Court Opinion

ID: 9393267
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-05-09 19:00:44.430175+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:18:52.145920
License: Public Domain

USCA11 Case: 22-12222    Document: 33-1     Date Filed: 05/09/2023   Page: 1 of 8

                                                  [DO NOT PUBLISH]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

                          ____________________

                                No. 22-12222
                          Non-Argument Calendar
                          ____________________

       JULIAN BREAL,
                                                   Petitioner-Appellant,
       versus
       UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

                                                  Respondent-Appellee.

                          ____________________

                 Appeal from the United States District Court
                     for the Southern District of Florida
                    D.C. Docket No. 1:19-cv-23158-FAM
                          ____________________
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       2                      Opinion of the Court                 22-12222

       Before WILLIAM PRYOR, Chief Judge, and ROSENBAUM and JILL
       PRYOR, Circuit Judges.
       PER CURIAM:
              Julian Breal, a federal prisoner, appeals the order denying his
       successive motion to vacate, 28 U.S.C. § 2255, his conviction and
       sentence for possessing a firearm in furtherance of a crime of vio-
       lence, 18 U.S.C. § 924(c). Breal obtained leave to file his motion
       seeking a vacatur based on United States v. Davis, 139 S. Ct. 2319
       (2019). The district court ruled that Breal procedurally defaulted his
       claim for relief. We affirm.
                               I. BACKGROUND
              In 2012, Breal and five others conspired to rob a drug dealer.
       Breal provided information about the victim, his assets, and his
       movements, so that the other conspirators, none of whom were
       known to the victim, could execute the robbery. The other con-
       spirators agreed that Breal would receive a share of the proceeds of
       their crime.
              The conspirators’ initial plan was to intercept the victim on
       his return from a fishing trip, but they altered their plan when Breal
       learned that the victim had sold his fishing boat. They decided in-
       stead to rob the victim’s house. Breal provided the address and
       agreed to serve as lookout. But there were too many people at the
       victim’s house, so the conspirators aborted the robbery.
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       22-12222                Opinion of the Court                          3

              Breal’s co-conspirators later abducted the victim at gunpoint
       as he was exiting a bar. They forced the victim into the back of his
       car and drove him to a co-conspirator’s house, where they tortured
       the victim and demanded the names of people they could call to
       demand ransom. Breal was not present, but after the victim pro-
       vided several names, one of the co-conspirators called Breal, told
       Breal “we got him,” and asked Breal to confirm the names and
       phone numbers as potential targets for ransom money. Breal con-
       firmed the information. The co-conspirators then called the vic-
       tim’s brother, tortured the victim so that he screamed over the
       phone, and demanded ransom. About two months later, the police
       interviewed Breal. After he waived his right to counsel and his right
       to remain silent, Breal confessed to his role in the crimes.
               Breal and the five other conspirators were charged in a su-
       perseding indictment with conspiring to commit hostage taking, 18
       U.S.C. § 1203(a), hostage taking, id. §§ 1203(a), 2, kidnapping, id.
       §§ 1201(a), 2, carjacking, id. §§ 2119, 2, and possessing a firearm in
       furtherance of a crime of violence, id. §§ 924(c)(1)(A), 2, as set forth
       in the preceding four counts. All of the co-conspirators pleaded
       guilty, save for Breal. He was convicted of all counts following a
       jury trial and sentenced to a total term of 50 years of imprisonment,
       which included a mandatory consecutive five-year term of impris-
       onment for the firearm conviction. Breal challenged his convic-
       tions and sentence, without success, on direct appeal. United States
       v. Breal, 593 F. App’x 949 (11th Cir. 2014).
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       4                       Opinion of the Court                    22-12222

              After Breal filed a motion to vacate in 2015, which the dis-
       trict court denied, we denied him a certificate of appealability.
       Breal did not challenge the constitutionality of the residual clause
       in section 924(c) in either his direct appeal or his initial motion to
       vacate. In 2018, Breal applied for leave to file a second motion to
       vacate based on Sessions v. Dimaya, 138 S. Ct. 1204 (2018), but we
       denied his application. In re Julian Breal, No. 18-14347 (Nov. 14,
       2018). We later granted Breal leave to file a successive motion to
       vacate to raise a Davis challenge to the validity of his firearm of-
       fense. See 28 U.S.C. § 2255(h)(2).
              Breal moved to vacate his firearm conviction. 28 U.S.C.
       § 2255. He argued that his firearm conviction was invalid because
       three of his predicates—conspiracy to commit hostage taking, hos-
       tage taking, and kidnapping—were no longer “crimes of violence”
       after Davis. He argued that the jury’s general verdict precluded
       knowing which of the four predicate offenses it relied on to convict
       him of the firearm offense but that the jury most likely relied on
       the offense of conspiracy to commit hostage taking because he was
       not physically present for any of the substantive offenses. The gov-
       ernment responded that Breal’s Davis argument was procedurally
       defaulted and failed on the merits.
              The magistrate judge recommended a stay pending the res-
       olution of similar cases in this circuit, which the district court
       granted. Following our decisions in Granda v. United States, 990 F.3d
       1272 (11th Cir. 2021), cert. denied, 142 S. Ct. 1233 (2022), and Foster
       v. United States, 996 F.3d 1100 (11th Cir. 2021), cert. denied, 142 S. Ct.
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       22-12222               Opinion of the Court                         5

