Wofford v. Scott

• Decision Date: 14 June 1999
• Docket Number: No. 98-8297,98-8297
• Citation: 177 F.3d 1236
• Parties: Charlie F. WOFFORD, Petitioner-Appellant, v. Willie SCOTT, Warden, Respondent-Appellee.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Eleventh Circuit

Page 1236

177 F.3d 1236

Charlie F. WOFFORD, Petitioner-Appellant, v. Willie SCOTT, Warden, Respondent-Appellee.

No. 98-8297.

United States Court of Appeals, Eleventh Circuit.

June 14, 1999.

Frank J. Petrella, Tucker, GA, for Petitioner-Appellant.

David Wright, Asst. U.S. Attorney, Atlanta, GA, for Respondent-Appellee.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Georgia.

Before COX, CARNES and HULL, Circuit Judges.

CARNES, Circuit Judge:

Charlie Wofford, a federal prisoner, seeks to have three claims he failed to raise in his first 28 U.S.C. § 2255 motion addressed and decided on the merits. His problem is that § 2255, as amended by the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act (AEDPA), Pub.L. No. 104-132, 110 Stat. 1214 (1996), permits a federal prisoner to file a second motion challenging his sentence or the conviction underlying it in only the narrowest of circumstances. We denied his earlier application to file a second § 2255 motion.

Wofford is now back before us on an appeal from the district court's rebuff of his attempt to use the habeas remedy, as codified in 28 U.S.C. § 2241, to circumvent the second motion requirements of § 2255. His appeal presents us with interesting questions concerning the language in § 2255 that says a habeas application shall not be entertained if a § 2255 motion has been denied, "unless it also appears that the remedy by motion is inadequate or ineffective to test the legality of his detention." He contends that the restrictions on second § 2255 motions render that section "inadequate or ineffective to test the legality of his detention" within the meaning of the savings clause, so that he may resort to the § 2241 remedy. We disagree.

I. FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL HISTORY

In October 1988, Wofford was indicted in the Middle District of Georgia for conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute cocaine, possession with intent to distribute cocaine, possession of a firearm in relation to a drug trafficking crime, and being a felon in possession of a firearm. He pleaded guilty to the conspiracy and felon in possession of a firearm counts in exchange for the government's motion to dismiss the remaining counts. Wofford was subsequently sentenced to a 300-month term of incarceration on the conspiracy count and a concurrent 60-month term of incarceration on the felon in possession of a firearm count, to be followed by five years of supervised release. He is presently incarcerated in the Northern District of Georgia.

In February 1992, Wofford filed in the Middle District of Georgia a 28 U.S.C. § 2255 motion to vacate his conviction and sentence, arguing that: 1) his plea was involuntary, 2) he received ineffective assistance of counsel because his attorney gave him incorrect advice regarding the length of sentence that would be imposed, and 3) the district court failed to follow Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 11. That motion was denied without an evidentiary hearing. On appeal, this Court remanded the case to the district court for an evidentiary hearing on the ineffective assistance issue. See Wofford v. United States, 993 F.2d 1555 (11th Cir.1993).

After an evidentiary hearing on remand, the district court issued an order again denying the § 2255 motion. On appeal from that denial, this Court affirmed, and the Supreme Court denied certiorari. See Wofford v. United States, 43 F.3d 679 (11th Cir.1994), reh'g en banc denied, 74 F.3d 1257 (11th Cir.), cert. denied, 519 U.S. 826, 117 S.Ct. 88, 136 L.Ed.2d 45 (1996).

Several months later, after the effective date of the AEDPA amendments to § 2255, Wofford filed in this Court an application for certification to file in the district court a second § 2255 motion. In that application Wofford raised the following issues: 1) whether the district court lacked jurisdiction to impose a non-parolable sentence followed by supervised release; 2) whether the United States Sentencing Commission's failure to allow the retroactive application of a three-level reduction in sentence for acceptance of responsibility constituted a violation of fundamental fairness and cruel and unusual punishment prohibited by the Fifth and Eighth Amendments to the United States Constitution; and 3) whether the district court's finding that Wofford was a career criminal was improperly predicated upon the court's belief that it could not examine the underlying offenses in making that determination. This Court denied Wofford's application to file a successive motion to vacate, because the motion neither presented newly discovered evidence establishing innocence nor asserted a retroactively applicable new rule of constitutional law that was previously unavailable, as required for second motions by the AEDPA amendments to 28 U.S.C. § 2255.

