Christopher Lee v. Linda Sanders, 943 F.3d 1145

Christopher Lee was convicted in 2006 (bank fraud, aggravated identity theft), sentenced to 118 months + 5 years supervised release.
In 2016 Lee admitted new bank fraud/identity-theft charges; his supervised-release term was revoked and he received 35 months; the revocation judge said that sentence "shall run concurrently" with the sentence for the new counts.
After Lee pleaded guilty to the new charges, the sentencing judge imposed 57 months to run consecutive to the revocation sentence; the BOP therefore calculated 92 months total.
Lee sought relief via a §2255 filing (dismissed without prejudice for wrong form), exhausted BOP administrative remedies, then filed a §2241 petition in the district of his incarceration; that petition was converted/transferred to the sentencing/revocation district and assigned to the revocation judge.
The revocation judge treated the filing as a §2241 petition, denied relief (finding the BOP’s calculation reasonable), and Lee appealed; the court vacated that order and dismissed for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction because Lee failed to show §2255 was inadequate.

Issue	Plaintiff's Argument	Defendant's Argument	Held
Whether the district court had jurisdiction to hear a §2241 petition attacking the sentencing/consecutive calculation	Lee: §2255 was inadequate or ineffective, so he could proceed under §2241 in his district of incarceration	Government: §2255 provided an adequate remedy (could have filed in sentencing court); savings-clause not met	Court: No jurisdiction—Lee failed to show §2255 inadequate; §2241 unavailable
Whether Lee’s claim challenged execution (appropriate for §2241) or the validity of the sentence (requiring §2255)	Lee: the dispute is about execution/calculation by the BOP, so §2241 is proper	Government: claim effectively attacks the legality/validity of the sentence and could have been raised under §2255	Court: Claim could have been remedied under §2255 (vacatur/reimposition), so it is not a §2241 execution challenge
Whether the government’s failure to cross-appeal waived the jurisdictional issue	Lee: government didn’t cross-appeal, so issue should be waived	Government & Court: subject-matter jurisdiction cannot be waived or forfeited	Court: Jurisdictional defects can be raised sua sponte; lack of jurisdiction fatal

United States v. Watson, 883 F.3d 1033 (8th Cir. 2018) (raised the concurrent/consecutive-to-anticipated-sentence issue but left it unresolved)
United States v. Jacobs, 638 F.3d 567 (8th Cir. 2011) (subject-matter jurisdiction reviewed de novo)
Abdullah v. Hedrick, 392 F.3d 957 (8th Cir. 2004) (burden on petitioner to show §2255 remedy is inadequate or ineffective)
Hill v. Morrison, 349 F.3d 1089 (8th Cir. 2003) (§2255 considered adequate even if petitioner unaware of claim or statute of limitations expired)
Gonzalez v. Thaler, 565 U.S. 134 (2012) (subject-matter jurisdiction cannot be waived or forfeited)
Prost v. Anderson, 636 F.3d 578 (10th Cir. 2011) (focus is on infirmity of §2255 remedy itself, not petitioner’s failure to use it)