Court Opinion

ID: 9372112
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-02-17 21:00:21.622581+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:16:32.884558
License: Public Domain

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                                               PUBLISHED

                               UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
                                   FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT

                                                No. 20-6396

        UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

                     Plaintiff – Appellee,

           v.

        DONZELL ALI MCKINNEY,

                     Defendant – Appellant.

        Appeal from the United States District Court for the Western District of North Carolina, at
        Asheville. Martin K. Reidinger, Chief District Judge. (1:12-cr-00085-MR-WCM-1; 1:16-
        cv-00149-MR)

        Argued: September 13, 2022                                   Decided: February 16, 2023

        Before WILKINSON, Circuit Judge, and MOTZ and KEENAN, Senior Circuit Judges.

        Reversed and remanded by published opinion. Senior Judge Motz wrote the opinion, in
        which Senior Judge Keenan concurred. Judge Wilkinson wrote a dissenting opinion.

        ARGUED: Ann Loraine Hester, FEDERAL DEFENDERS OF WESTERN NORTH
        CAROLINA, INC., Charlotte, North Carolina, for Appellant. Anthony Joseph Enright,
        OFFICE OF THE UNITED STATES ATTORNEY, Charlotte, North Carolina, for
        Appellee. ON BRIEF: Anthony Martinez, Federal Public Defender, FEDERAL
        DEFENDERS OF WESTERN NORTH CAROLINA, INC., Charlotte, North Carolina,
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        for Appellant. R. Andrew Murray, United States Attorney, OFFICE OF THE UNITED
        STATES ATTORNEY, Charlotte, North Carolina, for Appellee.

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        DIANA GRIBBON MOTZ, Senior Circuit Judge:

               In 2012, Donzell Ali McKinney pled guilty to two counts — conspiracy to commit

        Hobbs Act robbery and a violation of 18 U.S.C. § 924(c) for discharging a firearm during

        and in relation to that conspiracy. Under subsequent controlling precedent, McKinney now

        stands convicted of, and imprisoned for, conduct that does not violate § 924(c) and in fact

        is not criminal. Accordingly, he brought this 28 U.S.C. § 2255 motion asking the district

        court to vacate his § 924(c) conviction. The district court refused to do so, and McKinney

        now appeals. For the reasons that follow, we reverse and remand the case to the district

        court with instructions to vacate McKinney’s § 924(c) conviction and for further

        proceedings consistent with this opinion.

                                                    I.

               This case arises from a September 2011 conspiracy to rob a barbecue restaurant in

        Asheville, North Carolina.     At around 2:00 a.m., McKinney and his coconspirator

        approached two women who had left the restaurant. After hitting one woman on the head,

        McKinney ordered them to the ground and started beating on the restaurant’s door. When

        the restaurant manager came to the door, McKinney pointed a gun at the manager,

        demanded he open the door, discharged the gun (wounding no one), and ordered him to

        hand over money in the safe. McKinney and his coconspirator fled with $451.

               In a three-count indictment, the Government charged McKinney with substantive

        Hobbs Act robbery, Hobbs Act conspiracy, and a violation of § 924(c) predicated on

        substantive Hobbs Act robbery. J.A. 6‒9. But a careful review of the record reveals that

        McKinney expressly refused to plead guilty to substantive Hobbs Act robbery and the

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        § 924(c) count predicated on it. S.J.A. 14‒16. Indeed, two plea hearings failed because of

        McKinney’s persistent refusal to plead guilty to those counts. S.J.A. 28‒31.

               The Government then filed a bill of information charging McKinney with Hobbs

        Act conspiracy and a single § 924(c) count with Hobbs Act conspiracy as the sole predicate

        offense. J.A. 18‒20. McKinney agreed to plead guilty to these two counts in the bill of

        information in exchange for the Government’s agreement to dismiss the remaining charges.

        S.J.A. 62. McKinney’s plea agreement, entered in 2012, included a waiver of the right to

        contest his conviction and sentence except on grounds of ineffective assistance of counsel

        or prosecutorial misconduct. The district court sentenced McKinney to 70 months for

        Hobbs Act conspiracy and 120 months for the § 924(c) conviction predicated on Hobbs

        Act conspiracy, to run consecutively. McKinney did not pursue a direct appeal.

               Four years later, in 2016, McKinney filed a § 2255 motion to vacate his § 924(c)

        conviction and sentence. In his motion, he pointed out that Johnson v. United States, 576

        U.S. 591 (2015), had struck down the residual clause of the Armed Career Criminal Act

        (ACCA) as unconstitutionally vague, and Welch v. United States, 578 U.S. 120 (2016),

        held Johnson retroactively applicable on collateral review. McKinney argued that because

        § 924(c)’s residual clause was “functionally indistinguishable” from the ACCA’s residual

        clause, his § 924(c) conviction could not stand. The district court stayed the matter pending

        decisions from the Supreme Court and this court. Three years later, the Supreme Court

        decided United States v. Davis, 139 S. Ct. 2319 (2019), holding that the residual clause of

        § 924(c), too, was unconstitutionally vague. McKinney filed a supplemental motion

        arguing that Davis further compelled vacatur of his § 924(c) conviction.

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               The Government moved to dismiss McKinney’s § 2255 motion, asserting that the

        appeal waiver in his plea agreement and procedural default foreclosed his claim. In January

        2020, the district court granted the Government’s motion to dismiss. Acknowledging that

        McKinney’s § 924(c) conviction was likely invalid, the district court nonetheless found

        that the appeal waiver barred his challenge and that McKinney failed to show cause and

        prejudice or actual innocence to excuse his procedural default. We granted McKinney a

        certificate of appealability on the following issues: (i) whether his § 924(c) conviction is

        invalid in light of Davis; (ii) whether his appeal waiver bars his claim; (iii) whether he has

        demonstrated cause and prejudice to excuse his procedural default; and (iv) whether he has

        demonstrated actual innocence to excuse his procedural default.

                                                     II.

               We review the district court’s denial of a § 2255 motion de novo. United States v.

        Palacios, 982 F.3d 920, 923 (4th Cir. 2020).

               Although we typically reach the underlying merits of a § 2255 motion last, this is

        an unusual petition in that the merits are clear-cut. Indeed, the Government concedes the

        invalidity of McKinney’s § 924(c) conviction predicated on Hobbs Act conspiracy. See

        Br. of the United States 16.

               The concession is well-taken. In Davis, 139 S. Ct. at 2336, the Supreme Court held

        that the residual clause of § 924(c) was unconstitutionally vague, leaving only the question

        of whether Hobbs Act conspiracy could be a “crime of violence” under the elements clause

        of § 924(c). We held in United States v. Simms, 914 F.3d 229, 233–34 (4th Cir. 2019) (en

        banc), that Hobbs Act conspiracy also could not constitute a “crime of violence” under the

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        elements clause of § 924(c).       Moreover, we have since held that Davis “applies

        retroactively to cases on collateral review.” In re Thomas, 988 F.3d 783, 789 (4th Cir.

        2021).

                 The record is clear that the sole predicate offense underlying McKinney’s § 924(c)

        conviction is Hobbs Act conspiracy. J.A. 18‒20. McKinney’s plea agreement stated that

        he was agreeing to enter a guilty plea to the two counts set forth in the bill of information.

        J.A. 151. The bill of information charged McKinney with Hobbs Act conspiracy and use

        of a firearm “during and in relation to a crime of violence, that is conspiracy to commit

        interference with commerce by threats and violence,” in violation of § 924(c). J.A. 19

        (emphasis added). Because Hobbs Act conspiracy does not constitute a predicate “crime

        of violence” for a § 924(c) violation, McKinney stands convicted of a crime that no longer

        exists. Ordinarily, that alone would entitle him to relief on his § 2255 motion.

                                                     III.

