CRAWFORD v. WARDEN OF FCI MCKEAN

Filing 19

MEMORANDUM that the 4 Petition for a Writ of Habeas Corpus filed by CASWELL A. CRAWFORD is dismissed for lack of jurisdiction. An appropriate order follows. Signed by Judge Susan Paradise Baxter on 12/27/18. (jpe)

IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE WESTERN DISTRICT OF PENNSYLVANIA
CASWELL A. CRAWFORD,
Petitioner,
v.
WARDEN OF FCI MCKEAN,
Respondent.

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Civil Action No. 17-261 Erie
Judge Susan Paradise Baxter

MEMORANDUM
Pending before the Court1 is a petition for a writ of habeas corpus filed by federal prisoner
Caswell A. Crawford pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2241. (ECF No. 4). He is challenging the sentence
imposed upon him by the United States District Court for Northern District of Florida and asks this
Court to vacate it. For the reasons set forth below, the petition is dismissed for lack of jurisdiction.

A.

Relevant Background
On July 2, 1993, Crawford appeared before the United States District Court for Northern District

of Florida (the "trial court") and pleaded guilty, pursuant to a plea agreement, to one count of conspiracy
to possess with intent to distribute crack cocaine, in violation of 21 U.S.C. § 846. Due to the nature of
the offense and Crawford's criminal record, he was deemed a Career Offender under the federal
Sentencing Guidelines. U.S.S.G. § 4B1(a). In October 1993, the trial court sentenced him to a term of
420 months of imprisonment.
Crawford has filed at least one motion to vacate his sentence under 28 U.S.C. § 2255. Therefore,
before he can file another one he must receive authorization from the United States Court of Appeals for

1

On September 14, 2018, the undersigned was sworn in as a United States District Judge. This action was reassigned to this
Court's docket on September 18, 2018.

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the Eleventh Circuit. This is in accordance with the 1996 amendments that the Antiterrorism and
Effective Death Penalty Act ("AEDPA") made to § 2255, which bar a federal prisoner from filing a
second or successive § 2255 motion unless the appropriate court of appeals first certifies the filing
contains a claim based on either:
(1) newly discovered evidence that, if proven and viewed in light of the evidence as a
whole, would be sufficient to establish by clear and convincing evidence that no
reasonable factfinder would have found the movant guilty of the offense; or
(2) a new rule of constitutional law, made retroactive to cases on collateral review by
the Supreme Court, that was previously unavailable.
28 U.S.C. § 2255(h). See also 28 U.S.C. § 2244(a).
In 2015, in Johnson v. United States, 135 S.Ct. 2551 (2015), the Supreme Court held that the
residual clause of the Armed Career Criminal Act ("ACCA") is unconstitutionally vague. In January
2017, Crawford filed with his trial court another § 2255 motion in which he relied upon Johnson to
support the argument that his prior Florida convictions for second degree murder, robbery with a deadly
weapon, and shooting in an occupied vehicle no longer qualify as "crimes of violence." Therefore, he
argued, he no longer has two predicate convictions necessary to support the career offender
enhancement and should be resentenced. (Resp's Ex. 1). In April 2017, the trial court summarily
dismissed the motion because Crawford had not obtained authorization from the Eleventh Circuit Court
of Appeals to file it. (Resp's Exs. 2, 3).
In June 2017, Crawford filed with the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals and application for
authorization to file a successive § 2255 motion. He argued that in light of the Supreme Court's decision
in Mathis v. United States, 136 S.Ct. 2243 (2016), he must be resentenced "because he was improperly
categorized as a Career Offender because his sale of marijuana is not controlled substance offense under
the Career Offender Guideline, U.S.S.G. § 4B1.2(b)[,]" and because his "robbery with a deadly weapon
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and 2nd degree murder [state convictions] are not crimes of violence because the statute sets forth
alternative means, rather than alternative elements." See Application at 5, In re: Caswell Crawford, No.
17-12539 (11th Cir. Jun. 5, 2017) (available on PACER). On July 3, 2017, the court of appeals denied
the application, explaining:
Crawford has not raised a claim that meets the statutory criteria [for filing a second or
successive § 2255 motion]. Both of Crawford's claims rely on Mathis, and this Court has
held that the Supreme Court in Mathis did not announce a new rule of constitutional law
for purposes of § 2254(h)(2), as it merely "provided guidance to courts in interpreting an
existing criminal statute." See In re Hernandez, [857 F.3d 1162, 1164 (11th Cir. 2017)].
(Resp's Ex. 4).
Now pending before this Court is a petition for a writ of habeas pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2241
filed by Crawford, who is incarcerated at FCI McKean, which is located within the territorial boundaries
of this Court. (ECF No. 4). He challenges his career offender sentence under Johnson, Mathis, and
United States v. Descamps, 570 U.S. 254 (2013), and asks this Court to vacate the sentence imposed by
the trial court. In his answer (ECF No. 16), Respondent contends that this Court must dismiss the
petition for lack of jurisdiction. Crawford filed a reply (ECF No. 17), in which he insists that his Florida
convictions no longer qualify as "crimes of violence" in light of Johnson.

