Court Opinion

ID: 9399358
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-06-02 18:00:34.56386+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:19:13.058010
License: Public Domain

Case: 22-10487         Document: 00516772379             Page: 1      Date Filed: 06/02/2023

              United States Court of Appeals
                   for the Fifth Circuit                                        United States Court of Appeals
                                                                                         Fifth Circuit

                                      ____________                                      FILED
                                                                                      June 2, 2023
                                       No. 22-10487                               Lyle W. Cayce
                                      ____________                                     Clerk

   United States of America,

                                                                       Plaintiff—Appellee,

                                             versus

   David Lee Garrett,

                                               Defendant—Appellant.
                      ______________________________

                      Appeal from the United States District Court
                          for the Northern District of Texas
                               USDC No. 3:16-CR-107-1
                      ______________________________

   Before Wiener, Southwick, and Duncan, Circuit Judges.
   Per Curiam: *
          David Lee Garrett pled guilty, without a plea agreement, to being a
   felon in possession of a firearm in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1). During
   his original sentencing, the parties disputed whether the Armed Career
   Criminal Act (“ACCA”), 18 U.S.C. § 924(e), applied based on Garrett’s
   prior robbery conviction and two prior burglary convictions. See United
   States v. Garrett, 810 F. App’x 353, 354 (5th Cir. 2020). The ACCA requires

          _____________________
          *
              This opinion is not designated for publication. See 5th Cir. R. 47.5.
Case: 22-10487         Document: 00516772379               Page: 2       Date Filed: 06/02/2023

                                           No. 22-10487

   a minimum 15-year prison sentence if a defendant convicted under Section
   922(g) has at least three prior convictions for a violent felony or serious drug
   offense. § 924(e)(1); see Borden v. United States, 141 S. Ct. 1817, 1822 (2021).
           The district court held that Garrett’s two prior convictions for
   burglary of a habitation under Texas Penal Code Section 30.02(a) qualified
   as violent felonies under the ACCA, but that his prior conviction for robbery
   under Texas Penal Code Section 29.02 did not meet the statutory definition.
   Garrett, 810 F. App’x at 354. Because Garrett did not have the predicate
   three violent felonies required under the ACCA, the district court imposed a
   sentence of only 84 months. Id.
           The Government appealed, arguing Garrett’s sentence should be
   vacated and the case remanded for resentencing due to circuit precedent that
   Texas robbery was a violent felony under the ACCA. Id. We agreed, holding
   that precedent foreclosed “the argument that Garrett’s Texas robbery and
   burglary convictions are not violent felonies.” Id. We vacated Garrett’s
   sentence and remanded for the imposition of an ACCA sentence. Id. at 355;
   see also United States v. Garrett, 24 F.4th 485, 487 (5th Cir. 2022).
           Garrett filed a petition for a writ of certiorari, which the Supreme
   Court granted. The Supreme Court vacated this court’s judgment and
   remanded for further consideration in light of its decision in Borden, 141 S.
   Ct. 1817. 1 Garrett v. United States, 141 S. Ct. 2782 (2021).
           On remand, we held that Borden did not alter whether Garrett was
   subject to the ACCA’s enhanced-penalty provision. Garrett, 24 F.4th at 487.
           _____________________
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            In Borden, the Supreme Court held that the portion of the ACCA’s definition of
   a “violent felony” that captures offenses requiring as an element the use, attempted use,
   or threatened use of force, does not reach offenses that require only proof of reckless
   causation of injury. 141 S. Ct. at 1825, 1834 (plurality); see also id. at 1835–37 (Thomas, J.,
   concurring).

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Case: 22-10487      Document: 00516772379          Page: 3    Date Filed: 06/02/2023

                                    No. 22-10487

   We concluded that the Texas robbery statute is divisible into injury-based
   and threat-based crimes, and that a Texas robbery-by-threat conviction
   remains a violent felony because it must be completed intentionally or
   knowingly. Id. at 490–91. We once again vacated and remanded to the
   district court “for resentencing under the ACCA.” Id. at 491.
          In district court after our remand, Garrett attempted to raise new
   arguments relating to his robbery conviction. He challenged the robbery
   conviction as a predicate to the ACCA on three grounds, arguing: (1) the
   conviction was void on its face because the referral request to the state
   magistrate judge was not properly signed; (2) the conviction did not satisfy
   the force clause of the ACCA; and (3) the Fifth Circuit erroneously
   determined that Texas law supported the conclusion that the robbery statute
   was divisible.
          The district court overruled Garrett’s objections based on the
   mandate rule. It noted that this court had remanded “for resentencing for a
   limited purpose,” which was to “impose an ACCA sentence,” and that it
   therefore “d[id] not have the discretion to go beyond that limited purpose.”
   The court applied the ACCA and sentenced Garrett to 180 months of
   imprisonment and five years of supervised release.
          Garrett now appeals the 180-month sentence imposed on remand. He
   contends the district court erred by not acknowledging that it had discretion
   to determine whether to apply the mandate rule. He further asserts that the
   reliance on his 2007 robbery conviction as an ACCA predicate falls within
   the “manifest injustice” exception to the mandate rule because, he argues,
   the conviction was void. The Government responds that Garrett’s argument
   is barred because he failed to raise it in his first appeal and that none of the
   exceptions to the mandate rule applies.

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Case: 22-10487      Document: 00516772379          Page: 4     Date Filed: 06/02/2023

                                    No. 22-10487

          We review a district court’s interpretation of a remand order de novo.
   See United States v. Pineiro, 470 F.3d 200, 204 (5th Cir. 2006). The mandate
   rule is “a specific application of the general doctrine of law of the case.”
   United States v. Lee, 358 F.3d 315, 321 (5th Cir. 2004) (quotation marks and
   citation omitted). It is a “restrictive rule for interpreting the scope of the
   mandate in the criminal resentencing context.” United States v. Matthews,
   312 F.3d 652, 658 (5th Cir. 2002). As a result, only “discrete, particular
   issues identified by the appeals court for remand are properly before the
   resentencing court,” and “litigation of issues decided by the district court
   but foregone on appeal or otherwise waived” are barred. Lee, 358 F.3d at 321
   (quotation marks and citation omitted).
          We have held that a defendant cannot use sentencing or resentencing
   to “entertain a collateral attack on a prior conviction used to enhance the
   sentence unless such an attack is otherwise recognized by law.” United States
   v. Longstreet, 603 F.3d 273, 277 (5th Cir. 2010). Further, “an issue that could
   have been but was not raised on appeal is forfeited and may not be revisited
   by the district court on remand.” Med. Ctr. Pharm. v. Holder, 634 F.3d 830,
   834 (5th Cir. 2011) (emphasis in original). Garrett has failed to show that the
   issues he raises fall within any of the exceptions to the mandate rule. See
   Longstreet, 603 F.3d at 277; Pineiro, 470 F.3d at 205–06.
          We have already decided that Garrett’s robbery conviction was a valid
   ACCA predicate. See Garrett, 24 F.4th at 491. The district court was correct
   to sentence him accordingly.
          The judgment is AFFIRMED.

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