Court Opinion

ID: 9838893
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-08 17:01:18.273035+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:02:26.981924
License: Public Domain

USCA11 Case: 22-13220    Document: 22-1     Date Filed: 09/08/2023   Page: 1 of 9

                                                  [DO NOT PUBLISH]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

                          ____________________

                                No. 22-13220
                          Non-Argument Calendar
                          ____________________

       UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
                                                      Plaintiﬀ-Appellee,
       versus
       CLAY C. KEYS,

                                                  Defendant-Appellant.

                          ____________________

                 Appeal from the United States District Court
                     for the Northern District of Florida
                 D.C. Docket No. 3:13-cr-00094-TKW-HTC-1
                          ____________________
USCA11 Case: 22-13220         Document: 22-1            Date Filed: 09/08/2023      Page: 2 of 9

       2                          Opinion of the Court                       22-13220

       Before JORDAN, BRANCH, and EDMONDSON, Circuit Judges.
       PER CURIAM:

               Clay Keys, a federal prisoner proceeding pro se, 1 appeals the
       district court’s denial of Keys’s pro se motions for post-conviction
       relief. The government has moved for summary aﬃrmance and
       for a stay of the brieﬁng schedule. We summarily aﬃrm the district
       court’s order and deny as moot the government’s motion to stay
       the brieﬁng schedule. 2
                                                   I.
               In 2013, a federal grand jury returned a superseding indict-
       ment charging Keys with three felony counts for the receipt and
       distribution of child pornography and for possession of ammuni-
       tion by a convicted felon. Keys pleaded guilty to the charged of-
       fenses.
              Keys was sentenced to a total of 180 months’ imprisonment.
       In February 2014, the district court entered ﬁnal judgment in Keys’s
       criminal case, together with a statement of reasons (“SOR”). In

       1 We construe liberally pro se pleadings.  See Tannenbaum v. United States, 148
       F. 3d 1262, 1263 (11th Cir. 1998). We also read liberally briefs filed by pro se
       litigants. See Timson v. Sampson, 518 F.3d 870, 874 (11th Cir. 2008).
       2 Keys’s response to the government’s motion for summary affirmance -- con-

       strued liberally -- includes a request to file a second-or-successive 28 U.S.C. §
       2255 motion. We DENY this request without prejudice so that Keys may ap-
       ply for leave to file a second-or-successive section 2255 motion using the ap-
       propriate form.
USCA11 Case: 22-13220     Document: 22-1      Date Filed: 09/08/2023    Page: 3 of 9

       22-13220               Opinion of the Court                        3

       pertinent part, the SOR provided that Keys be housed at a Bureau
       of Prisons (“BOP”) facility with no members of the White Aryan
       Nation Gang or the Aryan Brotherhood. Keys did not appeal his
       convictions or sentence.
              In December 2016, Keys ﬁled a motion to vacate under 28
       U.S.C. § 2255. The district court dismissed Keys’s section 2255 mo-
       tion as untimely-ﬁled. Keys ﬁled no appeal.
               In July 2019, Keys moved for compassionate release. The
       district court denied Keys’s motion. We later dismissed Keys’s ap-
       peal for failure to prosecute. Keys ﬁled a second motion for com-
       passionate release in May 2020. The district court denied the mo-
       tion; we aﬃrmed the district court’s denial on appeal.
              In August 2022, Keys ﬁled pro se the motions at issue in this
       appeal. The challenged motions include (1) a motion to compel a
       ruling that the SOR constituted a “fraudulent document”; (2) a re-
       quest for an evidentiary hearing about the SOR; (3) a motion to
       compel the district court to recognize Keys as a “crime victim” un-
       der the Crime Victims’ Rights Act (“CVRA”), 18 U.S.C. § 3771; (4)
       a motion for recusal based on alleged judicial bias; and (5) a motion
       to reassign Keys’s case to a diﬀerent judge.
              The district court denied Keys’s motions. In pertinent part,
       the district court concluded that Keys’s motion to compel a ruling
       on the SOR constituted an unauthorized second-or-successive 28
       U.S.C. § 2255 motion. The district court thus denied Keys’s motion
       to compel and Keys’s motion for an evidentiary hearing on the
       SOR.
USCA11 Case: 22-13220      Document: 22-1         Date Filed: 09/08/2023   Page: 4 of 9

       4                      Opinion of the Court                   22-13220

               The district court next denied Keys’s “crime victim” motion
       because (1) Keys was no “crime victim” under section 3771(e)(2);
       (2) the person who purportedly threatened Keys was never charged
       with a criminal oﬀense; (3) a “crime victim” may not assert his
       rights in an unrelated criminal case; and (4) a “crime victim” desig-
       nation would provide Keys no greater right to protection that he
       already had.
               About Keys’s motions for recusal and for reassignment, the
       district court determined that Keys had failed to demonstrate bias
       warranting recusal.
                                            II.
             Summary disposition is appropriate where “the position of
       one of the parties is clearly right as a matter of law so that there
       can be no substantial question as to the outcome of the case, or
       where, as is more frequently the case, the appeal is frivolous.”
       Groendyke Transp., Inc. v. Davis, 406 F.2d 1158, 1162 (5th Cir. 1969).
             A.     Motions to Compel Ruling on SOR and for an Evidentiary
       Hearing
              The district court committed no error in denying Keys’s mo-
       tions to compel a ruling that the SOR constituted a “fraudulent
       document” and for an evidentiary hearing on that issue. Brieﬂy
       stated, Keys objected to statements in the SOR providing that Keys
       be housed at a BOP facility with no members of the White Aryan
       Nation or Aryan Brotherhood. Keys contends that -- because the
       sentencing court had no authority to order the BOP to house Keys
       at a particular facility -- those statements in the SOR were
USCA11 Case: 22-13220       Document: 22-1      Date Filed: 09/08/2023      Page: 5 of 9

       22-13220                Opinion of the Court                           5

       fraudulent. Keys asserts that the government and the sentencing
       judge coerced his guilty plea using false promises that the BOP
       would protect him; the supposed false promises rendered his plea
       involuntary. Keys contends that the government engaged in “pros-
       ecutorial misconduct,” that his trial lawyer provided ineﬀective as-
       sistance by failing to object to the statements in the SOR, and that
       the SOR violated his constitutional rights.
               The district court considered properly whether Keys’s mo-
       tion to compel could be construed as a section 2255 motion. See
       Gooden v. United States, 627 F.3d 846, 847 (11th Cir. 2010) (“Federal
       courts have long recognized that they have an obligation to look
       behind the label of a motion ﬁled by a pro se inmate and determine
       whether the motion is, in eﬀect, cognizable under a diﬀerent reme-
       dial statutory framework.”). Keys’s arguments challenging the va-
       lidity of his guilty plea and the eﬀectiveness of his trial lawyer’s per-
       formance were characterized reasonably as arguments that must
       be raised in a section 2255 motion. See Darby v. Hawk-Sawyer, 405
       F.3d 942, 944 (11th Cir. 2005) (“Typically, collateral attacks on the
       validity of a federal sentence must be brought under § 2255.”).
              Keys already ﬁled a section 2255 motion in 2016. The district
       court dismissed that motion as time-barred: a dismissal with preju-
       dice for second-or-successive purposes. See, e.g., Jordan v. Sec’y, Dep’t
       of Corr., 485 F.3d 1351, 1353 (11th Cir. 2007) (noting in ruling on a
       successive application that the petitioner’s ﬁrst habeas action had
       been dismissed “with prejudice” as untimely); see also Justice v.
       United States, 6 F.3d 1474, 1482 n.15 (11th Cir. 1993) (noting that the
USCA11 Case: 22-13220      Document: 22-1      Date Filed: 09/08/2023    Page: 6 of 9

       6                      Opinion of the Court                 22-13220

       dismissal of an action purportedly without prejudice has the eﬀect
       of a dismissal with prejudice if the plaintiﬀ would be time-barred
       from re-ﬁling).
              Keys never received authorization from this Court to ﬁle a
       second section 2255 motion. The district court thus concluded
       properly that Keys’s construed second-or-successive section 2255
       motion needed to be dismissed. See Farris v. United States, 333 F.3d
       1211, 1216 (11th Cir. 2003) (“Without authorization, the district
       court lacks jurisdiction to consider a second or successive [section
       2255] petition.”). Because the district court was without jurisdic-
       tion to consider Keys’s motion challenging the SOR, the district
       court abused no discretion in denying Keys’s motion for an eviden-
       tiary hearing on that issue.
              B.     Motion for “Crime Victim” Relief
              In support of his motion seeking recognition as a “crime vic-
       tim” under the CVRA, Keys says that a fellow prisoner and member
       of the White Aryan Nation (“K.S.”) threatened verbally Keys’s life.
       K.S. allegedly told Keys that -- if Keys testiﬁed against K.S. -- K.S.
       would direct members of the White Aryan Nation to kill Keys.
       Never has Keys alleged that he has been harmed physically by K.S.
       or by a member of the White Aryan Nation.
              Under the CVRA, a “crime victim” means “a person directly
       and proximately harmed as a result of the commission of a Federal
       oﬀense or an oﬀense in the District of Columbia.” 18 U.S.C. §
       3771(e)(2). We have concluded that the CVRA creates no “private
       right of action by which a victim can initiate a freestanding lawsuit,
USCA11 Case: 22-13220      Document: 22-1      Date Filed: 09/08/2023     Page: 7 of 9