Thereafter, in a third attempt to obtain collateral relief, Wofford filed a petition for a writ of error coram nobis in the Middle District of Georgia, raising issues identical to those in his second § 2255 motion. That petition was denied, and Wofford did not appeal.

In his fourth and latest effort, Wofford filed in the Northern District of Georgia the present petition, which he styled as one for a writ of habeas corpus pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2241. On the basis of the same three issues for which this Court has already denied him permission to file a second § 2255 motion, Wofford's present petition argues that his sentence is illegal and has resulted in manifest injustice reflecting error of a most fundamental character. Wofford asserts that § 2241 relief is necessary because no other statutory remedy remains for attacking his sentence.

The magistrate judge issued a Report and Recommendation suggesting dismissal of the § 2241 petition, and the district court subsequently issued its own order doing so. Wofford appeals the district court's order, which we affirm.

II. DISCUSSION

Wofford's claims are clearly barred from a § 2255 motion proceeding by virtue of the successive motion restrictions enacted by AEDPA and now contained in 28 U.S.C. §§ 2255 and 2244(b). Wofford and the government agree on that, and we do, too, as evidenced by our previous denial of his application for certification to file a second § 2255 motion. The issue is whether he may now resort to habeas relief under § 2241, which depends on the meaning of the following language in § 2255:

An application for a writ of habeas corpus in behalf of a prisoner who is authorized to apply for relief by motion pursuant to this section, shall not be entertained if it appears that the applicant has failed to apply for relief, by motion, to the court which sentenced him, or that such court has denied him relief, unless it also appears that the remedy by motion is inadequate or ineffective to test the legality of his detention.

(emphasis added). Wofford argues that the underscored language entitles him to have his claims decided in a § 2241 petition, because the second and successive motion bar prevents him from having them decided in a § 2255 motion proceeding, making "the remedy by motion [ ] inadequate or ineffective to test the legality of his detention."

A. The Hayman Opinion

The history of and purpose behind § 2255, and its relationship to the habeas remedy, which is codified in § 2241, is discussed in United States v. Hayman, 342 U.S. 205, 72 S.Ct. 263, 96 L.Ed. 232 (1952). Section 2255 was enacted in 1948 "to minimize the difficulties encountered in habeas corpus hearings by affording the same rights in another and more convenient forum." 342 U.S. at 219, 72 S.Ct. at 272. The practical difficulties with the habeas remedy were "serious administrative problems" resulting from the requirement that those proceedings be brought and decided in the district of incarceration. Id. at 210-19, 72 S.Ct. at 268-72.

Before the enactment of § 2255, the habeas proceeding for a petitioner imprisoned in a district other than the one where the case had been tried was conducted far from where the relevant records and witnesses were. That was not an unusual occurrence. The Hayman Court pointed to the example of a habeas case in which the prisoner alleged he had been coerced into pleading guilty by the United States Attorney and two other federal officers. The hearing had to be held in the Northern District of California where the prisoner was incarcerated, even though the three federal officers involved were located in Texas where the events occurred and the conviction had been obtained. See id. at 213, 72 S.Ct. at 269. Moreover, because habeas proceedings had to be brought and decided in the district of incarceration, the cases were bunched in the few districts where the larger federal prisons were located at that time. As the Supreme Court put it, "the few District Courts in whose territorial jurisdiction major federal penal institutions are located were required to handle an inordinate number of habeas corpus actions far from the scene of the facts, the homes of the witnesses and the records of the sentencing court...." Id. at 213-14, 72 S.Ct. at 269.

The enactment of 28 U.S.C. § 2255 addressed the administrative problems arising from the habeas remedy by substituting for it in federal prisoner collateral attack cases a remedy in the sentencing court. That solution both spread out among the districts the burden of handling such cases and also ensured that in most instances the proceeding would be conducted in the district where the necessary witnesses and records were located. See id. at 210-19, 72 S.Ct. at 268-72. The purpose of § 2255 was to clarify and simplify the procedure and provide an expeditious remedy in the sentencing court without resort to habeas corpus. See id. at 218, 72 S.Ct. at 272. There was no intent to make the § 2255 remedy any different in scope from the habeas remedy that had previously been available to them: "On the contrary, the sole purpose was to minimize the difficulties encountered in habeas corpus hearings by...