                 The Government contends, however, that McKinney executed a plea agreement that

        bars his claim. Specifically, it argues that because McKinney does not raise either of the

        two types of claims expressly exempted from the waiver in his plea agreement —

        ineffective assistance of counsel and prosecutorial misconduct — he cannot challenge his

        conviction on any other grounds.

                 Although McKinney does not raise those claims or contend that his appeal waiver

        was invalid, he nonetheless argues that we should refuse to enforce it. We can do so under

        a few limited circumstances. See, e.g., United States v. Marin, 961 F.2d 493, 496 (4th Cir.

        1992) (recognizing that we refuse to enforce an appeal waiver when a sentence is imposed

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        in excess of the statutory maximum or is based on a constitutionally impermissible factor).

        Among these is the most fundamental reason, that is, if enforcing an appeal waiver would

        result in a “miscarriage of justice.” See United States v. Adams, 814 F.3d 178, 182 (4th

        Cir. 2016); United States v. Johnson, 410 F.3d 137, 151 (4th Cir. 2005).

               As we explained in Adams, to establish such a miscarriage of justice, a defendant

        need only make “a cognizable claim of actual innocence.” 814 F.3d at 182 (emphasis

        added). The appeal waiver in Adams was substantially similar to the one in this case: it

        “waived [Adams’s] right to challenge his conviction or sentence in a motion pursuant to

        28 U.S.C. § 2255 unless he did so on the basis of ineffective assistance of counsel or

        prosecutorial misconduct.” Id. at 180. And in Adams, we found that, in light of intervening

        precedent invalidating a § 922(g) conviction because it was no longer based on a valid

        predicate, the defendant made “a cognizable claim of actual innocence.” Id. at 182. For

        this reason, the defendant in Adams met the standard for miscarriage of justice, and his

        appeal waiver did not bar his claim. Id. at 183.

               That logic applies here. Under Davis and Simms, Hobbs Act conspiracy no longer

        qualifies as a predicate offense for a § 924(c) conviction. McKinney, like Adams, has

        made a cognizable claim of actual innocence and so, like Adams, has satisfied the

        miscarriage-of-justice requirement. See also United States v. Sweeney, 833 F. App’x 395,

        396–97 (4th Cir. 2021) (declining to enforce an appeal waiver and vacating a § 924(c)

        conviction because attempted Hobbs Act robbery and Hobbs Act conspiracy are no longer

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        valid predicates). 1 Accordingly, McKinney’s appeal waiver does not bar his claim for

        relief.

                                                      IV.

                  Absent a controlling appeal waiver, McKinney’s claim ordinarily would not be

        barred from collateral review. However, the Government contends that an affirmative

        defense, i.e., procedural default, bars consideration of his claim on the merits. This defense

        rests on a contention that a defendant has failed to raise the claim at issue during his initial

        criminal proceeding or on direct appeal. See United States v. Harris, 991 F.3d 552, 558

        (4th Cir. 2021). Without an excuse for this failure, the procedural-default doctrine

        precludes a defendant from asserting that claim on collateral review.

                  Two showings excuse a procedural default: a defendant’s demonstration of “either

        cause and actual prejudice or that he is actually innocent.” Bousley v. United States, 523

        U.S. 614, 622 (1998) (cleaned up). As directed by the Supreme Court, we first address

        cause and prejudice for procedural default. See Dretke v. Haley, 541 U.S. 386, 393–94

        (2004) (stating that when an actual-innocence excuse is raised, a court “must first address

                 In a Rule 28(j) letter, the Government relies on a statement respecting the denial
                  1

        of certiorari in Grzegorczyk v. United States, 142 S. Ct. 2580 (2022), to contend that
        McKinney’s guilty plea precludes this argument. Given that the “denial of a writ of
        certiorari imports no expression of opinion upon the merits of the case,” and that “opinions
        accompanying the denial of certiorari cannot have the same effect as decisions on the
        merits,” Teague v. Lane, 489 U.S. 288, 296 (1989) (quoting United States v. Carver, 260
        U.S. 482, 490 (1923)), we reject this contention as a basis for overruling binding circuit
        precedent.
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        all . . . other grounds for cause to excuse the procedural default”). 2 Because we find cause

        and prejudice here, we need not reach the actual-innocence excuse for procedural default.

                                                      A.

                 We begin with cause. Generally, the existence of cause for procedural default turns

        on whether “some objective factor external to the defense” prevented counsel from raising

        the claim on direct appeal. See Murray v. Carrier, 477 U.S. 478, 488, 492 (1986). For

        example, a claim that “is so novel that its legal basis is not reasonably available to counsel”

        may constitute cause. Reed v. Ross, 468 U.S. 1, 16 (1984) (emphasis added). In Reed, the

        Supreme Court delineated three situations in which the novelty of a claim could constitute

        cause:

                 First, a decision of [the Supreme] Court may explicitly overrule one of [its]
                 precedents. Second, a decision may “overtur[n] a longstanding and
                 widespread practice to which [the Supreme] Court has not spoken, but which
                 a near-unanimous body of lower court authority has expressly approved.”
                 And, finally, a decision may “disapprov[e] a practice [the Supreme] Court
                 arguably has sanctioned in prior cases.”

                 We note that we have already expressly rejected the Government’s procedural-
                 2

        default challenge to a successive § 2255 motion raising a Davis claim, reasoning that Davis
        “established a new rule of constitutional law made retroactive on collateral review.” See
        United States v. Jackson, 32 F.4th 278, 283 & n.3 (4th Cir. 2022). It would be odd indeed
        to reject the Government’s procedural-default defense in Jackson but not in this case,
        which also involves a Davis claim. The Government, however, insists that Jackson does
        not control here because in Jackson, we ultimately denied the defendant’s claim on the
        merits, and so the procedural-default analysis was not “necessary” to our outcome. The
        Government also argues that Jackson failed to address earlier precedent requiring cause
        and prejudice and that Jackson involved a jury trial, not a guilty plea. Because, as our
        analysis within explains, McKinney has demonstrated cause and prejudice that would
        overcome any procedural default, we need not here resolve the force of Jackson.
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        Id. at 17 (quoting United States v. Johnson, 457 U.S. 537, 551–52 (1982)). Further, as

        Reed instructs, finding cause for cases falling into the third category depends on “how

        direct [the Supreme] Court’s sanction of the prevailing practice had been, how well

        entrenched the practice was in the relevant jurisdiction at the time of defense counsel’s

        failure to challenge it, and how strong the available support is from sources opposing the

        prevailing practice.” Id. at 17–18.

               The third Reed category contemplates precisely the type of novel claim McKinney

        advances here. At the time McKinney pled guilty in 2012 and was sentenced in 2013, the

        Supreme Court had affirmatively upheld the constitutionality of residual clauses like the

        one at issue here. In the years leading up to McKinney’s guilty plea and sentence, the

        Supreme Court had repeatedly treated the residual clause of the ACCA as if it were

        sufficiently determinate to put an ordinary person on notice of what conduct it prohibited.

        See, e.g., Sykes v. United States, 564 U.S. 1, 15 (2011); James v. United States, 550 U.S.

        192, 210 n.6 (2007).

               In fact, in 2007 in James, 550 U.S. at 210 n.6, the Court summarily rejected the

        argument that the ACCA’s residual clause was unconstitutionally vague. And in doing so,

        it emphasized that “similar formulations” appeared in other federal statutes. Id. 3 In sum,

        when McKinney pled guilty in 2012 and was sentenced in 2013, Supreme Court precedent

               3
                 Subsequently, the Supreme Court specifically noted the similarity among the
        residual clauses of § 924(c) and the ACCA. See Davis, 139 S. Ct. at 2325–26; see also
        Sessions v. Dimaya, 138 S. Ct. 1204, 1215 (2018) (relying on Johnson to find 18 U.S.C.
        § 16(b)’s residual clause, which is virtually identical to § 924(c)’s residual clause,
        unconstitutionally vague).
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        had effectively foreclosed the claim McKinney now asserts. It was not until 2015, when

        the Court decided Johnson, that it struck down a residual clause for vagueness and therefore

        it was not until then that this claim became “reasonably available.” See Reed, 468 U.S. at

        16.

