Court Opinion

ID: 9492833
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 14:51:36.11202+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:55:31.019806
License: Public Domain

RYMER, Circuit Judge,
dissenting:
Because this court affirmed all that was left of Colvin’s case — his conviction on counts 1, 2 and 8 as well as his sentence on these counts' — and our mandate left nothing for the district court to do but perform the ministerial task of erasing the conviction on count 9, I believe that the judgment of conviction became final, at the latest, when the time for petitioning the United States Supreme Court for a writ of certiorari had expired.
For sure, we reversed Colvin’s conviction on count 9. But we affirmed both the adjudication of guilt and the sentence on counts 1, 2 and 8. Therefore, Colvin could only have undone his sentence by petitioning for a writ of certiorari from our decision — which he did not do. The fact that he asked the district court on remand to reconsider his sentence in light of our reversal of the conviction on count 9 should not matter, for the district court could not possibly have done so since we had already affirmed the sentence. Nor should it matter that any party can always ask anything of the district court on remand: in this case, the only conceivable thing that Colvin could request would amount to another way of saying that his sentence should not have been affirmed on appeal, but rather should have been vacated and the matter remanded for resentencing. However, we decided otherwise, and the district court had no power to “rethink” or reverse our decision. Only the Supreme Court can do that.
It is well-settled that the mandate of an appellate court “ ‘is controlling as to matters within its compass.’ ” Nguyen v. United States, 792 F.2d 1500, 1502 (9th Cir.1986) (quoting Quern v. Jordan, 440 U.S. 332, 347 n. 18, 99 S.Ct. 1139, 59 L.Ed.2d 358 (1979)). Indeed, it forecloses the district court from reconsidering matters determined in the appellate court. Id. at 1502.1 Since our mandate affirmed the *1227sentence, the sentence could not be reexamined on remand (anymore than the convictions could be). See, e.g., United States v. Scrivner, 189 F.3d 825, 828 (9th Cir.1999) (decision on direct appeal “is binding”); Odom v. United States, 455 F.2d 159, 160 (9th Cir.1972) (when issue was decided on direct review “the judgment became final” and the matter decided cannot be litigated again on a § 2255 motion).
Lest there be any doubt, our mandate was explicit: “We affirm Colvin’s sentence and remand to the district court with directions to strike the conviction on count 9 and to reduce the special assessment from $200.00 to $150.00.” Given that the mandate affirmed Colvin’s sentence, there can be no question that “rethinking” the sentence was foreclosed and Colvin’s judgment of conviction was fully adjudicated when we rendered our decision without certiorari having been granted.
In this respect this may be an unusual case, for more typically when we reverse a conviction or sentence, partially or otherwise, we remand for retrial, resentencing or both. In such cases, where there is an “issue [that has] not expressly or impliedly [been] disposed of on appeal,” Nguyen, 792 F.2d at 1502 (quoting Stevens v. F/V Bonnie Doon, 731 F.2d 1433, 1435 (9th Cir.1984)), the judgment of conviction will not become final until an amended judgment is entered and appellate review of the amended judgment is exhausted.2
The majority extends this rule for issues that are not covered by an appellate mandate to ones that are. Although there is a certain value in making the rule for the more usual case a bright line rule for each case where this court “partially” affirms and “partially” reverses a conviction and remands, I cannot agree that it is apposite here. Section 2255 focuses on when the judgment becomes final, not on whether it is affirmed, partially affirmed and partially reversed, or reversed. The majority’s view (that the district court’s interpretation of the mandate is always appealable) would logically require the same rule to be applied in all cases, including those where the appellate court affirms the entire judgment of conviction, since in every case there is a remand at least for the purpose of spreading the mandate. So far as I am aware, no one has suggested that finality should be measured from the time a mandate to affirm is filed and spread. As a practical matter that is what the judgment on appeal did in this case. There is no basis for crafting a different rule simply because the district court was directed to perform the ministerial task of striking a conviction on one count from the judgment.
Thus as I see it, regardless of the fact that we “partially” reversed Colvin’s conviction by ordering one count stricken, we affirmed his conviction and sentence on the only remaining counts. This necessarily means that the judgment of conviction became final in Colvin’s case no later than September 17, 1997, when the time for seeking review in the Supreme Court elapsed. See S.Ct. Rule 13(1). I would, accordingly, hold that Colvin’s § 2255 motion, which was filed more than a year later, is time-barred and was properly dismissed.

. The majority's reliance on Nguyen for the proposition that a party may (always) appeal a district court's interpretation of a mandate is misplaced in that the district court there was asked by the plaintiffs on remand for leave to amend the pleadings to add a different theory — something that had not explicitly been ruled on appeal. Here, of course, Col-vin's sentence had explicitly been ruled on, and affirmed.

. United. States v. Washington, 172 F.3d 1116 (9th Cir.1999), is a good example. There, we vacated the sentence, then remanded with directions to recalculate the guideline range without considering a particular cross-reference and to “resentence accordingly.” In that circumstance, we held that our mandate allowed the district court discretion on remand to put together a new sentencing package. But the mandate in this case left no such room.