Daniels v. United States

• Citation: 532 U.S. 374
• Decision Date: 25 April 2001
• Docket Number: No. 99-9136.,99-9136.
• Parties: DANIELS v. UNITED STATES
• Court: United States Supreme Court

532 U.S. 374

DANIELS v. UNITED STATES

No. 99-9136.

United States Supreme Court.

Argued January 8, 2001.

Decided April 25, 2001.

COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED

CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

O'Connor, J., delivered the opinion of the Court in part, in which Rehnquist, C. J., and Kennedy and Thomas, JJ., joined, and in which Scalia, J., joined, except for that portion of the opinion recognizing that § 2255 may be available in rare circumstances. Scalia, J., filed an opinion concurring in part, post, p. 385. Souter, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which Stevens and Ginsburg, JJ., joined, post, p. 387. Breyer, J., filed a dissenting opinion, post, p. 392.

G. Michael Tanaka argued the cause for petitioner. With him on the briefs was Maria E. Stratton.

Deputy Solicitor General Dreeben argued the cause for the United States. With him on the brief were Solicitor General Waxman, Assistant Attorney General Robinson, James A. Feldman, and Kathleen A. Felton.^*

Justice O'Connor delivered the opinion of the Court in part.

In Custis v. United States, 511 U. S. 485 (1994), we addressed whether a defendant sentenced under the Armed Career Criminal Act of 1984 (ACCA), 18 U. S. C. § 924(e), could collaterally attack the validity of previous state convictions used to enhance his federal sentence. We held that, with the sole exception of convictions obtained in violation of the right to counsel, a defendant has no right to bring such a challenge in his federal sentencing proceeding. 511 U. S., at 487. We now consider whether, after the sentencing proceeding has concluded, the individual who was sentenced may challenge his federal sentence through a motion under 28 U. S. C. § 2255 (1994 ed., Supp. V) on the ground that his prior convictions were unconstitutionally obtained. We hold that, as a general rule, he may not. There may be rare circumstances in which § 2255 would be available, but we need not address the issue here.

I

In 1994, petitioner Earthy D. Daniels, Jr., was tried and convicted of being a felon in possession of a firearm in violation of 18 U. S. C. § 922(g)(1). The Government then sought to enhance his sentence under the ACCA. App. 4-5. The ACCA imposes a mandatory minimum 15-year sentence on anyone who violates § 922(g)(1) and who has three previous convictions for a violent felony or a serious drug offense. § 924(e)(1). Petitioner had been convicted in California in 1978 and 1981 for robbery, and in 1977 and 1979 for first degree burglary. Id., at 14. The District Court found petitioner to be an armed career criminal within the meaning of the ACCA and, after granting a downward departure, the District Court sentenced petitioner to 176 months. Id., at 14, 18. Had petitioner not been adjudged an armed career criminal, he would have received at most a 120-month sentence. 18 U. S. C. § 924(a)(2). On direct appeal, petitioner argued unsuccessfully that his two burglary convictions did not qualify as predicate offenses under the ACCA. See 86 F. 3d 1164 (CA9 1996) (table).

Petitioner then filed a motion to vacate, set aside, or correct his sentence pursuant to 28 U. S. C. § 2255 in the United States District Court for the Central District of California. Section 2255, a postconviction remedy for federal prisoners, permits "a prisoner in custody under sentence of a federal court" to "move the court which imposed the sentence to vacate, set aside or correct the sentence" upon the ground that "the sentence was imposed in violation of the Constitution or laws of the United States." Petitioner asserted that his current federal sentence was imposed in violation of the Constitution because it was based in part on his 1978 and 1981 robbery convictions. Those prior convictions, he alleged, were themselves unconstitutional because they both were based on guilty pleas that were not knowing and voluntary, and because the 1981 conviction was also the product of ineffective assistance of counsel. App. 51-52. He did not contend that § 2255 relief was appropriate because his current sentence was imposed in violation of the ACCA. Cf. Brief for Petitioner 13.

The District Court denied the § 2255 motion, App. 58-67, and a panel of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed, 195 F. 3d 501 (1999). The court held that our decision in Custis "bars federal habeas review of the validity of a prior conviction used for federal sentencing enhancement unless the petitioner raises a . . . claim under Gideon v. Wainwright, 372 U. S. 335 (1963)." 195 F. 3d, at 503 (internal quotation marks and citation omitted). Because the Courts of Appeals are divided as to whether Custis bars relief under § 2255 as well as in federal sentencing proceedings, we granted certiorari. 530 U. S. 1299 (2000).

