Muir v. Quintana

Filing 4

MEMORANDUM OPINION & ORDER: (1) Muir's 1 Petition for a Writ of Habeas Corpus is DENIED. (2) This action is DISMISSED and STRICKEN from the Court's docket. (3) A corresponding Judgment will be entered this date. Signed by Judge Danny C. Reeves on August 17, 2017. (AWD) cc: Petitioner via US Mail

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
EASTERN DISTRICT OF KENTUCKY
CENTRAL DIVISION
(at Lexington)
EDGAR L. MUIR,
Petitioner,
v.
FRANCISCO QUINTANA, Warden,
Respondent.

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Civil Action No. 5: 17-327-DCR

MEMORANDUM OPINION
AND ORDER

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Inmate Edgar L. Muir is confined at the Federal Medical Center in Lexington,
Kentucky. Proceeding without a lawyer, Muir has filed a petition for a writ of habeas
corpus pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2241. [Record No. 1]. For the reasons set forth below,
Muir’s petition will be denied.
In 2008, Muir pled guilty to being a felon in possession of a firearm in violation of
18 U.S.C. § 922(g). The maximum sentence for violating § 922(g) is usually 10 years in
prison. See 18 U.S.C. § 924(a)(2). However, the United States District Court for the
Eastern District of Tennessee determined that Muir had at least three previous convictions
for either a violent felony or a serious drug offense that were committed on different
occasions. As a result, Muir was subject to a mandatory minimum sentence of 15 years in
prison pursuant to the Armed Career Criminal Act (“ACCA”), 18 U.S.C. § 924(e). The
district court sentenced Muir to 211 months in prison. See United States v. Muir, No. 1:07cr-00097 (E.D. Tenn. 2008).
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Muir challenged his sentence on direct appeal, but the United States Court of
Appeals for the Sixth Circuit affirmed that sentence. See id. Muir did not file a motion to
vacate his sentence pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2255. Instead, he filed a § 2241 petition with
this Court, challenging the validity of his sentence. This Court denied Muir’s petition,
concluding that his claims were not cognizable in a § 2241 petition. See Muir v. Sepanek,
No. 0:14-cv-008-HRW (E.D. Ky. 2014). Muir appealed but the Sixth Circuit affirmed this
Court’s decision, holding that “[a]n attack on the validity of a conviction or sentence must
be brought under § 2255 as opposed to § 2241.” Muir v. Sepanek, No. 14-5515 (6th Cir.
2014). While the Sixth Circuit acknowledged that “[a]n exception exists—the ‘savings
clause’—that allows a federal prisoner to challenge his conviction and sentence under §
2241 if he can show that his remedy under § 2255 is inadequate or ineffective,” it explained
that “[t]he savings clause of § 2255 does not apply to challenges made to a sentencing
enhancement.” Id. Thus, the Sixth Circuit concluded that Muir could not attack his
sentence in a § 2241 petition. See id.
Nevertheless, Muir has filed yet another § 2241 petition with this Court. [Record
No. 1]. Muir relies on a number of cases, including Descamps v. United States, 133 S. Ct.
2276 (2013), and Mathis v. United States, 136 S. Ct. 2243 (2016). These Supreme Court
decisions that discuss the approach courts should use to determine whether a prior
conviction constitutes a violent felony for purposes of the ACCA. Muir argues that, in
light of these cases, some of his pre-2008 convictions no longer constitute violent felonies.
Accordingly, Muir claims that his ACCA enhancement is invalid and, as a result, he should
not have been sentenced to more than 10 years in prison.
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Muir’s latest § 2241 petition constitutes another impermissible collateral attack on
his sentence. While a federal prisoner may challenge the legality of his sentence through
a direct appeal and a § 2255 motion, he generally may not do so in a § 2241 petition. See
United States v. Peterman, 249 F.3d 458, 461 (6th Cir. 2001) (explaining the distinction
between a § 2255 motion and a § 2241 petition). After all, a § 2241 petition is usually only
a vehicle for challenges to actions taken by prison officials that affect the manner in which
the prisoner’s sentence is being carried out, such as computing sentence credits or
determining parole eligibility. See Terrell v. United States, 564 F.3d 442, 447 (6th Cir.
2009). Simply put, Muir cannot use a § 2241 petition as a way of challenging his sentence.
Muir nevertheless argues that § 2255(e)’s savings clause permits him to attack his
sentence in a § 2241 petition. [Record No. 1-1 at 12] But in the Sixth Circuit’s decision
denying Muir’s last § 2241 petition, it specifically told Muir that “[t]he savings clause of
§ 2255 does not apply to challenges made to a sentencing enhancement.” Muir v. Sepanek,
No. 14-5515 (6th Cir. 2014) (emphasis added). Still, Muir suggests that the Sixth Circuit
changed this rule last year in Hill v. Masters, 836 F.3d 591 (6th Cir. 2016), and thus he can
now challenge his sentence enhancement in a § 2241 petition.
In Hill, the Sixth Circuit recognized that it had previously said “that petitioners may
not challenge misapplied sentence enhancements under § 2241.” Hill, 836 F.3d at 596 n.
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The court, however, indicated that a petitioner could now challenge a sentence

enhancement in a § 2241 petition under certain limited circumstances. See id. at 595. The
court explained:

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When seeking to petition under § 2241 based on a misapplied sentence, the
petitioner must show (1) a case of statutory interpretation, (2) that is
retroactive and could not have been invoked in the initial § 2255 motion, and
(3) that the misapplied sentence presents an error sufficiently grave to be
deemed a miscarriage of justice or a fundamental defect.
Id.
The court then applied this test to Hill, who was claiming that his Maryland seconddegree assault conviction was not a valid predicate offense for purposes of a career offender
enhancement under the old mandatory sentencing guidelines.

See id. at 595-99.

Ultimately, the court determined that Hill passed the test. See id. Notably, the government
conceded that the Supreme Court’s decision in Descamps—which discussed the approach
courts should use to determine whether a prior conviction constitutes a violent felony for
purposes of the ACCA—was a case of statutory interpretation that is new and retroactive
and could not have been invoked in the petitioner’s initial § 2255 motion. See id. at 59596. The government further conceded that, in light of Descamps and a Fourth Circuit case,
a Maryland conviction for second-degree assault no longer constituted a valid predicate
offense for purposes of the career-offender enhancement. Id. Finally, the court determined
that Hill’s sentence enhancement constituted a fundamental error.

See id. at 599.

Accordingly, the concluded that Hill’s petition was properly brought under § 2241. Id. at
600.
The crux of the Hill decision therefore is that Descamps is a case of statutory
interpretation that is new and retroactive. Id. at 595-66. But in Descamps itself, the
Supreme Court never wrote that it was creating a new rule, let alone a retroactive one. See
Descamps, 133 S. Ct. at 2283 (“Our caselaw explaining the categorical approach and its
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‘modified’ counterpart all but resolves this case.”); id. at 2285 (“That is the job, as we have
always understood it, of the modified approach.”). And, more importantly, the Sixth
Circuit itself previously said in a published decision that Descamps is actually an old rule.
Indeed, in 2014, the Sixth Circuit specifically stated that “[t]he Supreme Court in
Descamps explained that it was not announcing a new rule, but was simply reaffirming [an
existing] approach, which some courts had misconstrued.” United States v. Davis, 751
F.3d 769, 775 (6th Cir. 2014) (emphasis added). Thus, the Hill decision is contrary to an
earlier published panel decision from the same court, and that earlier decision remains
controlling authority. See Rutherford v. Columbia Gas, 575 F.3d 616, 619 (6th Cir. 2009)
(“A published prior panel decision remains controlling authority unless an inconsistent
decision of the United States Supreme Court requires modification of the decision or this
Court sitting en banc overrules the prior decision.” (quotation marks and citation omitted)).
Accordingly, Muir’s reliance on Hill is unavailing.
That said, even if Hill was binding on this Court, this Sixth Circuit made it clear that
its decision allowing prisoners to start challenging sentence enhancements in § 2241
petitions was limited to the following, narrow circumstances:
(1) prisoners who were sentenced under the mandatory guidelines regime
pre-United States v. Booker, 543 U.S. 220 . . . (2005), (2) who were
foreclosed from filing a successive petition under § 2255, and (3) when a
subsequent, retroactive change in statutory interpretation by the Supreme
Court reveals that a previous conviction is not a predicate offense for a
career-offender enhancement.
Hill, 836 F.3d at 599-600. Those circumstances do not apply here because the district court
sentenced Muir in 2008, well after the Supreme Court decided Booker. Muir’s petition

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therefore falls outside of Hill’s narrow confines, meaning that he cannot take advantage of
§ 2255(e)’s savings clause. Accordingly, it is hereby
ORDERED as follows:
1. Muir’s petition for a writ of habeas corpus [Record No. 1] is DENIED.
2. This action is DISMISSED and STRICKEN from the Court’s docket.
3. A corresponding judgment will be entered this date.
This 17th day of August, 2017.

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