               Moreover, before 2015, the practice within our circuit — and indeed, across circuits

        — was well entrenched. See id. at 17. Our court hewed closely to the Supreme Court’s

        resistance to void-for-vagueness challenges in cases involving residual clauses in the

        ACCA and elsewhere. See, e.g., United States v. Mobley, 687 F.3d 625, 632 n.7 (4th Cir.

        2012); United States v. Hudson, 673 F.3d 263, 268–69 (4th Cir. 2012).

               With respect to § 924(c)’s residual clause, specifically, we have found no cases in

        any federal court of appeals prior to the Supreme Court’s issuance of Johnson in 2015 that

        adopt a vagueness argument. Again, it was only after the Supreme Court issued Johnson

        that courts of appeals, including our own, began to reconsider the constitutionality of

        § 924(c)’s analogous residual clause. See, e.g., Simms, 914 F.3d at 236; United States v.

        Douglas, 907 F.3d 1, 4 (1st Cir. 2018); Ovalles v. United States, 905 F.3d 1231, 1233 (11th

        Cir. 2018); United States v. Barrett, 903 F.3d 166, 173 (2d Cir. 2018); United States v.

        Eshetu, 898 F.3d 36 (D.C. Cir. 2018); United States v. Salas, 889 F.3d 681, 683 (10th Cir.

        2018). Accordingly, prior to 2015, there was “almost certainly . . . no reasonable basis

        upon which an attorney previously could have urged a . . . court to adopt the position”

        ultimately endorsed by the Supreme Court in Johnson. See Reed, 468 U.S. at 17. Thus,

        McKinney has established cause. See Jones v. United States, 39 F.4th 523, 525 (8th Cir.

        2022) (finding cause for procedural default under Reed where defendant’s 2005 conviction

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        for a violation of § 924(c) no longer had a valid predicate); United States v. Garcia, 811 F.

        App’x 472, 480 (10th Cir. 2020) (finding cause for procedural default where defendant’s

        2013 conviction for a violation of § 924(c) was invalid after Davis).

               Seeking to avoid this conclusion, the Government ignores Reed and instead relies

        on Bousley for the proposition that “futility cannot constitute cause” if “a claim was

        ‘unacceptable to that particular court at that particular time.’” 523 U.S. at 622–23 (quoting

        Engle v. Isaac, 456 U.S. 107, 130 n.35 (1982)) (finding no cause because “at the time of

        petitioner’s plea, the Federal Reporters were replete with cases” considering the same

        argument). But Bousley is inapposite. The claim in Bousley did not arise out of the

        Supreme Court overturning its own precedent. See Lassend v. United States, 898 F.3d 115,

        123 (1st Cir. 2018); Gatewood v. United States, 979 F.3d 391, 397 (6th Cir. 2020) (noting

        that Reed remains the “controlling decision” where Supreme Court precedent forecloses an

        argument at the time of procedural default). 4 That distinction is critical. At the time of his

        guilty plea in 2012 and sentence in 2013, McKinney’s claim would have been rejected by

        our court and every other circuit due to then-controlling Supreme Court precedent.

               In sum, when McKinney pled guilty in 2012 and was sentenced in 2013, the

        Supreme Court had implicitly approved § 924(c)’s residual clause. Only several years

        later, in 2015, did the Court in Johnson cause a sea change in the law, disapproving its

        prior precedent upholding similar residual clauses against void-for-vagueness challenges.

               4
                  For the same reasons, we are unpersuaded by the Government’s reliance on
        Whiteside v. United States, 775 F.3d 180, 185–87 (4th Cir. 2014) (en banc), and United
        States v. Sanders, 247 F.3d 139, 145–46 (4th Cir. 2001), neither of which involved claims
        based on the Supreme Court overturning its own precedent.
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        And it was not until 2019 that Davis dealt the final blow to § 924(c)’s residual clause.

        McKinney’s case falls squarely within Reed’s “novelty” framework, and so he has shown

        cause for his procedural default.

                                                      B.

               We turn to the prejudice prong. To establish prejudice, a defendant must show that

        the error “worked to his actual and substantial disadvantage.” United States v. Frady, 456

        U.S. 152, 170 (1982) (emphasis in original). The Supreme Court has yet to define the exact

        contours of the prejudice standard in the § 2255 procedural-default context. See id. at 168

        (noting that “future cases” would provide “further elaboration” on prejudice, outside the

        context of erroneous jury instructions given at trial).

               What is clear is that McKinney’s § 924(c) conviction subjects him to imprisonment

        for conduct that the law does not make criminal.          In finding another § 2255 claim

        cognizable, the Supreme Court has explained that if the defendant’s “conviction and

        punishment are for an act that the law does not make criminal,” then “[t]here can be no

        room for doubt that such a circumstance ‘inherently results in a complete miscarriage of

        justice’ and ‘present[s] exceptional circumstances’ that justify collateral relief under

        § 2255.”   Davis v. United States, 417 U.S. 333, 346–47 (1974) (emphasis added).

        Accordingly, in analogous cases, our sister courts have found prejudice justifying collateral

        relief when the defendant’s conviction or sentence is no longer “authorized by law.” See,

        e.g., Raines v. United States, 898 F.3d 680, 687 (6th Cir. 2018) (ACCA); United States v.

        Snyder, 871 F.3d 1122, 1127–28 (10th Cir. 2017) (same); Garcia, 811 F. App’x at 480 (§

        924(c)).

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               However, the Government argues, and the district court held, that McKinney cannot

        establish prejudice because, had McKinney “raised his constitutional challenge” at or prior

        to sentencing, the Government “would not have dismissed the . . . § 924(c) charge

        predicated on the Hobbs Act robbery,” and McKinney “likely would have received the

        same sentence.” See McKinney v. United States, No. 1:16-cv-00149-MR, 2020 WL

        475196, at *5–6 (W.D.N.C. Jan. 29, 2020). This is so, the Government contends, because

        the dismissed § 924(c) count was based on an (also dismissed) substantive Hobbs Act

        robbery count, which could constitute a valid predicate. The dissent, too, espouses this

        theory. 5

               But where the record in a case shows that a count of conviction is now invalid, no

        precedent authorizes a court to then rely on a dismissed count to negate that demonstrated

        prejudice. Rather, in determining prejudice, we ask whether it is likely a defendant, had

        he known of the error, would not have pled guilty to the count of conviction. See, e.g.,

        United States v. Dominguez Benitez, 542 U.S. 74 (2004); United States v. Heyward, 42

        F.4th 460 (4th Cir. 2022). We do not look to whether it is likely a defendant, had he known

        of the error, would not have pled guilty to a dismissed count. (Of course, in this case, the

        record also makes abundantly clear that McKinney likely would not have pled guilty to the

        dismissed § 924(c) count — two plea hearings failed because he resolutely refused to plead

        guilty to the dismissed counts. S.J.A. 28‒31; see Heyward, 42 F.4th at 460 (explaining

        that we may look to “contemporaneous evidence to substantiate a defendant’s expressed

               5
                 To be clear, the analysis set forth in the next five paragraphs constitutes our fact
        specific holding in this case, not some “per se rule” conjured up by the dissent.
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        preferences” (quoting Lee v. United States, 137 S. Ct. 1958, 1967 (2017)). The dissent

        ignores the record when stating that our statement of this fact is “incorrect.”)

