Court Opinion

ID: 9943538
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2024-02-23 19:01:37.512087+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:47:12.017062
License: Public Domain

USCA11 Case: 22-12179    Document: 51-1     Date Filed: 02/23/2024   Page: 1 of 6

                                               [DO NOT PUBLISH]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

                          ____________________

                                No. 22-12179
                          Non-Argument Calendar
                          ____________________

       CHENHSIN CHAN,
       a.k.a. Paul Chan,
       a.k.a. ChenHsin Chan,
                                                   Petitioner-Appellant,
       versus
       UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

                                                  Respondent-Appellee.

                          ____________________

                 Appeal from the United States District Court
                    for the Northern District of Georgia
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       2                      Opinion of the Court                  22-12179

                  D.C. Docket Nos. 1:19-cv-03447-WMR-AJB,
                         1:14-cr-00203-WMR-AJB-1
                          ____________________

       Before NEWSOM, ANDERSON, and ED CARNES, Circuit Judges
       PER CURIAM:
               The district court dismissed Chenhsin Chan’s 28 U.S.C.
       § 2255 motion because it was time-barred. Chan filed a motion for
       relief from that decision under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 60,
       and the court denied it. We granted him a certificate of appealabil-
       ity on the issue of whether the court abused its discretion in deny-
       ing Rule 60 relief. Chan contends that the alleged misconduct of
       his § 2255 habeas counsel, along with the deficiencies of his trial
       counsel, constitutes “extraordinary circumstances” sufficient to
       warrant relief under Rule 60(b)(6).
                                            I.
               In May 2016, a jury found Chan guilty of mail fraud, intro-
       duction of adulterated food, knowing distribution of a listed chem-
       ical, and money laundering. He was sentenced to 135 months in
       prison. In July 2019, Chan filed a pro se motion to vacate, set aside,
       or correct his prison sentence under § 2255, twenty days after the
       statute of limitations expired. Chan contends that this motion was
       ghostwritten by an organization called the National Legal Profes-
       sional Associates, who were engaged in the unauthorized practice
       of law and improper fee sharing. Chan asserts that National actu-
       ally filed his § 2255 motion as if it were pro se to in an attempt to
       trick the court and hide its ethical violations. He also claims that
       the motion “argued meritless points and ignored blatant and obvi-
       ous deficiencies in the representation at trial.”
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       22-12179                 Opinion of the Court                            3

               In July 2020, the magistrate judge entered a report and rec-
       ommendation advising the district court to dismiss Chan’s § 2255
       motion due to untimeliness. Chan did not file any objections to
       the report. In September 2020, the district court adopted the mag-
       istrate judge’s recommendation and dismissed Chan’s § 2255 mo-
       tion as time-barred. Chan appealed that judgment, but we dis-
       missed his appeal for failure to prosecute because Chan did not pay
       the filing and docketing fees or file a motion to proceed in forma
       pauperis.
              In February 2022, seventeen months after the district court
       dismissed his § 2255 motion, Chan ﬁled a motion to vacate that
       judgment, in part requesting that the court grant him relief under
       Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 60(b). Chan contended that the
       court should set aside its judgment due to his habeas attorneys’ al-
       leged ethical violations.
              The district court denied Chan’s motion. It explained that
       his arguments under Rule 60(b)(6) failed because Chan did not pre-
       sent evidence of his claim that his former lawyers committed ethi-
       cal violations in ﬁling his habeas petition. The court also found that
       even if Chan’s allegations were true, his attorneys’ alleged miscon-
       duct did not rise to the level of an extraordinary circumstance that
       would entitle him to relief. Chan appealed the denial of his motion
       to vacate. We issued a certiﬁcate of appealability on “[w]hether
       the district court abused its discretion by denying Mr. Chan’s Fed.
       R. Civ. P. 60 motion, to the extent that he sought relief under Rule
       60(b)(6).”
                                              II.
               Rule 60(b)(6) allows district courts to set aside a judgment
       for “any . . . reason that justiﬁes relief.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 60(b)(6). Such
       relief, however, “is an extraordinary remedy.” Booker v. Singletary,
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       4                       Opinion of the Court                    22-12179