II

The petitioner in Custis attempted, during his federal sentencing proceeding, to attack prior state convictions used to enhance his sentence under the ACCA. Like petitioner here, Custis challenged his prior convictions as the product of allegedly faulty guilty pleas and ineffective assistance of counsel. 511 U. S., at 488. We held that with the sole exception of convictions obtained in violation of the right to counsel, Custis had no right under the ACCA or the Constitution "to collaterally attack prior convictions" in the course of his federal sentencing proceeding. Id., at 490-497. While the "failure to appoint counsel for an indigent defendant was a unique constitutional defect" that justified the exception for challenges concerning Gideon v. Wainwright, 372 U. S. 335 (1963), 511 U. S., at 496, challenges of the type Custis sought to bring did not "rise to the level of a jurisdictional defect," ibid.

Two considerations supported our constitutional conclusion in Custis: ease of administration and the interest in promoting the finality of judgments. With respect to the former, we noted that resolving non-Gideon -type constitutional attacks on prior convictions "would require sentencing courts to rummage through frequently nonexistent or difficult to obtain state-court transcripts or records." 511 U. S., at 496. With respect to the latter, we observed that allowing collateral attacks would "inevitably delay and impair the orderly administration of justice" and "deprive the statecourt judgment of its normal force and effect." Id., at 497 (internal quotation marks and brackets omitted).

A

Petitioner contends that the Custis rule should not extend to § 2255 proceedings because the concerns we articulated in Custis are not present in the § 2255 context. Brief for Petitioner 22-26. We disagree. First, a district court evaluating a § 2255 motion is as unlikely as a district court engaged in sentencing to have the documents necessary to evaluate claims arising from long-past proceedings in a different jurisdiction. While petitioner is quite right that federal district courts are capable of evaluating fact-intensive constitutional claims raised by way of a habeas petition, id., at 22-23, institutional competence does not make decades-old state court records and transcripts any easier to locate.

The facts of this case only reinforce our concern. For example, petitioner contends that he entered his 1978 and 1981 guilty pleas without a full understanding of the essential elements of the crimes with which he was charged, and therefore the resulting convictions violated due process. App. 40-42, 50-51. These claims by their nature require close scrutiny of the record below. Yet petitioner has not placed the transcript from either plea colloquy in the record. In fact, he has admitted that the 1978 transcript is missing from the state court file. Cf. id., at 38, n. 3. Under these circumstances, it would be an almost futile exercise for a district court to attempt to determine accurately what was communicated to petitioner more than two decades ago.

With respect to the concern for finality, petitioner argues that because he has served the complete sentences for his 1978 and 1981 convictions, the State would suffer little, if any, prejudice if those convictions were invalidated through a collateral challenge under § 2255. Brief for Petitioner 24— 26. To the contrary, even after a defendant has served the full measure of his sentence, a State retains a strong interest in preserving the convictions it has obtained. States impose a wide range of disabilities on those who have been convicted of crimes, even after their release. For example, in California, where petitioner committed his crimes, persons convicted of a felony may be disqualified from holding public office, subjected to restrictions on professional licensing, and barred from possessing firearms. See U. S. Dept. of Justice, Office of the Pardon Attorney, Civil Disabilities of Convicted Felons: A State-By-State Survey 29-32 (Oct. 1996). Further, each of the 50 States has a statute authorizing enhanced sentences for recidivist offenders. E. g., Cal. Penal Code Ann. § 667 (West 1999). See also Parke v. Raley, 506 U. S. 20, 26-27 (1992).

At oral argument, petitioner suggested that invalidating a prior conviction on constitutional grounds for purposes of its use under the ACCA would have no effect beyond the federal proceeding. Tr. of Oral Arg. 8-10. Although that question is not squarely presented here, if a state conviction were determined to be sufficiently unreliable that it could not be used to enhance a federal sentence, the State's ability to use that judgment subsequently for its own purposes would be, at the very least, greatly undermined. Thus, the State does have a real and continuing interest in the integrity of its judgments.

B

On the most fundamental level, petitioner attempts to distinguish Custis as a decision only about the appropriate forum in which a defendant may challenge prior convictions used to enhance a federal sentence. The issue in Custis, according to petitioner, was "`where, not whether, the defendant could attack a prior conviction...