               It is telling that none of the cases cited by the Government or the dissent permit an

        appellate court to base its prejudice holding on a count the Government agreed to dismiss,

        and the district court did dismiss, in exchange for the defendant’s guilty plea. None of

        those cases require or permit an appellate court to search for an alternative, valid predicate

        offense that the Government did not charge as the predicate for the count of conviction.

        And none of those cases permit an appellate court to find a crime for which a defendant

        was not convicted to uphold an indisputably invalid conviction and justify the sentence for

        that invalid conviction.

               Adhering to what simple justice requires in this circumstance, the Eighth Circuit in

        Jones, 39 F.4th at 526, recently rejected the Government’s similar attempt to use a

        dismissed count to negate a finding of prejudice. There, as here, the defendant challenged

        his § 924(c) conviction because it was no longer sustained by a valid predicate offense. Id.

        There, as here, the Government claimed that, had it known of the error, it could have based

        the § 924(c) count on an alternative predicate offense: carjacking, the factual basis for

        which the defendant had admitted at the plea hearing. Id. at 525. But the Eighth Circuit

        rejected this argument, reasoning that the “carjacking was not charged as a predicate crime

        of violence,” and so the Government could not rely on it to sustain that count and negate a

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        finding of prejudice. Id. (emphasis added). So it is here. 6 We likewise refuse to substitute

        an alternative predicate, not charged as the basis for the § 924(c) count of conviction, to

        negate a finding of prejudice.

               Moreover, delving into whether a defendant ultimately would have received the

        same sentence, based on an uncharged or dismissed charge, improperly equates the

        standards for actual innocence and prejudice for the purpose of excusing procedural

        default. See United States v. Jimenez-Segura, 476 F. Supp. 3d 326, 338 (E.D. Va. 2020)

        (Ellis, J.). Actual innocence and prejudice are not one and the same. The Supreme Court

        has made that clear, stating that actual innocence requires “a stronger showing than that

        needed to establish prejudice.” See Schlup v. Delo, 513 U.S. 298, 327 (1995). To

        demonstrate actual innocence sufficient to excuse procedural default, a defendant must

        show that he is actually innocent of (i) the charge on which he was convicted and (ii) more

        serious, dismissed charges. Bousley, 523 U.S. at 624. In contrast, demonstrating prejudice

        sufficient to excuse procedural default “does not require consideration of the charges

        foregone by the Government in the course of plea bargaining.” Jimenez-Segura, 476 F.

        Supp. 3d at 338; see also Calderon v. United States, No. 7:12-CR-37-FA-2, 2022 WL

               6
                Thus the only other appellate court to consider the question has recently held, as
        we do, that a dismissed count cannot negate a finding of prejudice. The dissent does not,
        and cannot, distinguish Jones, and so instead attempts to trivialize it as “brief” and
        “incorrect,” Dis. Op. at 36 n.2, or wish it away, id. at 35 (stating “the majority cites no
        binding or persuasive case for the proposition that it is illegitimate to consider dismissed
        counts as part of the factual prejudice inquiry”). But see Lee, 137 S. Ct. at 1967;
        Dominguez Benitez, 542 U.S. at 83‒85; Schlup, 513 U.S. at 327 (all lending support to the
        holding reached here and in Jones).
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        821152 (E.D.N.C. Mar. 17, 2022) (following the “thoughtful and well-reasoned opinion”

        in Jimenez-Segura).

               Furthermore, conviction and sentencing are quintessentially tasks carried out at the

        trial level. The Government and the dissent would instead have this appellate court convict

        McKinney in the first instance of a § 924(c) count, which the Government did not charge

        as the count of conviction, to which McKinney did not plead guilty, and which the

        Government in fact dismissed. That we cannot do. Cf. United States v. Hodge, 902 F.3d

        420, 430 (4th Cir. 2018) (“We will not allow the Government to change its position

        regarding which convictions support [an] ACCA enhancement now that one of its original

        choices . . . cannot do the job.”).

               For all these reasons, we reject the Government’s, and now the dissent’s, prejudice

        theory and decline to import the dismissed § 924(c) charge into our assessment of

        prejudice.   Fact-specific considerations underlying the dismissed counts are for the

        Government to raise on remand when the district court can assess them in exercising its

        discretion to carry out further proceedings consistent with this opinion. Because the error

        here worked to McKinney’s “actual and substantial disadvantage,” he has established

        prejudice to excuse his procedural default.

                                                *      *     *

               Before concluding, we briefly address the dissent’s accusation that we have

        established a rule “fundamentally at odds with the most basic of principles of our criminal

        justice system.” Dis. Op. at 19. In fact, it is the dissent that would establish such a rule,

        convicting a defendant in the first instance of a § 924(c) count to which the defendant

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        refused to plead guilty and which the Government never charged as the count of conviction,

        but instead dismissed.

                                                    V.

               The district court erred by denying McKinney’s § 2255 motion on the grounds that

        the appeal waiver barred his claim and that he failed to show cause and prejudice to excuse

        his procedural default. Therefore, we reverse the judgment of the district court. We

        remand the case with instructions to vacate McKinney’s § 924(c) conviction predicated on

        Hobbs Act conspiracy and for further proceedings consistent with this opinion, including

        resentencing on the remaining count.

                                                                  REVERSED AND REMANDED

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        WILKINSON, Circuit Judge, dissenting:

                 Donzell McKinney pleaded guilty in 2012 to an 18 U.S.C. § 924(c) violation. His

        plea was altogether valid and lawful when it was entered. Section 924(c) makes criminal

        the use of a firearm in connection with a crime of violence. The predicate crime of violence

        in McKinney’s case was Hobbs Act conspiracy, which was entirely understandable, given

        the terms of the statute and McKinney’s undisputed criminal conduct. McKinney never

        raised any objection to the validity of this predicate, thereby procedurally defaulting the

        claim.

                 Seven years after his plea was entered, Hobbs Act conspiracy was ruled invalid as

        a § 924(c) predicate crime of violence. United States v. Simms, 914 F.3d 229, 233–34 (4th

        Cir. 2019) (en banc). In the normal course, McKinney must establish cause and prejudice

        to excuse his procedural default. This would involve a review of the plea bargain and

        proceedings as well as McKinney’s own conduct, in an effort to determine whether absent

        the error there was a “substantial likelihood” that McKinney would not have pleaded guilty.

        United States v. Frady, 456 U.S. 152, 174 (1982). The majority did absolutely none of this.

        It did not confront the sheer strength of the case against McKinney. It proceeded to rule

        that prejudice was automatic irrespective of whether the relevant facts establish it. This per

        se rule is fundamentally at odds with the most basic of principles of our criminal justice

        system.

                 The majority strenuously seeks to shed the per se label, but its protestations fail to

        obscure the fact that this is both formally and functionally a per se case. See Maj. Op. at 14

        n.5. Its per se rule is plain: All one needs to do is examine the present status of a past

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        predicate to reverse a § 924(c) conviction. See id. at 13–15 (repeatedly emphasizing the

        per se proposition). With all respect to my friends in the majority, a wolf in sheep’s clothing

        remains a wolf.

                                                      I.

               Prejudice in our criminal justice system is preeminently a factual matter. The

        majority wishes to convert prejudice to a matter of per se reversal under law. This not only

        denies courts the ability to make individualized assessments of a defendant’s

        circumstances. It often privileges, as here, the most violent and least deserving criminals.

        Indeed those offenders will become free riders on the majority’s per se train. The Supreme

        Court has repeatedly flagged courts off the tracks that the majority is taking here.

               Just consider the facts. Donzell McKinney indisputably violated 18 U.S.C. § 924(c)

        by using a firearm during a Hobbs Act robbery. According to the Presentence Investigation

        Report:

             Donzell Ali McKinney and Clinton Hugo Wilson, Jr.[] entered the restaurant, one
             armed with a black handgun, and ordered the manager A. Booher to get money
             out of the safe.

