JERMAINE WHITE, Mоvant, v. UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Respondent.
Cv. No. 2:20-cv-2301-SHM-tmp, Cr. No. 2:16-cr-20092-SHM-1
IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE WESTERN DISTRICT OF TENNESSEE WESTERN DIVISION
June 13, 2023
ORDER DENYNG MOTION TO AMEND ORDER DENYING AND DISMISSING MOTION UNDER 28 U.S.C. § 2255 ORDER DENYING CERTIFICATE OF APPEALABILITY ORDER CERTIFYING APPEAL NOT TAKEN IN GOOD FAITH AND ORDER DENYING LEAVE TO PROCEED IN FORMA PAUPERIS ON APPEAL
Before the Court are a Motion Under
I. CRIMINAL CASE NO. 16-200092-SHM-1
On April 27, 2016, a federal grand jury returned an indictment in Case No. 16-20092, charging White with one count of being a felon in possession of a firearm, in violation of
White appealed. (ECF No. 97.) On April 5, 2019, the Sixth Circuit affirmed. (ECF No. 118.)
On December 20, 2019, White filed a document entitled “The Newly Discovery Evidence Rehaif v. United States, No. 19-9560, 139 S. Ct. 2191 (June 21, 2019 - Supreme Court).” (Cr. No. 16-20092, ECF No. 122.) The Government did not respond, and the Court has taken no action on that document.
II. THE § 2255 MOTION, CIVIL CASE NO. 20-2301
On April 15, 2020, Movant placed his
- Petitioner is actually innocent of violating Section 922(g)(1) as charged in the indictment:
- The indictment is deficient; and
- Petitioner‘s plea was not intentionally, knowingly, and voluntarily entered.
(Id. at PageID 4-7, 10; see ECF No. 1-1 at PageID 17-21.) White asks the Court to vacate his
The Government argues that White has procedurally defaulted his claims and that he has not shown that Rehaif error constitutes a fundamental defect that resulted in a complete miscarriage of justice. (ECF No. 5 at PageID 30-34.)
III. THE MOTION TO AMEND
On August 2, 2021, White filed a “Memorandum” that the Court construes as motion to amend his
A motion to amend a
The ACCA imposes a mandatory minimum fifteen-year term of imprisonment for certain firearm offenses, see
On June 5, 2023, the Government filed a response in opposition to the motion to amend. (ECF No. 11.) The Government argues that Borden does not impact White‘s sentence because he has three qualifying Tennessee convictions for aggravated robbery. (Id. at PageID 60; see Cr. No. 16-20092, see ECF No. 43 at PageID 93-96, ¶¶ 28-30.) The Government relies on United States v. Gloss, 661 F.3d 317 (6th Cir. 2011), and United States v. Mitchell, 743 F.3d 1054 (6th Cir. 2014), arguing that Tennessee aggravated robbery qualifies as a violent felony under the ACCA. (Civ. No. 20-2301, ECF No. 11 at PageID 60-61.) The Government opposes the amendment because it would be futile. (Id. at PageID 61.)
White raised the issue of whether aggravated robbery was an ACCA predicate on appeal, and the Sixth Circuit held that it was. (See Cr. No. 16-20092, ECF No. 118 at PageID 421-423.) Recently, the Sixth Circuit has held that “Tennessee‘s aggravated robbery statute,
IV. STANDARD OF REVIEW
Pursuant to
“A prisoner seeking relief under
A
V. ANALYSIS
White‘s claims depend on the application of Rehaif to his criminal case. In Rehaif, the Supreme Court held that, “in a prosecution under
[w]ith some here-irrelevant omissions,
§ 922(g) makеs possession of a firearm or ammunition unlawful when the following elements are satisfied: (1) a status element (in this case, “being an alien ... illegally or unlawfully in the United States“); (2) a possession element (to “possess“); (3) a jurisdictional element (“in or affecting commerce“); and (4) a firearm element (a “firearm or ammunition“).
Id. at 2195-96. The word “knowingly” does not apply to the jurisdictional element, but it applies to the remaining elements. Id. at 2196. The Supreme Court said that “[w]e express no view . . . about what precisely the Government must prove to establish a defendant‘s knowledge of status in respect to other
The United States Supreme Court in Greer v. United States, 141 S. Ct. 2090, 2099-2100 (2021), held that a Rehaif error in jury instructions or a plea colloquy is not a structural error and does not affect the entire framework of the criminal proceeding. The court said, ”Rehaif errors fit comfortably within the ‘general rule’ that ‘a constitutional error does not automatically require reversal of a conviction.‘” Id. at 2100. The court held that, on plain error review on appeal, the court “may consider the entire record.” Id. at 2098. The court addressed the difficulty that convicted felons face in overcoming Rehaif error:
In a felon-in-possessiоn case where the defendant was in fact a felon when he possessed firearms, the defendant faces an uphill climb in trying to satisfy the substantial-rights prong of the plain-error test based on an argument that he did not know he was a felon. The reason is simple: If a person is a felon, he ordinarily knows he is a felon. “Felony status is simply not the kind of thing that one forgets.” 963 F.3d 420, 423 (CA4 2020) (Wilkinson, J., concurring in denial of reh‘g en banc). That simple truth is not lost upon juries. Thus, absent a reason to conclude otherwise, a jury will usually find that a defendant knew he was a felon based on the fact that he was a felon. . . . In short, if a defendant was in fact a felon, it will be difficult for him to carry the burden on plain-error review of showing a “reasonable probability” that, but for the Rehaif error, the outcome of thе district court proceedings would have been different.