       22-13220               Opinion of the Court                          7

       wholly unconnected to any preexisting criminal prosecution and
       untethered to any proceeding that came before it.” See In re Wild,
       994 F.3d 1244, 1256-57 (11th Cir. 2021) (en banc).
              The district court committed no error in denying Keys’s mo-
       tion for “crime victim” relief. Even to the extent Keys could show
       that he qualiﬁed as a “crime victim” based on K.S.’s verbal threat,
       Keys may seek relief under the CRVA only in the resulting criminal
       proceedings brought against K.S. -- not in his own, unrelated crim-
       inal case. See id.
              C.     Motions to Recuse and to Reassign Case
              We review for abuse of discretion the district court’s rulings
       on a motion for recusal. See United States v. Bailey, 175 F.3d 966, 968
       (11th Cir. 1999). We will aﬃrm a judge’s refusal to recuse unless
       “the impropriety is clear and one which would be recognized by all
       objective, reasonable persons.” Id. In determining whether recusal
       is necessary, we ask “whether an objective, disinterested, lay ob-
       server fully informed of the facts underlying the grounds on which
       recusal was sought would entertain a signiﬁcant doubt about the
       judge’s impartiality.” See Parker v. Connors Steel Co., 855 F.2d 1510,
       1524 (11th Cir. 1988).
              A district court judge “shall disqualify himself in any pro-
       ceeding in which his impartiality might reasonably be questioned”
       or “[w]here he has a personal bias or prejudice concerning a party.”
       28 U.S.C. § 455(a), (b)(1). “Bias suﬃcient to disqualify a judge under
       section 455(a) and section 455(b)(1) must stem from extrajudicial
       sources, unless the judge’s acts demonstrate such pervasive bias
USCA11 Case: 22-13220        Document: 22-1       Date Filed: 09/08/2023        Page: 8 of 9

       8                        Opinion of the Court                     22-13220

       and prejudice that it unfairly prejudices one of the parties.” Bailey,
       175 F.3d at 968 (quotations omitted).
             The district court abused no discretion in denying Keys’s
       motion for recusal. Keys sought Judge Wetherell’s recusal based
       chieﬂy 3 on Judge Wetherell’s purported bias. As evidence of Judge
       Wetherell’s purported bias, Keys points to Judge Wetherell’s orders
       denying Keys’s two motions for compassionate release: orders that
       cited to portions of the challenged SOR. Keys also contends that
       Judge Wetherell has demonstrated bias by failing to enforce, mod-
       ify, or rescind the alleged fraudulent statements in the SOR.
              No unfair prejudice has been shown. That Judge Wetherell
       ruled adversely to Keys -- without more -- is insuﬃcient to demon-
       strate pervasive bias or prejudice mandating recusal. See Liteky v.
       United States, 510 U.S. 540, 555 (1994). Nor does Judge Wetherell’s
       failure to sua sponte enforce, modify, or rescind the SOR -- a docu-
       ment entered by a diﬀerent judge -- raise signiﬁcant doubt about
       Judge Wetherell’s impartiality. Because Keys has demonstrated no
       clear objective impropriety, we aﬃrm the district court’s denial of
       Keys’s motions to recuse and to reassign the case to a diﬀerent
       judge.
             No substantial question exists on the outcome of this ap-
       peal. Because the government’s position is correct as a matter of

       3 Keys also sought Judge Wetherell’s recusal because Keys says he intended to

       call Judge Wetherell as a witness at the requested evidentiary hearing. We
       need not consider this asserted ground for recusal, however, because the dis-
       trict court denied properly Keys’s motion for an evidentiary hearing.
USCA11 Case: 22-13220   Document: 22-1   Date Filed: 09/08/2023   Page: 9 of 9

       22-13220           Opinion of the Court                     9

       law, summary aﬃrmance is appropriate. The government’s mo-
       tion for summary aﬃrmance is GRANTED, and the government’s
       motion to stay the brieﬁng schedule is DENIED as moot.
             AFFIRMED.