             The investigation revealed McKinney and [Wilson] dressed in hoodies
             approached two women, O. Kulakova and B. Scott who had left the restaurant.
             Kulakova was hit in the head by McKinney and then he ordered the females to
             the ground outside the restaurant and started beating on the door of the restaurant.
             Wilson dragged witness Scott through the doorway into the restaurant. Witness
             K. Robinson drove up to the restaurant in her vehicle, saw a woman lying on the
             ground in the doorway and saw Booher on his knees with his hands in the air.
             McKinney went to Robinson, ordered her out of the vehicle, put a gun to her head

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             and ordered her inside the restaurant. Booher went to the door to investigate the
             noise and McKinney pointed a black 9 mm handgun at Booher and yelled, “Open
             the fucking door!” When Booher did not move fast enough, McKinney fired a
             round in the direction of Booher. . . . Officers . . . conducted an extensive manhunt
             and located McKinney hiding in bushes . . . . Officers also recovered a loaded Hi
             Point 9mm pistol.

        J.A. 162. McKinney’s only objections to the PSR were that he fired his weapon “toward

        the ceiling” rather than at Booher and that he did not point his weapon at Robinson’s head.

        J.A. 177.

              Given these horrific and largely uncontroverted facts, the government only agreed

        to dismiss the Hobbs Act robbery count and the related § 924(c) charge on the condition

        that McKinney plead guilty to conspiracy to commit Hobbs Act robbery and a § 924(c)

        count predicated on that conspiracy. McKinney therefore suffered absolutely no prejudice

        from his now invalid conspiracy-based § 924(c) conviction: Had the error existed at the

        time of the plea, McKinney would unquestionably have been convicted of an identical

        § 924(c) count predicated on the substantive robbery offense that he undoubtedly

        committed. McKinney therefore cannot satisfy his burden to show “actual prejudice” that

        would excuse his procedural default. United States v. Frady, 456 U.S. 152, 159 (1982); see

        Wainwright v. Sykes, 433 U.S. 72, 90–91 (1977) (establishing “cause and prejudice”

        standard).

              The majority errs in concluding otherwise and sets a damaging precedent for future

        procedural-default cases. It holds that McKinney has established prejudice to excuse his

        procedural default because his “§ 924(c) conviction subjects him to imprisonment for

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        conduct that the law does not make criminal.” Maj. Op. at 13; see id. at 17 (“reject[ing] the

        Government’s . . . prejudice theory”—i.e., that McKinney suffered no prejudice because

        he “likely would have received the same sentence”). The sweep of this reasoning is vast

        and consequential. Under the majority’s view, all individuals convicted under later-

        invalidated provisions have suffered prejudice regardless of the specific facts of each case.

        This reasoning constructs a per se rule that a conviction based on a predicate later deemed

        invalid is invariably and automatically deemed prejudicial—even if the defendant would

        have been convicted of an offense of comparable and indistinguishable seriousness had the

        error existed at the time of the plea.

               The majority makes a pass at the importance of case-specific inquiries by suggesting

        the government might move to raise the dismissed counts on remand. See id. at 17. That

        has it exactly backward. It is defendant’s burden to establish prejudice prior to any vacatur

        of his conviction. And that burden can only begin to be satisfied by pointing right here and

        now to facts specific to defendant’s case.

               This plea was entered long ago. It was not the product of some primitive system of

        criminal justice. It was the valid outcome of a valid process. It was properly negotiated. Its

        terms were fairly arrived at. The conviction and sentence have been settled. They should

        be allowed to rest. The Supreme Court has commanded that given the important finality

        interests implicated by collateral review of procedurally defaulted claims, the prejudice

        inquiry is stringent, fact-intensive, and requires “actual and substantial disadvantage.”

        Frady, 456 U.S. at 170. The majority disregards the Court’s clear instruction across a

        myriad of contexts that structural error is the rare exception; fact-specific prejudice

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        inquiries are the rule. It subverts the parties’ plea bargain and undermines the philosophy

        behind guilty pleas. And it creates a palpable tension with the factual innocence

        requirement articulated in Bousley v. United States, 523 U.S. 614 (1998).

               The majority’s decision is retroactivity with a vengeance. It undermines the criminal

        justice system’s commitment to finality at every turn. Procedural defaults are meant to

        protect the finality of convictions. Now they are weakened years later. How many

        witnesses are no longer available? How much do they still recall? Not content with this

        assault on finality, the majority erodes the finality of guilty pleas as well, allowing one

        party to an agreement to back away from it and take whatever later benefits may drift its

        way. In so doing, the majority repositions not only the utilization of prosecutorial

        resources. It commits executive review generally to an ongoing retrospective,

        notwithstanding the demands that the commission of present crimes make upon our

        coordinate branch of government.

               Retroactivity, of course, does have its place. The First Step Act is retroactive in its

        application, see First Step Act of 2018, Pub. L. No. 115–391, 132 Stat. 5194, but in a

        manner carefully tailored to individual circumstances. What makes the majority’s version

        of retroactivity so pernicious is that it applies irrespective of those circumstances, thereby

        undermining the primacy of individualized consideration in our system of justice.

               Recognizing the naïve idealization of a perfect criminal justice system, factual

        inquiries yet insist that proceedings be practically grounded and, above all, fundamentally

        fair. Delaware v. Van Arsdall, 475 U.S. 673, 681 (1986). Again, the facts, had they been

        so much as consulted, are fatal to McKinney’s case. The government would never have

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        dismissed the substantive Hobbs Act count had the Hobbs Act conspiracy count been

        anything but a wholly lawful predicate at the time of McKinney’s plea. McKinney’s

        undisputed conduct—discharging a firearm to threaten victims during a violent and

        dangerous robbery of a restaurant—lies at the heart of what Congress sought to criminalize

        through § 924(c). The real prejudice here is not to the defendant but to the public, which

        must suffer the consequences of the majority’s ill-advised rule.

                                                    II.

               The Supreme Court has made clear that to establish the prejudice required to excuse

        procedural default, a habeas petitioner must show that given the “particular circumstances

        of [his] individual case,” the error “worked to his actual and substantial disadvantage.”

        Frady, 456 U.S. at 170. 1 McKinney comes nowhere close.

                                                    A.

               A habeas petitioner must demonstrate “cause” and “actual prejudice” to excuse his

        procedural default. See Wainwright, 433 U.S. at 90–91. The Supreme Court explained what

        constitutes “actual prejudice” in United States v. Frady.

               Inasmuch as the majority has all but ignored Frady, I am compelled, with apologies

        to the reader, to briefly traverse what should be familiar ground. The fact that this case

        1
          Because this case concerns the showing of prejudice necessary to excuse a habeas
        petitioner’s procedural default, Frady is the controlling standard. No one disputes that
        McKinney’s conviction is now invalid given that United States v. Davis, 139 S. Ct. 2319
        (2019), “applies retroactively to cases on collateral review.” In re Thomas, 988 F.3d 783,
        789 (4th Cir. 2021); see Schriro v. Summerlin, 542 U.S. 348, 351–53 (2004) (explaining
        that “new substantive rules generally apply retroactively”).

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        comes to us on collateral review is of salient importance, not just as another factor for the

        majority to toss into the hopper. The Frady Court began by “reaffirm[ing] the well-settled

        principle that to obtain collateral relief a prisoner must clear a significantly higher hurdle

        than would exist on direct appeal”—i.e., the plain-error standard. 456 U.S. at 166; see

        Murray v. Carrier, 477 U.S. 478, 493–94 (1986) (“The showing of prejudice required

        under Wainwright v. Sykes is significantly greater than that necessary under . . . ‘plain

        error.’”). A more stringent collateral-review standard is appropriate because

        “postconviction collateral attacks” implicate society’s interest in finality: the “respect” that

        “a final judgment commands.” Frady, 456 U.S. at 164–65 (“Once the defendant’s chance

        to appeal has been waived or exhausted . . . we are entitled to presume he stands fairly and

        finally convicted.”). So to establish eligibility for collateral relief on a procedurally

        defaulted claim, the petitioner “must show both (1) ‘cause’ excusing his double procedural

        default, and (2) ‘actual prejudice’ resulting from the errors of which he complains.” Id. at

        167–68.

               Frady and subsequent cases drive home the point that actual prejudice is a strict,

        fact-specific standard. The Frady Court explicitly rejected the idea, now embraced by the

        majority, that an error could “amount[] to prejudice per se, regardless of the particular

        circumstances of the individual case.” Id. at 170. Rather, the petitioner “must shoulder the

        burden of showing, not merely that the errors at his trial created a possibility of prejudice,

        but that they worked to his actual and substantial disadvantage.” Id.; see also Carrier, 477

        U.S. at 494 (quoting this standard); Shinn v. Ramirez, 142 S. Ct. 1718, 1733 (2022) (same).

        The Court then conducted a fact-specific inquiry and concluded that given “the strong

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        uncontradicted evidence . . . in the record,” there was “no substantial likelihood” of a

        different result; the petitioner would have been convicted regardless of the error. Frady,

        456 U.S. at 172–74. So there was no actual prejudice. Id. at 175.

               Thus, for a habeas petitioner to establish actual prejudice, he must show, based on

        the specific facts of his case, that the error caused him an “actual” and “substantial”

        disadvantage. He must show that there is a “substantial likelihood” that he would have

        received a better outcome but for the error. The majority all but ignores this standard. The

        effect is to relegate Supreme Court decisions to no more than provisional status.

                                                    B.

               Given the uncontested facts of McKinney’s case, there is no substantial likelihood

        that he would be in a better position but for the subsequently invalidated, conspiracy-

        predicated § 924(c) charge. There is no way he can show that being charged with and

        pleading guilty to this later invalidated count “worked to his actual and substantial

        disadvantage.” Frady, 456 U.S. at 170. The majority, fleeing the facts, does not come close

        to establishing that he could.

               McKinney was originally charged by a grand jury with Hobbs Act robbery,

        conspiracy to commit Hobbs Act robbery, and a § 924(c) count predicated on the

        substantive offense. McKinney has never denied that he committed these offenses; his

        “offense conduct was uncontroverted, and it remains uncontroverted to this day.”

        McKinney v. United States, No. 1:16-cv-00149-MR, 2020 WL 475196, at *6 (W.D.N.C.

        Jan. 29, 2020). The government agreed to dismiss the substantive robbery count and

        § 924(c) count predicated on it only if McKinney pleaded guilty to the conspiracy count

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        and a conspiracy-predicated § 924(c) count. McKinney does not dispute that if the court

        had found the conspiracy-predicated § 924(c) count invalid, the government “would not

        have dismissed” the substantive robbery count or the § 924(c) count predicated on it.

        McKinney, 2020 WL 475196, at *5. So even if McKinney had not faced the invalid

        conspiracy-predicated § 924(c) count, he would have faced an equivalent one that would

        have carried the same statutory penalties and subjected him to the same Sentencing

        Guidelines. See 18 U.S.C. § 924(c)(1)(A)(iii); U.S.S.G. § 2k2.4(b).

               The majority suggests fleetingly that the defendant would not have pleaded guilty.

        Maj. Op. at 14. This is incorrect. Given these facts, there is no substantial likelihood that

        McKinney “would not have pleaded guilty” to the § 924(c) count predicated on substantive

        Hobbs Act robbery had the conspiracy-predicated § 924(c) count been unavailable. Hill v.

        Lockhart, 474 U.S. 52, 59 (1985). The prejudice inquiry in guilty-plea cases “depend[s] in

        large part on a prediction” about the “likely . . . outcome at a possible trial” judged

        “objectively, without regard for the idiosyncrasies of the particular decisionmaker.” Id. at

        59–60 (quotation marks omitted). Given the objective nature of the inquiry, the majority’s

        assertion that McKinney refused to plead guilty at two plea hearings misses the point.

        Objectively, McKinney’s prospects at trial were bleak given the overwhelming, undisputed

        evidence that he did in fact fire a gun while committing a Hobbs Act robbery. Given that

        evidence—and the downward adjustment for accepting responsibility that he only could

        receive by pleading guilty, see U.S.S.G. § 3E1.1—there is no substantial likelihood that

        McKinney would not have pleaded guilty.

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               That same evidence would have left McKinney dead in the water at trial. Had

        McKinney taken his chances before a jury, the government would have shown that he

        stormed a restaurant armed with a handgun, ordered a woman into the restaurant at

        gunpoint, fired a warning shot to coerce the manager’s compliance, and was found hiding

        in the nearby bushes. There is no substantial likelihood that a jury would have acquitted

        him of using a firearm during and in relation to a Hobbs Act robbery.

               Please consider the facts. Whether he would have pleaded guilty or gone to trial,

        one way or another McKinney would have been convicted of the § 924(c) count predicated

        on his violent and undisputed Hobbs Act robbery. He would have faced the same statutory

        penalties and Sentencing Guidelines range as he did for the invalid conspiracy-based

        § 924(c) charge and, in all likelihood, his sentence would have been the same as or worse

        than the one he actually received. See McKinney, 2020 WL 475196, at *6. Because the

        error did not work to McKinney’s “actual and substantial disadvantage,” he has shown no

        prejudice that would excuse his procedural default, Frady, 456 U.S. at 170, and courts

        should respect his long and fairly settled federal conviction and sentence.

                                                     III.

               As John Adams famously said, “facts are stubborn things.” To the majority, facts

        are not only stubborn, but scary. Ignoring the facts, the majority devises a per se rule that

        there is prejudice whenever a defendant is convicted under a predicate that is later ruled

        invalid. Under such a rule, a court need not consider the facts of the case to reverse a

        conviction; it need only examine the later status of the predicate offense at issue. In short,

        the majority concocts a legal test in which facts are irrelevant. Imagine a terrifying or

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        heartbreaking scene through the eyes of the victims. Then tell yourself that because the

        guilty plea from that tragedy rested on a Hobbs Act conspiracy (rather than substantive)

        predicate, the whole conviction must, no questions asked, be set aside.

                                                      A.

               This should not be. The majority’s creation of a per se rule of prejudice defies the

        Supreme Court’s repeated instruction that structural errors—which result in “automatic

        reversal” without any showing of actual prejudice—are “highly exceptional.” Greer v.

        United States, 141 S. Ct. 2090, 2099–2100 (2021) (quoting Neder v. United States, 527

        U.S. 1, 8 (1999), and United States v. Davila, 569 U.S. 597, 611 (2013)). Rather, across a

        variety of contexts, “the ‘general rule’ is that ‘a constitutional error does not automatically

        require reversal of a conviction’”: Errors must cause prejudice, which is a factual matter

        that depends on the defendant showing specifically how the error affected him. Id. at 2099

        (quoting Arizona v. Fulminante, 499 U.S. 279, 306 (1991)).

               This general rule makes sense. The hallmark of structural error is that defendants

        get their convictions reversed no matter how undeserving they are or how violent their acts.

        This case is Exhibit A: McKinney’s violent armed robbery was exactly what Congress

        wanted to punish through § 924(c). Conversely, the great advantage of factual prejudice

        determinations is that they allow courts to inquire into the strength of the case and make

        individualized determinations as to whether the defendant would have been convicted even

        had no error been made. But the majority ignores these factors, electing instead to forgo

        tailored factual analysis in favor of an ill-fitting, precedent-defying per se rule.

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                                                      B.

