United States v. Minjarez

Decision Date14 March 2019
Docket Number1:09-cr-00466-LJO-1
Citation374 F.Supp.3d 977
Parties UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Respondent, v. Michael MINJAREZ, Defendant-Petitioner.
CourtU.S. District Court — Eastern District of California

Dawrence Wayne Rice, Jr., Fresno Office, United States Attorney, Fresno, CA, flu Kurt Didier, U.S. Attorney's Office, Sacramento, CA, for Plaintiff-Respondent.

MEMORANDUM DECISION AND ORDER GRANTING PETITIONER'S § 2255 MOTION
Lawrence J. O'Neill, UNITED STATES CHIEF DISTRICT JUDGE

Before the Court is Petitioner Michael Minjarez's ("Petitioner" or "Minjarez") motion to vacate, set aside, or correct his sentence under 28 U.S.C. § 2255, filed on June 24, 2016. ECF No. 121. Petitioner is currently serving a mandatory life sentence pursuant to the federal three-strikes law, codified at 18 U.S.C. § 3559(c). See id. The Government filed its opposition on October 20, 2016 (ECF No. 128 ), and Petitioner filed a reply on December 19, 2016 (ECF No. 129 ). Having considered the parties' briefing and the record in this case, the Court GRANTS Petitioner's motion.

I. BACKGROUND

On December 3, 2009, a grand jury charged Petitioner with the following counts: 1) armed credit union robbery, in violation of 18 U.S.C. §§ 2113(a) & (d) ; 2) bank robbery, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 2113(a) ; 3) armed bank robbery, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 2113(a) & (d) ; 4) armed bank robbery, in violation of 18 U.S.C. §§ 2113(a) & (d) ; and 5) armed credit union robbery, in violation of 18 U.S.C. §§ 2113(a) & (d). ECF No. 1, Indictment.

On May 7, 2010, the Government filed an Information to establish Petitioner's prior convictions in state court, pursuant to the three-strikes law, which raised the penalty for conviction on any count of the Indictment to mandatory life imprisonment. ECF No. 24. The Information states as follows:

Prior to the filing of the Indictment, [Minjarez] was convicted of the following violent felonies:
1) Voluntary Manslaughter, case number 55130, in the Superior Court of San Joaquin County, California
2) Robbery, case number 76322, in the Superior court of San Joaquin County, California (Four Counts).
Accordingly, the United States gives notice, pursuant to 21 U.S.C. § 851, that the increased statutory penalty on any count of the indictment is mandatory life imprisonment.

Id.

On April 22, 2011, following a three-day jury trial, Petitioner was found guilty of all five counts charged against him in the Indictment. ECF Nos. 79, 81; Presentence Investigation Report ("PSR") ¶¶ 1-2.

Because Petitioner was found guilty of two counts of armed credit union robbery, two counts of armed bank robbery, and one count of bank robbery, which represent separate harms and are not groupable offenses, the PSR used the multi-count adjustment to establish a combined offense level under section 3D1.4 of the United States Sentencing Guidelines ("USSG" or "Guidelines"). See id. ¶¶ 22-53. The PSR determined Petitioner's combined adjusted offense level to be 34. Id. ¶ 55. The PSR went on to note that because the counts of conviction constituted crimes of violence, and because Petitioner had two prior convictions for crime of violence (voluntary manslaughter and four counts of second-degree robbery), he was deemed a career criminal pursuant to USSG § 4B1.1(b). Id. ¶ 56. USSG § 4B1.1(b)(A) provided that because the statutory maximum sentence was life, the applicable offense level was 37. Id. The PSR also noted that under USSG § 4B1.1(b), a career offender's criminal history category is category VI. Id. Based on a total offense level of 37 and a criminal history category of VI, the Guidelines range for imprisonment was 360 months to life. Id. ¶ 102. However, because an Information was filed to establish two prior convictions pursuant to the three-strikes law, and Petitioner was convicted of the five counts charged against him in the Indictment, the statutory penalty for each count on the Indictment was increased to mandatory life imprisonment. Id.

On July 18, 2011, District Judge Oliver Wanger adopted the PSR's findings and sentenced Petitioner to a term of life imprisonment for the five counts charged against him. ECF Nos. 79 & 81. At sentencing, Judge Wanger noted that Petitioner's life sentence was mandatory pursuant to the three-strikes law and his two prior convictions for "serious violent felonies." ECF No. 110 at 24.

Petitioner subsequently appealed his conviction, arguing inter alia , that the district court erred in applying the three-strikes law. ECF No. 83. On November 14, 2012, the Ninth Circuit affirmed Petitioner's conviction. ECF No. 115 ; United States v. Minjarez , 495 Fed. App'x 857 (9th Cir. Nov. 14, 2012).

This is Petitioner's first motion under § 2255.

II. LEGAL FRAMEWORK
A. 28 U.S.C. § 2255

Section 2255 provides four grounds upon which a sentencing court may grant relief to a petitioning in-custody defendant:

[1] that the sentence was imposed in violation of the Constitution or laws of the United States, or [2] that the court was without jurisdiction to impose such sentence, or [3] that the sentence was in excess of the maximum authorized by law, or [4] is otherwise subject to collateral attack.

28 U.S.C. § 2255(a). Generally, only a narrow range of claims fall within the scope of § 2255. United States v. Wilcox , 640 F.2d 970, 972 (9th Cir. 1981). The alleged error of law must be "a fundamental defect which inherently results in a complete miscarriage of justice." Davis v. United States , 417 U.S. 333, 346, 94 S.Ct. 2298, 41 L.Ed.2d 109 (1974).