A. Procedural Default & Actual Innocence
A
Rehaif was decided in June 2019, after the trial court had entered judgment, and the Sixth Circuit had ruled on appeal. Hоwever, the Rehaif petition for writ of certiorari was filed in June 2018, and was granted in January 2019, while White‘s appeal was still pending. See Supreme Court of the United States, Docket Search, No. 17-9560, Search - Supreme Court of the United States (last accessed June 8, 2023).
I, Jermaine White, do take responsibility for having a gun while on my bike. I have a felony record and know that I cannot have a gun. I apologize for having it. I did not mean to harm anyone.
(Id.; see Cr. No. 16-20092, ECF No. 43 at PageID 91.) The Presentence Investigation Report (“PSR“) filed in 2017, and adopted at sentencing, shows that White had been convicted of multiple felonies in the State of Tennessee, including: 1) an August 2004 conviction for theft of property, for which he was sentenced to two years in prison, and three counts of aggravated robbery, for which he was sentenced to ten years in prison; 2) a September 2004 conviction for aggravated robbery, for which he was sentenced to eight years in prison; and 3) an October 2006 conviction for aggravated robbery, for which he was sentenced to ten years in prison. (See Civ. No. 20-2301, ECF No. 5 at PageID 32-33; see Cr. No. 16-20092, ECF No. 43 at PageID 92-96.) Respondent contends that, based on this evidence, White knew that he was a felon when he possessed the firearm. (Civ. No. 20-2301, ECF No. 5 at PageID 33.)
Initially, White alleged that he was actually innocent of the
In reply to Respondent‘s arguments, White alleges that, in March 2013, after being released on state court charges, he was required to sign new releases and that those documents state, “Your constitutional rights are fully restored.” (ECF No. 6 at PageID 42.) White argues that it was not until he was arrested and told that he could not legally carry a firearm, that he learned of his mistaken belief. (Id. at PageID 43.) White asserts that he admitted his guilt in the PSR because his counsel advised him that his belief was wrong and to take full responsibility for possession of the gun so that he might receive a three-point reduction for acceptance of responsibility. (Id. at PageID 43-44.) White asserts that, had he known the Government had to prove that he knew “that [he] could not carry or possess a firearm,” he would have elected to proceed to trial and submit that quеstion to the jury. (Id. at PageID 44.)
Although White contends that he did not learn that he could not carry a firearm until his arrest on the
B. The Indictment
White argues that the indictment is deficient because it does not chаrge
Defects in the indictment are not jurisdictional because they do not deprive courts of the power to adjudicate a criminal case. See United States v. Cotton, 535 U.S. 625, 630 (2002). In United States v. Hobbs, 953 F.3d 853, 856-57 (6th Cir. 2020), the Sixth Circuit rejected the argument that the failure to allege the status element of
C. The Plea
White argues thаt his counsel did not advise White about the knowledge of status element of the crime. (ECF No. 1-1 at PageID 21.) He asserts that his plea was involuntarily entered and constitutionally invalid because no one during the plea hearing or sentencing correctly understood the essential elements of the offense. (Id.)
Greer establishes that Rehaif error in a plea proceeding is not structural and does not affect the entire framework of the criminal proceeding. Greer, 141 S. Ct. at 2099-2100. The defendant in Wallace, 43 F.4th at 601-602, made the same argument that White presents here. Like Wallace, White has also procedurally defaulted the Rehaif claims because he failed to raise them earlier in the criminal litigation. Id. at 602. The Sixth Circuit noted that, if the claim had been presented on appeal, Wallace would not have been entitled to relief because, “upon plain-error review, . . .[t]hat omission could not affect his substantial rights unless another ‘reasonable probability’ existed: that he would have stood trial rather than plead guilty if the court had informed him of the element.” Id. at 603 (citing Greer, 141 S. Ct. at 2097). The Sixth Circuit emphasized the “heavy dose of skepticism” associated with an “after-the-fact claim that a prisoner would not have pleaded guilty but for some error in the prisoner‘s plea proceeding” and the need for contemporaneous evidence from the time of the plea proceeding that verifies the claim. Id. The Sixth Circuit emphasized that judicial skepticism increases with a Rehaif claim because felony status is not easily forgotten and often the subject of a stipulation. Id.
In White‘s case, there is no contemporaneous evidence that he would have pled guilty if had known of the knowledge-of-status element. He does not deny that he was a felon. Instead,
VI. CONCLUSION
As stated above, White‘s Rehaif-based claims are procedurally defaulted. He knew of his status as a felon, and he has failed to show that he was factually innocent or that there was a reasonable likelihood that, had he known of the knowledge of status element, he would have proceeded to trial.
The motion, files and record in this case “conclusively show that the prisoner is entitled to no relief.”
VII. APPELLATE ISSUES
Pursuant to
In this case, for the reasons stated above, the claims in the
The Sixth Circuit has held that the Prison Litigation Reform Act of 1995,
In this case, for the same reasons the Court denies a COA, the Court determines that any appeal would not be taken in good faith. It is therefore CERTIFIED, pursuant to
IT IS SO ORDERED this 13th day of June, 2023.
s/ Samuel H. Mays, Jr.
SAMUEL H. MAYS, JR.
UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE
