Court Opinion

ID: 9487833
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 12:27:35.967453+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:52:30.139491
License: Public Domain

HALL, Circuit Judge,
dissenting in part in United States v. Ingram, No. 92-10704:
I join in all but Part A of the majority opinion. I believe that Part A misconstrues *1509an unambiguous statutory provision. I therefore respectfully dissent from the disposition vacating Ingram’s sentence.
The majority holds that the prohibition in 21 U.S.C. § 851(e) against collateral attacks on prior convictions that are more than five years old does not preclude Ingram from showing that his 1982 conviction had been vacated at the time of his federal sentencing, ten years later. I believe, however, that § 851(e) does in fact bar Ingram’s challenge and that his sentence should be affirmed.
Ingram was convicted of conspiracy to distribute methamphetamine, 21 U.S.C. § 846, and possessing the same drug with intent to distribute, 21 U.S.C. § 841(a)(1). Based upon his prior convictions, Ingram was sentenced to life without parole under the enhanced sentencing provision of 21 U.S.C. § 841(b). He claims that the district court erred in refusing to entertain a collateral challenge to one of his prior convictions.
One of the convictions alleged by the government and relied upon by the district court in sentencing Ingram occurred in California state court in 1982. After Ingram was indicted in federal court and became aware that the government would attempt to rely on the 1982 conviction, he went back to the state trial court and moved that his case be reopened and his conviction stricken. The state court reopened the case on July 7,1992, and granted Ingram’s motion to strike the prior conviction.
Thus, at the time Ingram was sentenced in federal court, in October 1992, the 1982 conviction had been vacated by the court of conviction. The district court, however, declined to consider this fact. While 21 U.S.C. § 851(c) does provide a mechanism for collateral challenges to prior convictions used to enhance federal sentences under § 841(b), the court held that 21 U.S.C. § 851(e) barred Ingram’s argument in this case.
Section 851(e) provides that “[n]o person who stands convicted of an offense under [§§ 841 or 846] may challenge the validity of any prior conviction alleged under [§ 851] which occurred more than five years before the date of the information alleging such prior conviction.” The district court found that this provision precluded Ingram from showing that the 1982 conviction had been vacated. The majority concludes to the contrary that “§ 851(e) does not preclude Ingram from showing the court that the conviction has been invalidated.” Majority Opinion at 1502-03. Because the plain language of § 851(e) prohibits “challenges to the validity” of convictions that are more than five years old, I cannot agree that it permits a showing that the conviction has been “invalidated.”
The majority finds that Ingram’s attempt to prove to the district court that the 1982 conviction had been vacated was not a “challenge [to] the validity” of the prior conviction, within the meaning of § 851(e). Since the gist of Ingram’s contention is that the 1982 conviction was not “valid” for purposes of enhancing his sentence under § 841(b), this argument runs counter to the plain language of the statute. While Ingram did not demand a full evidentiary hearing under § 851(e) to examine the constitutionality of the proceedings leading to his 1982 conviction, he quite clearly tried to challenge its “validity,” in the common sense meaning of the term, by showing that it had been vacated by the state court.
In essence, Ingram’s argument must be that Congress did not intend to include a showing that a prior conviction had been vacated, expunged, or nullified in some similar manner, among the collateral challenges otherwise precluded by § 851(e). I do not believe, however, that the statute supports this interpretation.
The reasoning employed by the Supreme Court in Custis v. United States, — U.S. -, 114 S.Ct. 1732, 128 L.Ed.2d 517 (1994), is instructive. Before reaching the question whether defendants have a constitutional right to challenge the validity of convictions relied on to enhance sentences, the Court held as a matter of statutory construction that the Armed Career Criminal Act (“ACCA”), 18 U.S.C. § 924(e), does not permit such challenges. The Court first noted that the ACCA does not explicitly allow for collateral challenges to prior convictions. — U.S. at-, 114 S.Ct. at 1735-36. The Court then refused to imply such a right, in part through comparison of *1510the ACCA to 21 U.S.C. § 851(c), which specifically allows for collateral attacks to convictions used to enhance under § 841. The Court stated that:
[t]he language of § 851(c) shows that when Congress intended to authorize collateral attacks on prior convictions at the time of sentencing, it knew how to do so. Congress’ omission of similar language in [the ACCA] indicates that it did not intend to give defendants the right to challenge the validity of prior convictions under this statute.
Id. at-, 114 S.Ct. at 1736 (citing Gozlon-Peretz v. United States, 498 U.S. 395, 111 S.Ct. 840, 112 L.Ed.2d 919 (1991)).