               Plain error and procedural default inquiries both underscore the intensive factual

        nature of the prejudice inquiry. It is therefore particularly instructive to consider what the

        Supreme Court has said about prejudice being a factual inquiry in the context of plain-error

        review. Plain error applies on direct review of errors that were not raised in the district

        court. See United States v. Olano, 507 U.S. 725, 731 (1993); Fed. R. Crim. P. 52(b). Under

        the Olano framework, a court may only grant relief if the defendant shows (1) there was

        an error; (2) that was “plain”; (3) that affected “substantial rights”—“which generally

        means that there must be a reasonable probability that, but for the error, the outcome of the

        proceeding would have been different”—and (4) the court concludes “the error had a

        serious effect on the fairness, integrity or public reputation of judicial proceedings.” Greer,

        141 S. Ct. at 2096–97 (quotation marks omitted). The defendant bears the “difficult”

        burden of establishing all four requirements. Id. at 2097 (quoting Puckett v. United States,

        556 U.S. 129, 135 (2009)).

               A note to the majority: The Supreme Court has said time and again that the third

        and fourth Olano prongs are fact-specific inquiries. With respect to the third prong

        (prejudice), the Supreme Court has found no reasonable probability of a different outcome

        even where the jury was not instructed on an element of the crime. See id. at 2097–98.

        Greer considered whether the defendant was prejudiced by the district court’s failure to

        instruct the jury that, in a felon-in-possession case, the government must prove not only

        that the defendant knew he possessed a firearm, “but also that he knew he was a felon.” Id.

        at 2095; see Rehaif v. United States, 139 S. Ct. 2191, 2199–2200 (2019). The Court

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        “consider[ed] the entire record” and concluded that because Greer had been convicted of

        multiple felonies, stipulated to that fact at trial, and had never argued that he did not know

        he was a felon, there was no “reasonable probability that a jury would have acquitted him”

        “but for the Rehaif error.” Greer, 141 S. Ct. at 2097–98. Despite the error’s seriousness,

        the defendant was not, given the facts, prejudiced. Id.

               With respect to the fourth prong (“fairness”), both the Supreme Court and this Court

        have repeatedly stressed the fact-specific nature of the inquiry. In Puckett, the Supreme

        Court explained that this prong “is meant to be applied on a case-specific and fact-intensive

        basis.” 556 U.S. at 142. Accordingly, the Court considered the facts of the defendant’s case

        and concluded that the error did not “compromise the public reputation of judicial

        proceedings.” Id. at 143. And Puckett’s characterization of this prong as fact-intensive has

        been repeatedly reaffirmed. See, e.g., Rosales-Mireles v. United States, 138 S. Ct. 1897,

        1909 (2018); United States v. Edgell, 914 F.3d 281, 290–91 (4th Cir. 2019); United States

        v. Heyward, 42 F.4th 460, 471 (4th Cir. 2022).

               The lessons of the Supreme Court’s plain-error precedents—that prejudice is fact-

        specific and per se rules are extraordinary—apply a fortiori to the “actual prejudice”

        inquiry we apply on collateral review of procedurally defaulted claims. As noted, because

        collateral review implicates “society’s justified interests in the finality of criminal

        judgments,” habeas petitioners attempting to show actual prejudice “must clear a

        significantly higher hurdle than would exist on direct appeal.” Frady, 456 U.S. at 166, 175;

        see United States v. Pettigrew, 346 F.3d 1139, 1144 (D.C. Cir. 2003) (“[T]he ‘showing of

        prejudice required’ to overcome procedural default on collateral review ‘is significantly

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        greater than that necessary’ to establish plain error on direct review.” (quoting Carrier, 477

        U.S. at 493–94)). Because “actual prejudice” is a more demanding standard than plain-

        error prejudice, we should be even more attentive here to specific facts and even less

        willing to adopt per se rules. Neglect of Supreme Court precedent is not an option.

                                                     C.

               The Supreme Court has also eschewed per se rules of prejudice and emphasized its

        factual nature in other contexts.

               First, in Neder v. United States, the Supreme Court applied the harmless-error

        standard to a district court’s omission of a crime’s materiality element from its jury

        instructions. 527 U.S. at 4. The Court rejected the argument that this error was structural,

        noting that omitting an element does not “necessarily render a criminal trial fundamentally

        unfair or an unreliable vehicle for determining guilt or innocence.” Id. at 9. Rather, the

        Court concluded that given the facts of the case, it was “beyond a reasonable doubt that the

        error complained of did not contribute to the verdict obtained.” Id. at 15 (quotation marks

        omitted). “The evidence supporting materiality was so overwhelming” that “no jury could

        reasonably find” otherwise, so the error was harmless. Id. at 16. Neder is especially

        instructive because the Court found no prejudice even when it was the government’s burden

        to prove the lack of prejudice beyond a reasonable doubt; here, by contrast, it is

        McKinney’s burden to show actual and substantial prejudice. Compare Neder, 527 U.S. at

        7, with Frady, 456 U.S. at 170.

               Second, in ineffective-assistance-of-counsel cases, the Supreme Court generally

        requires the defendant to show that “there is a reasonable probability that, but for counsel’s

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        unprofessional errors, the result of the proceeding would have been different.” Strickland

        v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668, 694 (1984). This prejudice determination requires courts to

        “consider the totality of the evidence before the judge or jury.” Id. at 695. Consistent with

        the Court’s general approach to prejudice inquiries, prejudice is presumed only in the most

        exceptional cases. See id. at 692 (noting “state interference with counsel’s assistance” and

        “actively represent[ing] conflicting interests” as circumstances where prejudice is

        presumed (quotation marks omitted)). But those cases aside, ineffective-assistance claims

        “are subject to a general requirement that the defendant affirmatively prove prejudice.” Id.

        at 693.

                  Finally, the Supreme Court’s test for whether a Brady violation has occurred

        incorporates a factual prejudice inquiry. Brady is violated when the State suppresses

        evidence favorable to the accused and that evidence is “material”—i.e., “if there is a

        reasonable probability that, had the evidence been disclosed to the defense, the result of

        the proceeding would have been different.” Strickler v. Greene, 527 U.S. 263, 280 (1999)

        (quotation marks omitted); see Brady v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 83 (1963). This inquiry is fact-

        intensive: “[T]he question is whether the favorable evidence could reasonably be taken to

        put the whole case in such a different light as to undermine confidence in the verdict.”

        Strickler, 527 U.S. at 290 (quotation marks omitted). And the Court has, in fact, found that

        suppressed, favorable evidence was immaterial. See, e.g., id. at 296.

                                                    * * *

                  Sooner or later, it must occur to my friends in the majority that they are swimming

        against a powerful tide. In case after case, context after context, the Supreme Court has

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        reaffirmed the fact-intensive nature of prejudice. See, e.g., Frady, 456 U.S. at 168–70

        (collateral review of procedurally defaulted claims); Greer, 141 S. Ct. at 2097–98 (plain

        error), Neder, 579 U.S. at 15–17 (harmless error), Strickland, 466 U.S. at 694 (ineffective

        assistance), Strickler, 527 U.S. at 290 (Brady). Through these cases, the Supreme Court

        has firmly rooted our judicial system in the foundational principle that courts will not

        disturb convictions unless there is a factual showing of prejudice. But the majority ignores

        this caselaw and the need for individualized consideration of defendants that flows from it.

        Facts look to real world effects. Justice is instead meted out by the majority under an

        abstract rule that bundles the least deserving with the most. While some countries may

        favor this indiscriminate approach, ours looks person-by-person in an effort to balance

        individual rights with the need for public safety.

                                                    IV.

               As if all this were not enough, the majority subverts the parties’ plea bargain and

        undermines the entire philosophy behind guilty pleas. “Indiscriminate[ly]” allowing

        prisoners to escape their guilty pleas through collateral attacks on their sentences “would

        eliminate the chief virtues of the plea system”—“speed, economy, and finality.”

