Court Opinion

ID: 9753429
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-28 19:14:01.251744+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:55:52.322073
License: Public Domain

USCA11 Case: 22-12173    Document: 29-1     Date Filed: 08/28/2023   Page: 1 of 9

                                                  [DO NOT PUBLISH]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

                          ____________________

                                No. 22-12173
                          Non-Argument Calendar
                          ____________________

       TRACY TOPAZ TURNER,
                                                   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. 0:16-cv-61155-MGC
                          ____________________
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       2                         Opinion of the Court                      22-12173

       Before BRANCH, ANDERSON, and EDMONDSON, Circuit Judges.
       PER CURIAM:
             Tracy Turner, a federal prisoner 1 proceeding through ap-
       pointed counsel, appeals the district court’s denial of his authorized
       second or successive 28 U.S.C. § 2255 motion. No reversible error
       has been shown; we aﬃrm.
                                                 I.
              In 1995, Turner was convicted by a jury of conspiracy to
       possess with intent to distribute crack cocaine and of two counts
       of possession with intent to distribute crack cocaine, in violation
       of 21 U.S.C. §§ 841 and 846.
              Applying the then-mandatory 1994 Sentencing Guidelines,
       the district court determined -- based on Turner’s prior convictions
       for a “crime of violence”2 (armed robbery) and a controlled-sub-
       stance oﬀense -- that Turner qualiﬁed as a career oﬀender under

       1 In September 2019 -- while the instant section 2255 motion was pending in

       the district court -- the district court granted Turner’s motion for a reduced
       sentence under section 404 of the First Step Act of 2018. The district court
       reduced Turner’s sentence to credit for time served and six years’ supervised
       release. Turner is now serving his term of supervised release.
       2 At the time of Turner’s sentencing, the sentencing guidelines defined “crime

       of violence” -- for purposes of the career-offender enhancement -- to include a
       felony offense that “involves conduct that presents a serious potential risk of
       physical injury to another.” See U.S.S.G. § 4B1.2(a) (1994).
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       22-12173                  Opinion of the Court                               3

       U.S.S.G. § 4B1.1. Turner’s guideline range was calculated as be-
       tween 360 months and life imprisonment. The district court sen-
       tenced Turner to 360 months’ imprisonment on each count, to be
       served concurrently, followed by 10 years of supervised release.
             Turner’s convictions and sentence were aﬃrmed on direct
       appeal. Turner’s conviction became ﬁnal when the Supreme Court
       denied certiorari in October 1998. Turner ﬁled his ﬁrst section 2255
       motion in 1999, which the district court denied on the merits.
              In 2015, the Supreme Court struck down as unconstitution-
       ally vague the residual clause in the Armed Career Criminal Act’s
       (“ACCA”) deﬁnition of “violent felony.” 3 See Johnson v. United States,
       576 U.S. 591, 597-602 (2015). The Supreme Court later concluded
       that Johnson applied retroactively to cases on collateral review. See
       Welch v. United States, 578 U.S. 120, 135 (2016).
               In 2016, Turner ﬁled pro se the section 2255 motion at issue
       in this appeal: his fourth section 2255 motion. Turner argued -- in
       the light of the Supreme Court’s decision in Johnson -- that his Flor-
       ida conviction for armed robbery no longer qualiﬁed as a valid
       predicate oﬀense for purposes of the career-oﬀender sentencing
       enhancement in U.S.S.G. § 4B1.1.
             A panel of this Court granted Turner leave to ﬁle a second
       or successive section 2255 motion challenging -- pursuant to

       3 The ACCA’s residual clause defines “violent felony” to include a felony of-

       fense that “involves conduct that presents a serious potential risk of physical
       injury to another.” See 18 U.S.C. § 924(e)(2)(B).
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       4                      Opinion of the Court                 22-12173

       Johnson -- his career-oﬀender sentence under the then-mandatory
       guidelines. The district court appointed counsel for Turner and
       stayed the proceedings pending a decision from the Supreme Court
       in Beckles v. United States, 580 U.S. 256 (2017).
               In Beckles, the Supreme Court concluded that the advisory
       sentencing guidelines are not subject to a void-for-vagueness chal-
       lenge under the Due Process Clause. See Beckles, 580 U.S. at 263.
       The Supreme Court thus rejected the argument that the residual
       clause of the career-oﬀender guideline’s deﬁnition of “crime of vi-
       olence” -- as set forth in section 4B1.2(a) -- was void for vagueness.
       See id.
              Following the issuance of Beckles and supplemental brieﬁng
       by the parties in this case, a magistrate judge issued a report and
       recommendation (“R&R”). The magistrate judge recommended
       that Turner’s section 2255 motion be denied on the merits. The
       magistrate judge concluded that Turner’s claim, challenging his
       mandatory career-oﬀender sentence, was foreclosed by our deci-
       sion in In re Griﬃn, 823 F.3d 1350 (11th Cir. 2016). In making that
       ruling, the magistrate judge rejected Turner’s arguments (1) that
       Griﬃn had been abrogated by Beckles and (2) that Griﬃn was inap-
       plicable because it was decided in the context of an application for
       leave to ﬁle a second or successive section 2255 motion.
            Turner objected to the R&R. The district court overruled
       Turner’s objections and adopted the R&R. The district court
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       22-12173                   Opinion of the Court                               5

       denied Turner’s motion on the merits, concluding that Turner’s ca-
       reer-oﬀender sentence was unaﬀected by Johnson. 4
               The district court, however, granted Turner a certiﬁcate of
       appealability on these issues: (1) “whether sentences imposed un-
       der the then mandatory pre-Booker sentencing guidelines are sub-
       ject to a vagueness challenge;”5 and (2) “the precedential weight of
       published opinions in the context of applications for second or suc-
       cessive motions to vacate.”
                                                   II.
              When reviewing the denial of a section 2255 motion to va-
       cate, “we review legal conclusions de novo and ﬁndings of fact for
       clear error.” See Spencer v. United States, 773 F.3d 1132, 1137 (11th
       Cir. 2014) (en banc).
                                                   A.
               The district court concluded properly -- based on our deci-
       sion in Griﬃn -- that Turner’s mandatory career-oﬀender sentence
       is not subject to a void-for-vagueness challenge under Johnson.

       4 In the alternative, the district court dismissed Turner’s section 2255 motion

       as untimely because -- although Turner filed his section 2255 motion within
       one year of the Johnson decision -- Turner’s argument did not qualify as a John-
       son claim. Because we conclude that Turner’s section 2255 motion fails on the
       merits, we need not address the district court’s alternative ruling about time-
       liness.
       5United States v. Booker, 543 U.S. 200 (2005).
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       6                      Opinion of the Court                 22-12173

               In Griﬃn, we rejected the same argument now raised by
       Turner: that Johnson invalidated the residual clause of the “crime
       of violence” deﬁnition in the then-mandatory career-oﬀender sen-
       tencing guidelines. See Griﬃn, 823 F.3d at 1352-53, 1356. We con-
       cluded that “[t]he Guidelines -- whether mandatory or advisory --
       cannot be unconstitutionally vague because they do not establish
       the illegality of any conduct and are designed to assist and limit the
       discretion of the sentencing judge.” Id. at 1354.
              On appeal, Turner acknowledges that Griﬃn is contrary to
       his argument challenging his mandatory career-oﬀender sentence.
       Turner contends, however, that Griﬃn has since been undermined
       to the point of abrogation by the Supreme Court’s decisions in
       Beckles and in Sessions v. Dimaya, 138 S. Ct. 1204 (2018). We disa-
       gree.
              Under our prior-panel-precedent rule, we are bound by a
       prior panel’s holding “unless and until it is overruled or under-
       mined to the point of abrogation by the Supreme Court or by this
       court sitting en banc.” United States v. Archer, 531 F.3d 1347, 1352
       (11th Cir. 2008). “To conclude that we are not bound by a prior
       holding in light of a Supreme Court case, we must ﬁnd that the
       case is ‘clearly on point’ and that it ‘actually abrogates or directly
       conﬂicts with, as opposed to merely weakens, the holding of the
       prior panel.” United States v. Dudley, 5 F.4th 1249, 1265 (11th Cir.
       2021) (brackets omitted).
             In Beckles, the Supreme Court concluded that the advisory
       sentencing guidelines were not subject to a void-for-vagueness
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       22-12173                  Opinion of the Court                               7