This same reasoning supports the conclusion that § 851(e) precludes all challenges to prior convictions which are more than five years old, including a showing that the conviction has been vacated. Under the ACCA, Congress specifically provided that a prior conviction cannot be used to enhance a sentence if the prior has been vacated by the state court:
What constitutes a conviction of ... a crime shall be determined in accordance with the law of the jurisdiction in which the proceedings were held. Any conviction which has been expunged, or set aside or for which a person has been pardoned or has had civil rights restored shall not be considered a conviction for purposes of this chapter.
18 U.S.C. § 921(a)(20). Similarly, the criminal history and career offender provisions of the Sentencing Guidelines specifically provide that expunged, vacated, or invalidated convictions are not to be used in computing the defendant’s criminal history category or determining if the defendant has suffered two prior felony convictions which trigger enhanced sentencing under § 4B1.1. See U.S.S.G. §§ 4A1.1, comment, (n.2) (1994); id. (n.3); § 4A1.2(j); id. comment, (n.6); § 4B1.2, comment (n.4). Thus, for purposes, of determining both criminal history and career offender status, the Guidelines provide that
[sentences resulting from convictions that (A) have been reversed or vacated because of errors of law or because of subsequently discovered evidence exonerating the defendant, or (B) have been ruled constitutionally invalid in a prior case are not to be counted.
Id. § 4A1.2, comment, (n. 6).
These provisions indicate that when Congress (acting through the Sentencing Commission, in the case of the Guidelines) wishes to preclude courts from considering convictions which have been vacated, “it [knows] how to do so.” Custis, — U.S. at-, 114 S.Ct. at 1736. The omission of similar language from § 851 “creates a clear negative implication,” id., that there is no implicit exception to § 851(e)’s prohibition on challenges to stale convictions for convictions which have been vacated.
Arguably, this construction of § 851(e) could bring the state and federal systems into conflict, if federal courts are frequently obliged to enhance federal sentences on the basis of state convictions which have been reversed or expunged. As a matter of comity, this result may not be ideal. As a matter of Ninth Circuit law, however, it is not problematic. See, e.g., United States v. Bergeman, 592 F.2d 533, 535-38 (9th Cir.1979) (criminal conviction dismissed pursuant to Idaho state expunction statute may be used to enhance federal sentence); Hyland v. Fukuda, 580 F.2d 977, 981 (9th Cir.1978) (“[a]l-though the [state] expunction statute could determine the status of the conviction for purposes of state law, it could not ‘rewrite history’ for the purposes of ‘the administration of the federal criminal law ...’”) (citation omitted); United States v. Tallmadge, 829 F.2d 767, 782 (9th Cir.1987) (Kozinski, J., dissenting) (acknowledging that “the policies of the [state and federal] governments are at loggerheads” and suggesting that “Congress may wish to consider whether individuals whose state convictions are expunged, sealed, pardoned or retroactively reduced under state law ought not, as a matter of comity and leniency, be given the same grace under federal law,” but asserting that judges “have the uncomfortable duty of affirming” sentences in such cases and “normally discharge that duty, distasteful though it may be”).
*1511Just as the majority relies on Williams v. United States, 651 F.2d 648 (9th Cir.1981), to support its holding, I believe that case can be read to support my contrary conclusion. In a sense, the judgment which Ingram obtained in state court, vacating his 1982 conviction, was not “final” at the time he was sentenced in federal court. Williams held that a state conviction still on direct appeal should not be used for enhancement out of concern for the “orderly administration of justice,” id. at 650, and the “possibility of] conflicting results [between state and federal court decisions], with all their attendant complications and embarrassments,” id. (quoting United States v. Allen, 566 F.2d 1193, 1196 (3d Cir.1977), cert. denied, 435 U.S. 926, 98 S.Ct. 1491, 55 L.Ed.2d 519 (1978)). The same concerns suggest that a federal court should not get in the middle of state collateral litigation over the validity of a 10-year-old conviction.
The facts of this case underscore this problem. After Ingram’s federal sentencing, a California appellate court reversed the order vacating the 1982 conviction. Thus, as far as we currently know, the 1982 conviction has been reinstated and could properly be relied on to enhance a federal sentence today. Regardless of the ultimate outcome of Ingram’s state court collateral attack, I believe that § 851(e) was intended to prevent federal courts from being subject to the vagaries of such proceedings to reopen stale convictions.
A holding that § 851(e) precludes Ingram from showing that the 1982 conviction had been vacated would necessarily raise the question whether this result is constitutional. I think that Custis decisively answers this question in the affirmative.
On the basis of these statutory and constitutional holdings, I would affirm Ingram’s sentence. I therefore respectfully dissent.