B.

Discussion
"The 'core' habeas corpus action is a prisoner challenging the authority of the entity detaining

him to do so, usually on the ground that his predicate sentence or conviction is improper or invalid."
McGee v. Martinez, 627 F.3d 933, 935 (3d Cir. 2010). As the United States Court of Appeals for the
Third Circuit explained in Bruce v. Warden Lewisburg USP, 868 F.3d 170 (3d Cir. 2017), prior to
§ 2255's enactment, federal prisoners seeking habeas relief could only do so by filing a petition under

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§ 2241 in the federal district court in the district the prisoner was incarcerated.2 Id. at 178. "An increase
in the number of federal habeas petitions produced serious administrative problems and overburdened
the few district courts in the jurisdictions with major federal prisons." Id. (citing United States v.
Hayman, 342 U.S. 205, 210-19 (1952)). To alleviate that burden, Congress in 1948 enacted § 2255:
A new remedial mechanism, § 2255 "replaced traditional habeas corpus for federal
prisoners (at least in the first instance) with a process that allowed the prisoner to file a
motion with the sentencing court on the ground that his sentence was, inter alia, imposed
in violation of the Constitution or laws of the United States." Boumediene v. Bush, 553
U.S. 723, 774, 128 S.Ct. 2229, 171 L.Ed.2d 41 (2008) (internal quotation marks omitted).
The statute's "sole purpose was to minimize the difficulties encountered in habeas corpus
hearings by affording the same rights in another and more convenient forum." Hayman,
342 U.S. at 219, 72 S.Ct. 263; see also Hill v. United States, 368 U.S. 424, 427, 428 n.5,
82 S.Ct. 468, 7 L.Ed.2d 417 (1962) (describing the § 2255 remedy as "exactly
commensurate" with § 2241's writ of habeas corpus); United States v. Anselmi, 207 F.2d
312, 314 (3d Cir. 1953).
So it is that a federal prisoner's first (and most often only) route for collateral
review of his conviction or sentence is under § 2255.
Id.
The Third Circuit Court of Appeals has explained that now "[m]otions pursuant to 28 U.S.C.
§ 2255 are the presumptive means by which federal prisoners challenge their convictions or sentences
that are allegedly in violation of the Constitution." Okereke v. United States, 307 F.3d 117, 120 (3d Cir.
2002). In contrast, as a general rule, a habeas petition under § 2241 is properly brought where the federal

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Section 2241 petitions must be filed in the federal district court in the district the prisoner is incarcerated because:
[t]he prisoner must direct his [§ 2241] petition to "the person who has custody over him." § 2242; see also
Wales v. Whitney, 114 U.S. 564, 574, 5 S.Ct. 1050, 29 L.Ed. 277 (1885); Braden v. 30th Judicial Circuit
Court of Ky., 410 U.S. 484, 494-95, 93 S.Ct. 1123, 35 L.Ed.2d 443 (1973). Longstanding practice under
this immediate custodian rule 'confirms that in habeas challenges to present physical confinement...the
default rule is that the proper respondent is the warden of the facility where the prisoner is being held."
Rumsfeld v. Padilla, 542 U.S. 426, 435, 124 S.Ct. 2711, 159 L.Ed.2d 513 (2004). And under the statute's
jurisdiction of confinement rule, district courts may only grant habeas relief against custodians "within their
respective jurisdictions." § 2241(a); see also Braden, 410 U.S. at 495, 93 S.Ct. 1123 ("[T]he language of
§ 2241(a) requires nothing more than that the court issuing the writ have jurisdiction over the custodian.").