B. Johnson And Welch

Pursuant to the Armed Career Criminal Act ("ACCA"), a defendant must be sentenced to a mandatory minimum of 15 years to life in custody if he has three prior convictions for "a violent felony or a serious drug offense, or both." 18 U.S.C. § 924(e)(1). The ACCA defines "violent felony" as any crime punishable by imprisonment for a term exceeding one year that:

(i) has as an element the use, attempted use, or threatened use of physical force against the person of another; or
(ii) is burglary, arson, or extortion, involves use of explosives, or otherwise involves conduct that presents a serious potential risk of physical injury to another.

18 U.S.C. § 924(e)(2)(B) (emphasis added). Courts generally refer to the first clause, § 924(e)(2)(B)(i), as the "elements clause"; the first part of the disjunctive statement in (ii) as the "enumerated offenses clause"; and its second part (starting with "or otherwise") as the "residual clause." Johnson v. United States , ––– U.S. ––––, 135 S.Ct. 2551, 2556-57, 2563, 192 L.Ed.2d 569 (2015) ; United States v. Lee , 821 F.3d 1124, 1126 (9th Cir. 2016).

In Johnson , the Supreme Court held that "imposing an increased sentence under the residual clause of the Armed Career Criminal Act violates the Constitution's guarantee of due process," on the basis that "the indeterminacy of the wide-ranging inquiry required by the residual clause both denies fair notice to defendants and invites arbitrary enforcement by judges." 135 S.Ct. at 2557, 2563. "Two features of the residual clause conspire to make it unconstitutionally vague." Id. at 2557. First, "the residual clause leaves grave uncertainty about how to estimate the risk posed by a crime" by "t[ying] the judicial assessment of risk to a judicially imagined ‘ordinary case’ of a crime, not to real-world facts or statutory elements." Id. Second, "[b]y combining indeterminacy about how to measure the risk posed by a crime with indeterminacy about how much risk it takes for the crime to qualify as a violent felony, the residual clause produces more unpredictability and arbitrariness than the Due Process Clause tolerates." Id. at 2558.

Subsequently, the Supreme Court held that its decision in Johnson announced a new substantive rule that applies retroactively to cases on collateral review. Welch v. United States , ––– U.S. ––––, 136 S.Ct. 1257, 1268, 194 L.Ed.2d 387 (2016). "By striking down the residual clause for vagueness, Johnson changed the substantive reach of the Armed Career Criminal Act, altering the ‘range of conduct or the class of persons that the [Act] punishes.’ " Id. at 1265 (quoting Schriro v. Summerlin , 542 U.S. 348, 353, 124 S.Ct. 2519, 159 L.Ed.2d 442 (2004) ). As a result, defendants sentenced pursuant to the ACCA residual clause can collaterally attack their sentences as unconstitutional under § 2255. See, e.g. , United States v. Heflin , 195 F.Supp.3d 1134 (E.D. Cal. 2016).

C. Sessions v. Dimaya

In Sessions v. Dimaya , the Supreme Court examined a similar vagueness issue in the Immigration and Nationality Act. ––– U.S. ––––, 138 S.Ct. 1204, 200 L.Ed.2d 549 (2018). The INA makes deportable any alien convicted of an "aggravated felony" after entering the United States and defines "aggravated felony" to include many offenses and types of offenses. Among the items on the list of offenses is "a crime of violence," as defined by 18 U.S.C. § 16. That provision defines "crime of violence" to mean

(a) an offense that has as an element the use, attempted use, or threatened use of physical force against the person or property of another, or
(b) any other offense that is a felony and that, by its nature, involves a substantial risk that physical force against the person or property of another may be used in the course of committing the offense.

18 U.S.C. § 16 (emphasis supplied). Courts refer to the first clause as the elements clause and the second clause as the residual clause.

Despite minor textual differences from the language at issue in Johnson , the Supreme Court held that the residual clause in § 16 violated the "promise" of due process "in just the same way." 138 S.Ct. at 1215. The same two features that combined in Johnson to render the residual clause there unconstitutionally vague did the same to the residual clause in Dimaya. First, the residual clause requires a court to assess the "ordinary case" of a crime in order to measure the crime's risk. Id. As in Johnson , the residual clause...

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6 cases
  • United States v. Goodridge, Criminal Action No. 96-30015
    • United States
    • U.S. District Court — District of Massachusetts
    • 23 Julio 2019
    ...applies to Hammond is no different than analyzing whether Johnson applies to Hammond." Id. at 44 n.9 ; see United States v. Minjarez , 374 F. Supp. 3d 977, 992-93 (E.D. Cal. 2019) ("[C]ourts throughout the Ninth Circuit (including this one) have found that Johnson 's retroactivity is not li......
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    • 20 Abril 2021
    ...it includes mere threats to property, and, as such, "is broader than any of the federal robbery statutes." United States v. Minjarez, 374 F. Supp. 3d 977, 989 (E.D. Cal. 2019). Likewise, in Morrison v. United States, No. 95-cr-0708 DMS, 2019 WL 2472520, *7 (S.D. Cal. June 12, 2019), the cou......
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    • U.S. District Court — Eastern District of Virginia
    • 11 Febrero 2022
    ...Milton and Wainwright, cited above. Similarly, yet even more squarely on point, in 585 F.Supp.3d 821 United States v. Minjarez, 374 F. Supp. 3d 977 (E.D. Cal. 2019), the district court concluded that California § 211 robbery does not qualify as a "strike" under the enumerated crimes provisi......
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    • U.S. District Court — Eastern District of Virginia
    • 11 Febrero 2022
    ...of §§ 2111, 2113 or 2118” as “threatening to harm one's property would not put an ordinary, reasonable person in fear of bodily harm.” Id. at 989. Before this conclusion, the court explained, with great effect, that “the Court's task is not to compare CPC § 211 with the ‘generic robbery' an......
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