GERIDEAU-WILLIAMS v. UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

Filing 1

ORDER. Petitioner's collateral-review waiver is effective, and her Motion under Section 2255 is DENIED. No certificate of appealability will issue because jurists of reason would not find the Court's conclusions debatable. Signed by Judge Cathy Bissoon on 12/11/15. (dcd) Staff note: a copy of this Order was sent today, via First-Class U.S. Mail, to Petitioner's address of record.

IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE WESTERN DISTRICT OF PENNSYLVANIA
LISA GERIDEAU-WILLIAMS,
Petitioner,
v.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Respondent.

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Civil Action No. 15-137
Related to: Crim. Action No. 10-124
Judge Cathy Bissoon

ORDER
For the reasons that follow, Lisa Gerideau-Williams’s Petition under Section 2255 will be
denied.
Petitioner was sentenced before this Court, after having entered a plea agreement in
which she waived her rights to appeal the sentence or to bring a collateral attack under Section
2255. During the Change of Plea Hearing, the Court and the government reviewed the 2255waiver, and Petitioner confirmed on the record her understanding of the same. See Doc. 174-1
in Cr. Action No. 10-124 at pgs. 11-12.1
Petitioner, a former attorney, does not argue that the waiver was unknowingly or
involuntarily entered. See Petit. (Doc. 171). Independently, and for the reasons wellsummarized in the government’s response, the Court determines that the waiver was both
knowing and voluntary. See Gov’t’s Mot. Dismiss Pet. (Doc. 174) at 4. Nevertheless,
Petitioner argues that the waiver is invalid and/or unenforceable, citing the decision in Williams
v. U.S., 2014 WL 4060263 (W.D. Pa. Aug. 14, 2014) (Conti, C.J.). She also argues that

For the purposes of Ms. Williams’s 2255 Petition, Criminal Action No. 10-124 contains a
complete record, and all citations herein (“Doc. __”) refer to that docket.
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enforcing the waiver will result in a miscarriage of justice, claiming ineffective assistance of
counsel regarding aspects of her Sentencing-Guideline calculations. See Doc. 171 at “Table of
Contents” (summarizing claims). Neither of Petitioner’s legal theories have merit.2
As to Petitioner’s arguments regarding Williams, the undersigned already has rejected
them for the reasons stated in Stitt v. U.S., 2015 WL 1489477, *2 n.2 (W.D. Pa. Mar. 31, 2015).
Petitioner’s arguments are materially indistinguishable from the ones made in Stitt, and the
Court’s reasoning will not benefit from repetition here. It suffices to say that, given Petitioner’s
failure to claim or show that her counsel was ineffective in negotiating the 2255-waiver,
her arguments regarding Williams are unavailing.3
All that remains, then, are Petitioner’s arguments that enforcing the waiver will result in a
miscarriage of justice, because her sentencing counsel purportedly failed to object to certain
Guideline-enhancements or to seek a downward-departure. The miscarriage-of-justice exception
is applied “sparingly,” Gardner at *5, and it does not apply to sentencing-calculation grievances
like Petitioner’s. U.S. v. Erwin, 765 F.3d 219, 227-28 (3d Cir. 2014) (citing and quoting seminal
decision regarding miscarriage of justice, Mabry, for proposition that “challenges to [a] district
court’s sentencing calculation [are] ‘insubstantial’ because ‘[t]hey do not implicate fundamental
rights or constitutional principles’”) (some alterations in original); accord U.S. v. Robertson,
2013 WL 4034371, *12 n.16 (E.D. Pa. Aug. 8, 2013) (collecting cases holding that “a collateral
review waiver may be enforced as to this kind of claim of ineffective assistance . . .
An evidentiary hearing is unnecessary because the filings of record show, conclusively,
that Petitioner is not entitled to relief.
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Both before and after Stitt, many court-decisions in this District have reached the same
conclusion. See, e.g., U.S. v. Gardner, 2015 WL 4714927, at *6 (W.D. Pa. Aug. 7, 2015)
(collecting cases). For the reasons stated in Stitt, moreover, the undersigned finds Williams
distinguishable on its facts. See Stitt at *2 n.2 (in Williams, “the petitioner specifically alleged
that his counsel was ineffective in convincing him to waive his appellate and habeas rights”).
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at sentencing”) (citations omitted); U.S. v. Kiger, 2011 WL 3809949, *12 (W.D. Pa. Aug. 26,
2011) (holding same). Indeed, a contrary ruling would allow any defendant “to circumvent an
appellate [or collateral review] waiver simply by recasting a challenge to [her] sentence as a
claim of ineffective assistance, thus rendering the waiver meaningless.” Robertson at *12 n.16;
accord Erwin at 228 (“[a]llow[ing] alleged errors in computing a defendant’s sentence to render
a waiver unlawful would nullify the waiver based on the very sort of claim it was intended to
waive”) (citation omitted, some alterations in original, emphasis added). By their nature,
Petitioner’s grievances do not support an application of the miscarriage-of-justice exception.
Even were the Court to assume the contrary, Petitioner’s objections fare no better on the
merits. Although Petitioner complains that the government did not produce sufficient evidence
in support of certain sentencing-enhancements, she conveniently neglects to mention that
the government was unable to present such evidence at her initially-scheduled sentencing
hearing, because she failed to appear. See Gov’t’s Mot. (Doc. 174) at 2-3, 8 (accurately
summarizing chain of events). After Petitioner was arrested for failing to appear, her counsel
and the government negotiated a deal, wherein the government agreed not to seek an obstructionof-justice enhancement in exchange for Defendant’s withdrawing her objections to the very
enhancements she now seeks to challenge. See id. at 3; see also Docs. 159, 161 & 163 (parties’
amended written positions with respect to sentencing, evincing negotiation-process
just discussed). Again, Petitioner has failed to allege or show that her waiver of objections to the
sentencing enhancements was involuntary, unknowing or the result of ineffective assistance of
counsel, and her current complaints regarding the quality or quantity of the government’s
evidence is particularly disingenuous.

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In light of the foregoing, Petitioner has not shown that that enforcing her collateralreview waiver would result in a miscarriage of justice. To the contrary, a review of the entire
record reveals that a grant of habeas relief, not denial, would work an injustice.4
For all of these reasons, Petitioner’s collateral-review waiver is effective, and her Motion
under Section 2255 (Doc. 171) is DENIED. No certificate of appealability will issue because
jurists of reason would not find the Court’s conclusions debatable. See Slack v. McDaniel,
529 U.S. 473, 484 (2000).
IT IS SO ORDERED.

December 11, 2015

s\Cathy Bissoon
Cathy Bissoon
United States District Judge

cc (via First-Class U.S. Mail):
Lisa Gerideau-Williams
USMS 32112068
Cottage B-4
Alderson Federal Camp
P.O. Box A
Alderson, WV 24910
cc (via ECF email notification):
All Counsel of Record
Petitioner’s various episodes of questionable litigation conduct and strategy (to put it kindly)
in the underlying case are thoroughly recounted in the government’s Motion to Dismiss,
and Court sees little benefit to repeating them here. The Court believes that, by any objective
measure, Petitioner has received substantial benefit-of-the-doubt in connection with the plea deal
she received and sentence that was imposed. Cf. Sentencing Min. & Judgmt. (Docs. 168 & 169)
(sentencing Petitioner at bottom of applicable Guideline range, and declining to impose
additional, consecutive term of imprisonment under Bail Reform Act for her failure to appear at
sentencing). Although the Court is not entirely surprised to learn of Petitioner’s continued
dissatisfaction, she should, at the very least, feel fortunate that things went as well for her as they
did.
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