Court Opinion

ID: 9410704
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-07-24 05:01:15.586354+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:20:59.701310
License: Public Domain

In the

    United States Court of Appeals
                 for the Seventh Circuit
                    ____________________
No. 21-1004
CARLOUS S. HORTON,
                                               Petitioner-Appellant,
                                v.

STANLEY LOVETT, Warden,
                                              Respondent-Appellee.
                    ____________________

        Appeal from the United States District Court for the
          Northern District of Illinois, Western Division.
           No. 19 CV 50150 — Iain D. Johnston, Judge.
                    ____________________

     ARGUED FEBRUARY 8, 2022 — DECIDED JULY 7, 2023
                ____________________

   Before SYKES, Chief Judge, and SCUDDER and JACKSON-
AKIWUMI, Circuit Judges.
   SYKES, Chief Judge. In 2012 a federal jury in the Western
District of Missouri convicted Carlous Horton of multiple
drug-trafficking, firearm, and wire-fraud crimes based on
his involvement in a large drug-distribution organization.
Horton had been convicted of state drug felonies on four
prior occasions, including in 1995 in Illinois for possessing
cocaine with intent to deliver in violation of 720 ILL. COMP.
2                                                             No. 21-1004

STAT. 570/401(c)(2). So he faced a mandatory life sentence on
two of the drug counts, see 21 U.S.C. § 841(b)(1)(A), and an
enhanced sentence of 15 years to life on the firearm count
under the Armed Career Criminal Act (“ACCA”), 18 U.S.C.
§ 924(e). The district court imposed two life sentences on the
drug counts as required by § 841 and a life sentence on the
firearm count, all to run concurrently, and concurrent terms
of varying lengths on the remaining counts.
    Horton’s direct appeal failed in the Eighth Circuit. He
then sought collateral relief in the sentencing court under
28 U.S.C. § 2255, but that motion likewise failed. At that
point further § 2255 review was largely barred. Under
§ 2255(h) a successive motion is permitted if and only if it
contains “newly discovered evidence” of innocence or is
based on a “new rule of constitutional law, made retroactive
to cases on collateral review by the Supreme Court.”
    Horton thereafter filed a petition for habeas corpus under
28 U.S.C. § 2241 in the Northern District of Illinois, where he
was then confined, 1 seeking another round of collateral
review via the “saving clause” in 28 U.S.C. § 2255(e). Ordi-
narily a § 2255 motion in the sentencing court is the exclu-
sive method for a federal prisoner to collaterally attack his
conviction or sentence, but § 2255(e) preserves a path to
collateral review via habeas. On its face the saving-clause
gateway to habeas review is narrow: the statute provides

1 A habeas petition must be filed in the district where the prisoner is
confined. 28 U.S.C. §§ 2242, 2243; Rumsfeld v. Padilla, 542 U.S. 426, 434–35
(2004). Horton was confined in a federal prison in the Northern District
of Illinois when he filed his § 2241 petition. He has since been transferred
to a federal prison in Colorado. The change in his custodian does not
affect our jurisdiction. See In re Hall, 988 F.3d 376, 377–78 (7th Cir. 2021).
No. 21-1004                                                    3

that a federal prisoner’s § 2241 motion “shall not be enter-
tained” unless the remedy by motion under § 2255 “is
inadequate or ineffective to test the legality of his detention.”
§ 2255(e).
    Our decision in In re Davenport opened the saving-clause
gateway for certain habeas claims premised on new
statutory-interpretation decisions. 147 F.3d 605 (7th Cir.
1998). Channeling postconviction review to the § 2255
remedy and restricting prisoners to one such motion—with
limited exceptions for newly discovered evidence and new
rules of constitutional law—blocks prisoners from seeking
the benefit of later statutory-interpretation decisions. We
held in Davenport that § 2255 is “inadequate or ineffective”—
and § 2241 is therefore available—when the limits on succes-
sive § 2255 motions bar relief and the prisoner’s claim is
based on a new interpretation of a criminal statute that was
previously foreclosed by circuit precedent. Id. at 610–11.
    Horton’s habeas petition proposed to raise a Davenport
claim challenging his life sentences based on Mathis v. United
States, 579 U.S. 500 (2016). The government conceded that
two of Horton’s prior drug convictions are not proper § 841
predicates under Mathis and a third—the 1995 Illinois co-
caine conviction mentioned above—also could not be count-
ed as a predicate under our decision in United States v. Ruth,
966 F.3d 642, 647 (7th Cir. 2020). But the government op-
posed relief, arguing that although Horton’s habeas petition
was premised on new statutory-interpretation develop-
ments, he had not been previously precluded by Eighth
Circuit precedent from making a Ruth-like argument and
thus did not satisfy Davenport’s saving-clause test. The
district judge agreed and denied relief.
4                                                        No. 21-1004

    Horton appealed, and we recruited pro bono counsel to
assist him in presenting the complex procedural and sub-
stantive issues raised in his § 2241 petition. 2 After briefing
and oral argument, the Supreme Court granted certiorari in
Jones v. Hendrix, 142 S. Ct. 2706 (mem.) (2022), which raised
the question whether Davenport’s interpretation of the saving
clause—and similar interpretations adopted in other cir-
cuits—is correct. Because Horton’s habeas petition depends
on the continued viability of our decision in Davenport, we
held this appeal for the Court’s ruling in Jones v. Hendrix.
   That decision is now in. The Supreme Court has rejected
Davenport’s interpretation of the saving clause. Jones v.
Hendrix, 21-857, 2023 WL 4110233, at *7 (June 22, 2023). As
the Court explained:
       Section 2255(h) specifies the two limited condi-
       tions in which Congress has permitted federal
       prisoners to bring second or successive collat-
       eral attacks on their sentences. The inability of
       a prisoner with a statutory claim to satisfy
       those conditions does not mean that he can
       bring his claim in a habeas petition under the
       saving clause. It means that he cannot bring it
       at all. Congress has chosen finality over error
       correction in his case.
Id. at *9. The Court’s ruling abrogates Davenport.
    Under Jones v. Hendrix, Horton cannot bring his statutory
claim in a § 2241 habeas petition via the saving clause;

2 Attorney Thomas L. Shriner of Foley & Lardner LLP accepted the
representation and has ably discharged his duties. We thank him for his
service to his client and the court.
No. 21-1004                                                   5

indeed, “he cannot bring it at all.” Id. We therefore affirm the
district court’s judgment denying his § 2241 petition, though
on different grounds.
                                                     AFFIRMED