Bruce, 868 F.3d at 178.

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prisoner is seeking to challenge the carrying out or the execution of his sentence (such as, for example, a
challenge to the Bureau of Prisons' computation of the federal sentence or a challenge to a disciplinary
action that resulted in the loss of good-time credits). See, e.g., Barden v. Keohane, 921 F.2d 476, 478-79
(3d Cir. 1990); Queen v. Miner, 530 F.3d 253, 254 n.2 (3d Cir. 2008).
Importantly, § 2255 expressly prohibits a court from entertaining a § 2241 petition filed by a
federal prisoner who is raising the types of claims that must be raised in a § 2255 motion unless it
"appears that the remedy by [§ 2255 motion] is inadequate or ineffective to test the legality of his
detention." 28 U.S.C. § 2255(e). This provision of § 2255 is commonly referred to as the "savings
clause." See, e.g., Bruce, 868 F.3d at 174, 178-79.
In its landmark decision In re Dorsainvil, 119 F.3d 245 (3d Cir. 1997), the Third Circuit Court of
Appeals recognized the one circumstance under which it has found § 2255's remedy to be inadequate of
ineffective since AEDPA amended § 2255 in 1996 to include a one-year statute of limitations and the
prohibition against the filing of second or successive motions. The petitioner in Dorsainvil, Ocsulis
Dorsainvil, was convicted, inter alia, of using a gun in connection with a drug crime under 18 U.S.C.
§ 924(c)(1). He was so convicted notwithstanding that he did not "use" the gun but the gun was merely
present in the car from which the drugs were to be bought. After he had exhausted his appeals and
litigated his first § 2255 motion, the Supreme Court in Bailey v. United States, 516 U.S. 137 (1995)
construed the criminal statute under which Dorsainvil was convicted (18 U.S.C. § 924(c)(1)) to exclude
from the ambit of the statute mere presence of a gun at a drug crime, thus arguably rendering him
actually innocent of the crime of using a gun in connection with a drug offense.
After the Supreme Court issued Bailey, Dorsainvil applied to the court of appeals for
authorization to file in the district court a second or successive § 2255 motion. The court had no choice
but to deny his request because he could not satisfy AEDPA's gatekeeping requirements for the filing of
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a second or successive § 2255 motion. That was because the decision in Bailey was one of statutory
construction and, therefore, did not constitute "a new rule of constitutional law…that was previously
unavailable[.]"3 Dorsainvil, 119 F.3d at 247-48 (quoting 28 U.S.C. § 2255 (now at § 2255(h)). Under
these circumstances, the court of appeals determined that Dorsainvil had established that § 2255 was
"inadequate or ineffective" to test the legality of his detention and, as a result, he could bring his claim in
a § 2241 habeas corpus petition:
A similar case "involv[ing] the availability of collateral relief from a federal criminal
conviction based upon an intervening change in substantive law" came before the
Supreme Court in Davis v. United States, 417 U.S. 333, 334 (1974). In that case, the
Court stated that a Supreme Court decision interpreting a criminal statute that resulted in
the imprisonment of one whose conduct was not prohibited by law "presents exceptional
circumstances where the need for the remedy afforded by the writ of habeas corpus is
apparent." Id. at 346 (internal quotations omitted). The Court held that "if [petitioner's]
contention is well taken, then [his] conviction and punishment are for an act that the law
does not make criminal. There can be no room for doubt that such a circumstance
inherently results in a complete miscarriage of justice and present(s) exceptional
circumstances that justify collateral relief under § 2255." Id. at 346-47 (internal
quotations omitted); see also United States v. Addonizio, 442 U.S. 178, 186-87, (1979)
(discussing Davis and observing that a refusal to have vacated his sentence "would surely
have been a 'complete miscarriage of justice,' since the conviction and sentence were no
longer lawful").
The decision in Davis that § 2255 was broad enough to cover a defendant
imprisoned for a crime that an intervening decision negates does not govern Dorsainvil's
motion before us only because he has brought his claim for relief on a second § 2255
motion [subject to the gatekeeping provisions of AEDPA]. In the earlier part of this
opinion, we construed the AEDPA to preclude our certification of a second § 2255
motion that relied on the intervening decision in Bailey as a basis for certification. Thus,
Dorsainvil does not have and, because of the circumstance that he was convicted for a
violation of § 924(c)(1) before the Bailey decision, never had an opportunity to challenge
his conviction as inconsistent with the Supreme Court's interpretation of § 924(c)(1). If,
as the Supreme Court stated in Davis, it is a "complete miscarriage of justice" to punish a
defendant for an act that the law does not make criminal, thereby warranting resort to the
collateral remedy afforded by § 2255, it must follow that it is the same "complete
3