        Blackledge v. Allison, 431 U.S. 63, 71 (1977). A plea bargain is exactly that: an exchange

        of benefits between the defendant and the government. The government conserves judicial

        and prosecutorial resources and obtains the certainty that a guilty and often dangerous

        criminal receives punishment. The defendant receives some certain present benefits—for

        instance, acceptance-of-responsibility sentencing adjustments and, crucially, the dismissal

        of additional charges that the government could have proved at trial. In return, the

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        defendant relinquishes the possibility of acquittal at trial and the possibility that he might

        benefit from some future legal development in his favor.

               That is exactly what happened here. McKinney received significant present benefits

        in exchange for pleading guilty. Most notably, despite the overwhelming evidence of

        McKinney’s guilt, the government dismissed the substantive Hobbs Act robbery count—

        thereby likely reducing his potential prison sentence. McKinney, in return, pleaded guilty

        to the Hobbs Act conspiracy count and a § 924(c) count predicated on that offense. In so

        doing, McKinney waived his rights to appeal. By pleading guilty, McKinney voluntarily

        and intelligently accepted that he would not benefit from any subsequent legal development

        invalidating his conspiracy-predicated § 924(c) count unless he could overcome the

        procedural-default bar on collateral review. This affirmative waiver went far beyond the

        typical case of procedural default in which a party inadvertently fails to contest an issue.

               The majority protests that it is inappropriate to consider dismissed counts as part of

        the prejudice inquiry in the plea-bargaining context, suggesting that no precedent permits

        a court to consider such counts. Maj. Op. at 15. Respectfully, that has it exactly backwards:

        It is telling that the majority cites no binding or persuasive case for the proposition that it

        is illegitimate to consider dismissed counts as part of the factual prejudice inquiry. That

        inquiry, as explained above, asks whether an error worked to a defendant’s “actual and

        substantial disadvantage.” Frady, 456 U.S. at 170. That standard does not limit our

        consideration of whether the defendant would have pleaded guilty to an identical § 924(c)

        offense predicated on a dismissed count. Indeed, as a matter of common sense, the

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        availability of such a dismissed count to serve as a predicate offense at the government’s

        disposal is highly relevant to the defendant’s decision to enter the plea that he did. 2

               The majority subverts the parties’ bargain and grants McKinney a windfall. Despite

        McKinney being indisputably guilty of (1) Hobbs Act robbery, (2) using a firearm during

        the robbery, and (3) conspiracy to commit that robbery, the majority lets him skate with

        just the later invalidated conspiracy conviction. All this despite the government only

        agreeing to dismiss (1) and (2) if McKinney pleaded guilty to conspiracy and the attendant

        § 924(c) charge.

               The majority again compromises the value of finality—that eventual and essential

        point of termination in any criminal justice system that allows both society and the

        individual a chance to pivot and look forward. At some point, the law may fairly and

        properly be deemed conclusive, and the light of future possibility let in. Courts typically

        safeguard the finality of guilty pleas by requiring defendants to “show a reasonable

        probability that, but for the error, [the defendant] would not have entered the plea.” United

        States v. Dominguez Benitez, 542 U.S. 74, 83 (2004) (applying reasonable-probability

        standard to defendant seeking to withdraw guilty plea because of court’s plain error); Hill,

        2
          Once again, the majority flees the facts. It relies on the Eighth Circuit’s brief opinion in
        Jones v. United States, 39 F.4th 523 (8th Cir. 2022), to support a finding of prejudice here.
        To the extent that Jones did not consider whether a dismissed count could serve as a
        predicate offense to sustain the defendant’s § 924(c) conviction, that was incorrect. To the
        extent the majority implies that any circuit overrides the clear teachings of the Supreme
        Court, I would respectfully suggest that is incorrect as well. To ascertain whether Jones
        and McKinney were prejudiced, a court must consider all the particulars of the case, as trial
        courts routinely do. It was up to the trial court in the first instance to determine the
        relevance of any particular factor, including any dismissed counts, to the entire prejudice
        analysis, as it did here. See J.A. 143–44.
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        474 U.S. at 59 (same with respect to withdrawing guilty plea because of ineffective

        assistance of counsel). By granting McKinney relief despite his inability to show a

        reasonable probability that he would not have pleaded guilty—much less any actual and

        substantial disadvantage—the majority disregards the heightened finality interests here.

        See Frady, 456 U.S. at 165–66, 170.

               The government was thus stripped of the benefit of its bargain. It is no answer that

        the majority implies that the government could move to reinstate the counts that it

        dismissed pursuant to McKinney’s plea agreement. See Maj. Op. at 17. The statute that

        allows the government to move to reinstate dismissed counts only permits it to do so after

        the guilty plea has been “vacated on the motion of the defendant.” 18 U.S.C. § 3296(a)(3).

        The case is then reset to square one and the virtue of finality is thereby undermined. The

        majority thus allows the vacatur of McKinney’s guilty plea and the attendant subversion

        of the parties’ bargain—all without a showing of actual prejudice.

                                                    V.

               The majority’s per se prejudice exception is also in significant tension with Bousley

        v. United States, 523 U.S. 614 (1998), and the general rule of procedural default. A habeas

        petitioner can overcome procedural default in either of two ways: by showing cause and

        actual prejudice or by showing actual innocence. Id. at 622. In the actual-innocence

        context, the Supreme Court has instructed that “actual innocence means factual innocence,

        not mere legal insufficiency.” Id. at 623 (quotation marks omitted). Thus, to determine

        whether a petitioner meets this “very narrow exception,” Sawyer v. Whitley, 505 U.S. 333,

        341 (1992), the court will look at “all the evidence . . . even if that evidence was not

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        presented during petitioner’s plea colloquy.” Bousley, 523 U.S. at 623–24. The inquiry

        completely turns on the facts of the case. So Bousley is yet another entry in the catalog of

        cases where the Supreme Court has warned us away from per se rules and instead

        commanded a fact-intensive analysis. The facts, of course, point to McKinney’s guilt at

        every count and corner.

                                                    VI.

               The majority pronounces a novel per se rule in disregard of the Supreme Court’s

        repeated instructions. Strive as the majority undoubtedly does to listen to the Supreme

        Court, I am afraid it has misheard. Its per se pronouncements ignore “the hierarchy of the

        federal court system created by the Constitution and Congress.” Hutto v. Davis, 454 U.S.

        370, 375 (1982) (per curiam).

               Rather than rush to per se rules, we should walk slowly, lest we “riddle the cause

        and prejudice standard” with ill-advised exceptions. Dretke v. Haley, 541 U.S. 386, 394

        (2004). In fact, “it is precisely because the various exceptions to the procedural default

        doctrine are judge-made rules that courts as their stewards must exercise restraint, adding

        to or expanding them only when necessary.” Id. Such a warning was meant to ward off just

        such decisions as the majority has rendered here.

               Pronouncing broad new rules makes no sense in the fraught and salient context of

        § 924 crimes and Congress’s attempts to address the scourge of gun violence afflicting this

        country. See Berkemer v. McCarty, 468 U.S. 420, 446 (1984) (Stevens, J., concurring)

        (underscoring that principles of “restraint grow[] in importance the more problematic” the

        issue is). Given the Supreme Court’s emphasis upon Congress’s goal of keeping the public

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        safe from violent crimes committed with firearms, we should not lightly uproot the

        sentences of those convicted under § 924(c). To declare an entire category of § 924(c)

        convictions per se prejudicial ignores the facts of each case to the undeserved benefit of

        some of society’s most violent offenders.

              I respectfully dissent. I am left only with the hope that basic errors of transmission

        between the Supreme Court and the courts of appeals will be more limited in future cases.

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