       500 (2021), Breal argued that his case was distinguishable from
       Granda and Foster because the essence of his convictions was based
       on his imputed, not active, participation, making it more likely that
       the jury relied on an invalid predicate offense. He also argued that
       he had shown cause to overcome the procedural default because
       his Davis argument was not reasonably available to counsel during
       his direct appeal.
               The government responded that Breal could not show cause
       and prejudice because, as in Granda, the tools necessary for raising
       a vagueness challenge to the residual clause in section 924(c) were
       available to him, and the valid and invalid predicate offenses were
       inextricably intertwined. It argued that, under Pinkerton v. United
       States, 328 U.S. 640 (1946), Breal was liable for the reasonably fore-
       seeable substantive offenses that his co-conspirators committed in
       furtherance of the conspiracy, so his physical absence during the
       substantive offenses did not distinguish his case from Granda.
              The magistrate judge recommended denying Breal’s motion
       because, based on Granda, his argument was procedurally de-
       faulted, and he could not establish cause and prejudice or actual
       innocence. The district court overruled Breal’s objections, adopted
       the report and recommendation, and denied his motion to vacate.
       The district court issued Breal a certificate of appealability as to
       “whether the procedural default rule bars relief in this case.”
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       6                      Opinion of the Court                  22-12222

                             II. STANDARD OF REVIEW
             The application of the doctrine of procedural default to a
       motion to vacate presents a mixed question of fact and law, which
       we review de novo. Granda, 990 F.3d at 1286.
                                    III. DISCUSSION
              A federal prisoner can move to vacate, set aside, or correct
       his sentence on the “ground that . . . sentence was imposed in vio-
       lation of the Constitution or laws of the United States.” 28 U.S.C.
       § 2255(a). A motion for collateral relief is subject to the doctrine of
       procedural default. Granda, 990 F.3d at 1280. That doctrine bars a
       prisoner from obtaining postconviction relief based on an argu-
       ment that he could have raised at trial and on direct appeal. McKay
       v. United States, 657 F.3d 1190, 1196 (11th Cir. 2011). A prisoner can
       excuse his procedural default by establishing both “cause to excuse
       the default and actual prejudice from the claimed error,” or actual
       innocence. Granda, 990 F.3d at 1286.
              Granda controls this appeal. Ordinarily, a prisoner can estab-
       lish cause if his postconviction motion is based on a novel legal rule
       that was unavailable to counsel on direct appeal. See id. In Granda,
       we considered the issue whether a Davis challenge presented a
       novel constitutional rule that provided cause to excuse the mo-
       vant’s procedural default. We ruled that vagueness challenges to
       criminal statutes were “commonplace” at the time of Granda’s di-
       rect appeal in 2009, so Granda “did not then lack the ‘building
       blocks’ of a vagueness challenge to the § 924(c) residual clause,”
       and could not establish cause to excuse his default. Id. at 1287.
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       22-12222               Opinion of the Court                          7

               Breal argues that his Davis challenge was unavailable during
       his direct appeal in 2014. But he fails to explain how, if the building
       blocks of a vagueness challenge were available to Granda at least
       as early as 2009, those building blocks were unavailable to Breal
       during his direct appeal five years later. Breal seeks to distinguish
       his case from Granda based on his “prior attempts to file a 2255 Pe-
       tition.” But whether Breal previously sought to collaterally attack
       his section 924(c) conviction based on Dimaya or Johnson v. United
       States, 135 S. Ct. 2551 (2015), matters not. To avoid procedural de-
       fault, he was required to make this challenge “on direct appeal,” and,
       to establish cause to excuse the default, he must establish that the
       argument was unavailable “at the time of the default.” Granda, 990
       F.3d at 1286 (emphasis added).
              Breal also cannot establish prejudice or that actual inno-
       cence excuses his procedural default. Breal argues that he is inno-
       cent of the firearm offense because all of his predicate offenses are
       invalid, except for his carjacking offense which he acknowledges is
       a valid crime-of-violence predicate under our prior precedent. See
       Steiner v. United States, 940 F.3d 1282, 1293 (11th Cir. 2019); In re
       Smith, 829 F.3d 1276, 1280–81 (11th Cir. 2016). “Actual innocence
       means factual innocence, not mere legal innocence.” Granda, 990
       F.3d at 1292 (quoting Lynn v. United States, 365 F.3d 1225, 1235 n.18
       (11th Cir. 2004)). To establish actual innocence, Breal must estab-
       lish that no reasonable juror would have concluded that he pos-
       sessed a firearm under any theory of liability in furtherance of the
       valid predicate offense of carjacking. See id. Breal cannot do so.
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       8                      Opinion of the Court                  22-12222

              All of Breal’s “predicates are inextricably intertwined, arising
       out of the same [] scheme.” Id. at 1280. Breal conspired with the
       other conspirators to intercept and rob the victim. To effectuate
       their goal, the other conspirators forced the victim at gunpoint into
       the back of the victim’s car and drove the car to one of the con-
       spirator’s homes. Indeed, as we explained in deciding Breal’s direct
       appeal, the “substantive offense of carjacking was foreseeable be-
       cause the original plan involved a carjacking. And the carrying or
       use of a firearm during the carjacking . . . of a drug dealer was rea-
       sonably foreseeable, based on the inherent dangers of the drug
       trade and the planned violent conduct in abducting the victim.”
       Breal, 593 F. App’x at 952. Because Breal cannot show
       cause-and-prejudice or actual innocence, he cannot overcome his
       procedural default.
                                   IV. CONCLUSION
              We AFFIRM the denial of Breal’s motion to vacate.