Whether Bailey could be applied "retroactively" to Dorsainvil was not an issue because it was a case of statutory
construction. Bousley v. United States, 523 U.S. 614, 620-21 (1998). See also Rivers v. Roadway Express, Inc., 511 U.S.
298, 312-13 (1994) ("A judicial construction of a statute is an authoritative statement of what the statute meant before as well
as after the decision of the case giving rise to that construction.") The issue in Dorsainvil was what mechanism (a § 2255
motion or a § 2241 habeas petition) he could use, if any, to have his claim under Bailey heard by a court.

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miscarriage of justice" when the AEDPA amendment to § 2255 makes that collateral
remedy unavailable. In that unusual circumstance, the remedy afforded by § 2255 is
"inadequate or ineffective to test the legality of [Dorsainvil's] detention."
There is no reason why § 2241 would not be available under these circumstances,
provided of course that Dorsainvil could make the showing necessary to invoke habeas
relief, an issue for the district court.
Id. at 250-51 (emphasis added).
In its recent decision in Bruce, the Third Circuit Court of Appeals set forth the two conditions
that a federal prisoner confined within the Third Circuit must satisfy post-Dorsainvil in order to have his
case fall within § 2255's savings clause. "First, a prisoner must assert a 'claim of 'actual innocence' on
the theory that 'he is being detained for conduct that has subsequently been rendered non-criminal by an
intervening Supreme Court decision' and our own precedent construing an intervening Supreme Court
decision'–in other words, when there is a change in statutory caselaw that applies retroactively in cases
on collateral review." Bruce, 868 F.3d at 180 (emphasis added) (quoting United States v. Tyler, 732
F.3d 241, 246 (3d Cir. 2013), which quoted Dorsainvil, 119 F.3d at 252). "[S]econd, the prisoner must
be 'otherwise barred from challenging the legality of the conviction under § 2255.'" Id. (quoting Tyler,
732 F.3d at 246). "Stated differently, the prisoner has 'had no earlier opportunity to challenge his
conviction for a crime that an intervening change in substantive law may negate.'" Id. (quoting
Dorsainvil, 119 F.3d at 251) (emphasis added).
Crawford cannot satisfy these conditions. Unlike the petitioners in Bruce and in Dorsainvil, he is
not asserting that he is being detained for conduct that has subsequently been rendered non-criminal by
intervening precedential caselaw interpreting the statute under which he was convicted. Additionally,
Crawford's Johnson claim is precisely the type of constitutional claim that can be pursued in a
successive § 2255 motion if the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals were to decide to grant him
authorization under § 2255(h)(2).
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Moreover, that Crawford has not, or cannot, receive authorization to file a successive § 2255
motion is not, in and of itself, a sufficient ground to render § 2255 "inadequate or ineffective."
Dorsainvil, 119 F.3d at 251 ("We do not suggest that § 2255 would be 'inadequate or ineffective' so as to
enable a second petitioner to invoke § 2241 merely because that petitioner is unable to meet the stringent
gatekeeping requirements of [AEDPA's amendments to] § 2255. Such a holding would effectively
eviscerate Congress's intent in amending § 2255."); Cradle v. United States ex rel. Miner, 290 F.3d 536,
539 (3d Cir. 2002) (per curiam) ("Section 2255 is not inadequate or ineffective merely because the
sentencing court does not grant relief, the one-year statute of limitations has expired, or the petitioner is
unable to meet the stringent gatekeeping requirements of the amended § 2255."); Gardner v. Warden
Lewisburg USP, 845 F.3d 99, 103 (3d Cir. 2017) ("Adopting [the petitioner's] approach–under which all
sentencing issues based on new Supreme Court decisions could be raised via § 2241 petitions–would
[short-circuit § 2255's gatekeeping requirements]. The exception would swallow the rule that habeas
claims presumptively must be brought in § 2255 motions.")
Finally, the Third Circuit Court of Appeals has declined to extend § 2255's savings clause to
circumstances in which the petitioner is challenging his sentence, as opposed to his conviction. Gardner,
845 F.3d at 103 (petitioner could not challenge his sentence based upon Alleyne v. United States, 570
U.S. 99 (2013) in a § 2241 habeas petition and rejecting the petitioner's argument that "if Congress had
intended to limit § 2255's savings clause only to 'actual innocence' claims, the legislature would have
drafted the statute differently."); Okereke, 307 F.3d at 120-21 (Dorsainvil's interpretation of § 2255
provides only a narrow exception to its presumptive exclusivity, and holding that the petitioner could not
challenge his sentence under Apprendi v. New Jersey, 530 U.S. 466 (2000) in a § 2241 habeas petition);
Murray v. Warden Fairton FCI, 710 F. App'x 518, 520 (3d Cir. 2018) ("We conclude that the District
Court properly rejected to petition as it related to [the petitioner's] 'Mathis' claim, too. We have not held
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that innocence-of-sentence claims fall within the exception to the rule that habeas claims must be
brought in § 2255 motions."), cert. denied sub nom. 138 S.Ct. 2007 (2018).4

