        that his case is distinguishable. Here, Caldwell is appealing from
        the denial of his initial § 2255 motion, while his second motion is
        still pending. Caldwell points out that we do not have any pub-
        lished caselaw addressing this situation and contends that in cir-
        cumstances such as these, we should reverse or vacate the district
        court’s order regarding the initial June Motion and remand with
        instructions to allow him to raise all the § 2255 claims he possesses.
        In the alternative, we should remand with instructions to consider
        his timely and pending October Motion and permit him to add any
        other claims he has.
               Unsurprisingly, the government takes a diﬀerent position.
        The government argues that our precedent conﬁnes what we may
        do, and that the only option is to aﬃrm the district court’s decision
        regarding Caldwell’s June Motion and remand with instructions to
        treat his October Motion as the operative pleading. And while the
        government supports the proposition of permitting Caldwell to
        supplement his October Motion in order to strengthen his current
        claims, it rejects the notion that he should be able to add claims,
        since doing so would subvert § 2255’s time restrictions.3

        3 28 U.S.C. § 2255(f) places a one-year period of limitation on motions brought
        under § 2255. Relevant here, Caldwell’s claims would likely have to be
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        8                        Opinion of the Court                    22-10016

                We agree with the government. Castro’s directive is quite
        clear. When a district court fails to give a pro se litigant the required
        warnings, “the motion cannot be considered to have become a
        § 2255 motion for purposes of applying to later motions the law’s
        ‘second or successive’ restrictions.” Castro, 540 U.S. at 383. Castro
        goes no further than that, and neither do we. So here, because the
        district court failed to provide Caldwell the required warnings for
        his initial June Motion, that motion cannot be used as a basis for
        ﬁnding his October Motion to be second or successive.
               Caldwell raises two concerns. First, he argues that under
        this rule, pro se litigants who appeal a decision regarding their initial
        § 2255 motion will ﬁnd a second motion barred by § 2255(f )’s one-
        year period of limitation by time we issue a decision regarding Cas-
        tro’s application. Second, he argues that this rule does not ade-
        quately account for the prophylactic requirements set forth in Cas-
        tro. Castro made these warnings mandatory because of their im-
        portance in informing litigants of what steps they should take after
        a court makes a § 2255 recharacterization. See id. at 384. The ap-
        propriate remedy, then, is to put the litigants in the same place they
        would have been had the error not occurred and had they received
        the Castro warnings in the ﬁrst instance.
              As to Caldwell’s ﬁrst point, this case does not require us to
        address a scenario in which a litigant’s appeal of his initial § 2255
        motion is pending when § 2255(f )’s time limitation creates a

        brought within one year from “the date on which [his] judgment of conviction
        [became] final.” Id. § 2255(f)(1).
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        22-10016               Opinion of the Court                        9

        barrier. Here, Caldwell timely ﬁled his October Motion. Because
        we need not address it, we decline to. As to Caldwell’s second
        point, Castro recognized the prophylactic and mandatory nature of
        the warnings it created. Yet, Castro already prescribed the limited
        remedy for a violation of its “categorical and mandatory” rule to
        provide those warnings, Figuereo-Sanchez, 678 F.3d at 1206, and that
        remedy is simply to not consider an initial § 2255 motion as a basis
        for ﬁnding a later one second or successive, Castro, 540 U.S. at 383.
        And it is precisely that remedy that we order today. The district
        court may not consider Caldwell’s October Motion second and suc-
        cessive, and must instead consider it as his timely, operative plead-
        ing.
                Still, Caldwell argues that he should be permitted to amend
        his October Motion with all the claims he possesses. However, this
        would go beyond the limited remedy created in Castro and would
        permit Caldwell to bring claims well after § 2255(f )’s one-year time
        limit. In fact, such a remedy makes even less sense here where
        Caldwell appears to have thoroughly considered the claims that he
        wished to bring in his October Motion, which he deliberately fash-
        ioned as a § 2255 motion. We therefore decline to open the gates
        to any and all additional claims not already brought in Caldwell’s
        October Motion. However, we note that Caldwell may add new
        claims if they “relate back” to the date of his October Motion, Dav-
        enport v. United States, 217 F.3d 1341, 1344 (11th Cir. 2000), and a
        district court “should freely give leave [to amend with such claims]
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        10                         Opinion of the Court                        22-10016

        when justice so requires,” Fed. R. Civ. P. 15(a)(2). 4 Therefore, while
        Caldwell must be permitted to supplement his October Motion to
        strengthen his existing claims and should generally be permitted to
        amend with any claims that properly relate back to that October
        Motion, he is not free to add any claims whatsoever.
                                              III.
                The district court’s order regarding Caldwell’s June Motion
        is therefore aﬃrmed. The district court is ordered to treat Cald-
        well’s timely October Motion as the operative pleading; permit
        Caldwell to supplement that motion in order to strengthen his ex-
        isting claims; and, consistent with Federal Rule of Civil Procedure
        15, consider any claims that properly relate back to Caldwell’s Oc-
        tober Motion.
                AFFIRMED and SO ORDERED.

        4 Typically, under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 15(c)(1), a claim relates back
        if it arises “out of the conduct, transaction, or occurrence set out--or attempted
        to be set out--in the original pleading.” However, in the § 2255 context, for an
        otherwise untimely claim to relate back, it “must have more in common with
        the timely filed claim than the mere fact that they arose out of the same trial
        or sentencing proceeding.” Farris v. United States, 333 F.3d 1211, 1215 (11th
        Cir. 2003). “The untimely claim must have arisen from the ‘same set of facts’
        as the timely filed claim, not from separate conduct or a separate occurrence
        in ‘both time and type.’” Id. (quoting Davenport v. United States, 217 F.3d 1341,
        1344 (11th Cir. 2000)).