       90 F.3d 440, 442 (11th Cir. 1996). Qualifying for that relief “requires
       a showing of extraordinary circumstances” that would “justify[]
       the reopening of a ﬁnal judgment,” which the Supreme Court has
       stated “will rarely occur in the habeas context.” Gonzalez v. Crosby,
       545 U.S. 524, 535–36 (2005) (quotation marks omitted). In habeas
       cases, Rule 60(b) motions can only challenge “some defect in the
       integrity of the federal habeas proceedings”; they cannot “attack[]
       . . . the . . . resolution of a claim on the merits.” Id. at 532; see also
       Padilla v. Smith, 53 F.4th 1303, n.41 (11th Cir. 2022) (“When a Rule
       60 motion attacks the substance of the federal court’s resolution of
       a petition’s claim on the merits, as opposed to a defect in the integ-
       rity of the habeas proceeding, it is not truly a Rule 60 motion — it
       is a successive habeas petition.”).
              Whether to grant a Rule 60(b) motion is generally “a matter
       for the district court’s sound discretion.” Arthur v. Thomas, 739 F.3d
       611, 628 (11th Cir. 2014) (quotation marks omitted). For that rea-
       son we review a district court’s denial of a Rule 60(b) motion only
       for an abuse of discretion. Farris v. United States, 333 F.3d 1211, 1216
       (11th Cir. 2003). When applying the abuse of discretion standard,
       “we will leave undisturbed a district court’s ruling unless we ﬁnd
       that the district court has made a clear error of judgment, or has
       applied the wrong legal standard.” Arthur, 739 F.3d at 628.
              The scope of review in a habeas appeal is limited to issues
       speciﬁed in the certiﬁcate of appealability. Murray v. United States,
       145 F.3d 1249, 1250 (11th Cir. 1998). We lack jurisdiction to address
       issues for which a certiﬁcate of appealability has not been issued.
       Miller-El v. Cockrell, 537 U.S. 322, 336 (2003). As a preliminary mat-
       ter, we lack jurisdiction to address Chan’s arguments related to the
       underlying merits of his criminal conviction or his § 2255 motion,
       as those issues are improper subjects of a Rule 60(b) motion and
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       22-12179                Opinion of the Court                          5

       therefore outside the limited scope of his certiﬁcate of appealabil-
       ity. See Gonzalez, 545 U.S. at 532; Padilla, 53 F.4th at 1303 n.41.
              The district court did not abuse its discretion in deciding that
       alleging attorney misconduct without presenting evidence of it did
       not amount to an extraordinary circumstance that would entitle
       Chan to relief. Unsubstantiated accusations do not put forth the
       “showing” of extraordinary circumstances that Rule 60(b)(6) re-
       quires for relief. See Gonzalez, 545 U.S. at 536.
               Chan’s delay in ﬁling his Rule 60(b) motion and pursuing his
       appeal makes his circumstances even less extraordinary. A party’s
       lack of due diligence in pursuing review of his case may suggest an
       absence of extraordinary circumstances necessary to warrant relief
       under Rule 60(b)(6). See id. at 537 (describing the circumstances of
       a petitioner’s case as “all the less extraordinary” where he showed
       a “lack of diligence in pursuing review” of his case).
               Chan doesn’t contend, or oﬀer any evidence to suggest, that
       he only recently discovered the alleged fraud and misconduct of
       his attorneys. Because of this, Chan’s “lack of diligence in pursuing
       review” of his conviction and in complaining about his former at-
       torneys — as evidenced by his failure to prosecute the initial appeal
       of his § 2255 claim and his seventeen-month delay in seeking Rule
       60 relief after dismissal — shows that these are not extraordinary
       circumstances.
               Moreover Chan’s § 2255 motion was pending before the dis-
       trict court for more than a year, during which time Chan didn’t
       raise any concerns or arguments related to the alleged misconduct
       of his attorneys in that action. If Chan knew of his attorneys’ mis-
       conduct during that year, he could have raised the issue before the
       district court entered judgment. See Lugo v. Sec’y, Fla. Dept. of Corr.,
       750 F.3d 1198, 1212 (11th Cir. 2014) (“It is not an abuse of discretion
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       6                     Opinion of the Court                22-12179

       for the district court to deny a motion under Rule 60(b) when that
       motion is premised upon an argument that the movant could have,
       but did not, advance before the district court entered judgment.”)
       (quotation marks omitted). The court did not abuse its discretion
       when it determined that Chan had failed to establish extraordinary
       circumstances that would entitle him to relief under Rule 60(b)(6).
             AFFIRMED.