       challenge. See Beckles, 580 U.S. at 263. Although Beckles touched on
       the distinction between mandatory and advisory guidelines, Beckles
       neither decided nor addressed squarely whether the vagueness doc-
       trine applies to the pre-Booker mandatory guidelines. For back-
       ground, see id. at 281 n.4 (Sotomayor, J., concurring) (noting that
       the Court “le[ft] open the question whether defendants sentenced
       to terms of imprisonment before . . . Booker . . . may mount vague-
       ness attacks on their sentences”). Given that Beckles took “no posi-
       tion” on whether the mandatory guidelines may be subject to a
       vagueness challenge, see id., we cannot conclude that Griﬃn has
       been undermined to the point of abrogation by Beckles.
               Nor has Griﬃn been abrogated by the Supreme Court’s de-
       cision in Dimaya. In Dimaya, the Supreme Court applied Johnson to
       conclude that the residual clause of the “crime of violence” deﬁni-
       tion in a diﬀerent criminal statute -- 18 U.S.C. § 16(b) -- was uncon-
       stitutionally vague. See 138 S. Ct. at 1210, 1216, 1223. Dimaya in-
       volved no vagueness challenge to the sentencing guidelines, man-
       datory or advisory.
              Neither Beckles nor Dimaya is “clearly on point” or “directly
       conﬂicts with” our ruling in Griﬃn that the mandatory sentencing
       guidelines are not subject to a void-for-vagueness challenge. Griﬃn
       thus remains binding precedent. 6

       6 We also reject Turner’s argument that Griffin was wrong when it was de-

       cided. See Smith v. GTE Corp., 236 F.3d 1292, 1303 (11th Cir. 2001) (“[W]e cat-
       egorically reject any exception to the prior panel precedent rule based upon a
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       8                         Opinion of the Court                       22-12173

                                                 B.
              Turner next contends that the district court violated his due
       process rights by treating Griﬃn -- a decision issued in a successive-
       application context -- as binding precedent in the context of his sec-
       tion 2255 proceeding.
               Turner acknowledges that his argument is foreclosed by our
       prior precedent. We have already determined that published three-
       judge orders issued in the context of an application for leave to ﬁle
       a second or successive section 2255 motion constitute binding prec-
       edent. See United States v. St. Hubert, 909 F.3d 335, 346 (11th Cir.
       2018), abrogated on other grounds by United States v. Davis, 132 S. Ct.
       2319 (2019), and United States v. Taylor, 142 S. Ct. 2015 (2022) (con-
       cluding that decisions published “in the context of applications for
       leave to ﬁle second or successive § 2255 motions [are] binding prec-
       edent on all subsequent panels of this Court, including those re-
       viewing direct appeals and collateral attacks” (emphasis in origi-
       nal)); In re Lambrix, 776 F.3d 789, 794 (11th Cir. 2015) (“[O]ur prior-
       panel-precedent rule applies with equal force as to prior panel de-
       cisions published in the context of applications to ﬁle second or
       successive petitions. In other words, published three-judge orders
       issued under [28 U.S.C.] § 2244(b) are binding precedent in our cir-
       cuit.”).

       perceived defect in the prior panel’s reasoning or analysis as it relates to the
       law in existence at that time.”).
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       22-12173              Opinion of the Court                       9

              Neither the Supreme Court nor this Court sitting en banc has
       overruled or abrogated our rulings about the precedential value of
       published decisions issued in the successive-application context.
       Under our prior-panel-precedent rule, we are bound by our deci-
       sions in St. Hubert and Lambrix.
              In sum, Griﬃn remains binding precedent applicable to the
       section 2255 proceedings in this case. Because Griﬃn forecloses
       squarely Turner’s claim challenging his mandatory career-oﬀender
       sentence, the district court concluded properly that Turner’s claim
       failed on the merits.
             AFFIRMED.