C.

Conclusion
For the foregoing reasons, the petition for a writ of habeas corpus is dismissed for lack of

jurisidiction.5 An appropriate Order follows.

Dated: December 27, 2018

/s/ Susan Paradise Baxter
SUSAN PARADISE BAXTER
United States District Judge

4

The courts of appeals are split on the application of the savings clause. See Bruce, 868 F.3d at 179-82; id. at 180 (citing
McCarthan v. Director of Goodwill Industries-Suncoast, Inc., 851 F.3d 1076, 1099-1100 (11th Cir.) (en banc), cert. denied
sub nom. 138 S.Ct. 502 (2017), and observing that in the Eleventh Circuit, which is the circuit in which Crawford's judgment
of sentence was imposed, "an intervening change in statutory interpretation cannot render § 2255 inadequate or ineffective.")
Among those circuits that allow statutory-based actual innocence claims to fall within the savings clause, there is a split
regarding whether in some limited circumstances the savings clause should apply to statutory-interpretation based sentencing
claims. Recently, in United States v. Wheeler, 886 F.3d 415 (4th Cir. 2018), the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth
Circuit held that "2255(e) must provide an avenue for prisoners to test the legality of their sentences pursuant to § 2241," id.
at 428, and it set forth four factors that must be met in order for a court within its circuit to find that § 2255 is inadequate and
ineffective to test the legality of a sentence. Id. at 429. The Solicitor General, on behalf of the United States, filed a petition
for a writ of certiorari, which is pending before the Supreme Court of the United States.
5

28 U.S.C. § 2253 sets forth the standards governing the issuance of a certificate of appealability for appellate review of a
district court's disposition of a habeas petition. Federal prisoner appeals from the dismissal of a § 2241 habeas corpus
proceeding are not governed by the certificate of appealability requirement. United States v. Cepero, 224 F.3d 256, 264-65
(3d Cir. 2000), abrogated on other grounds by Gonzalez v. Thaler, 565 U.S. 134 (2012).

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