Bridges v. United States

• Decision Date: 17 March 2021
• Docket Number: No. 20-1623,20-1623
• Citation: 991 F.3d 793
• Parties: Jeffery BRIDGES, Petitioner-Appellant, v. UNITED STATES of America, Respondent-Appellee.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Seventh Circuit

991 F.3d 793

Jeffery BRIDGES, Petitioner-Appellant,

v.UNITED STATES of America, Respondent-Appellee.

No. 20-1623

United States Court of Appeals, Seventh Circuit.

Argued December 11, 2020

Decided March 17, 2021

Carmen G. Iguina Gonzalez, Attorney, American Civil Liberties Union, Washington, DC, Spencer Elijah Wittmann Amdur, Attorney, American Civil Liberties Union, San Francisco, CA, for Petitioner - Appellant.

Peter Blackett, Bob Wood, Attorneys, Office of the United States Attorney, Indianapolis, IN, for Respondent - Appellee.

Before Rovner, Hamilton, and Scudder, Circuit Judges.

Hamilton, Circuit Judge.

This appeal raises fundamental questions about what is expected of defense counsel in the federal criminal justice system, where almost all defendants plead guilty. Counsel must negotiate guilty pleas and argue for more lenient sentences, both of which require expert knowledge of the federal Sentencing Guidelines. This knowledge is a core competency for federal criminal defense. The issue here is whether a lawyer's failure to raise an important and, in this case, ultimately meritorious guideline argument may constitute ineffective assistance of counsel even where there was no directly on-point precedent within the circuit at the relevant time. We find that it may in this case.

Now in his sixties, petitioner Jeffery Bridges has been in and out of prison since he was a teenager and has been battling drug addiction even longer. After staying out of trouble for eight years, Bridges got involved in drugs again and committed four robberies in two days in March 2017. He netted scarcely $700 in total and was easily caught by the police. A federal grand jury indicted Bridges for four counts of robbery in violation of the Hobbs Act, 18 U.S.C. § 1951.

Bridges agreed to a guilty plea stipulating that he was subject to the guideline career offender enhancement, U.S.S.G. § 4B1.1, which could apply only if his crimes of conviction were "crimes of violence" as defined by the Guidelines. This enhancement more than doubled his advisory guideline sentencing range. The district court imposed a below-guideline sentence of 140 months. Bridges did not appeal. He had waived that right in his plea deal.

Bridges now seeks postconviction relief under 28 U.S.C. § 2255, alleging he was denied effective assistance of counsel in pleading guilty. He argues that his lawyer failed to realize and argue that Hobbs Act robbery did not then qualify as a "crime of violence" under the Guidelines, so he should not have been categorized as a career offender. When Bridges pleaded guilty and was sentenced, there was no binding precedent in this circuit on this issue. Bridges argues that competent counsel still would have recognized the issue or at least known to investigate it. The district court denied relief without holding a hearing, reasoning that counsel's failure to anticipate arguments that we have not yet accepted cannot be constitutionally deficient.

We reverse for an evidentiary hearing on defense counsel's performance under 28 U.S.C. § 2255(b). First, we join the other circuits that have concluded that Hobbs Act robbery is not a "crime of violence" as that phrase is currently defined in the Guidelines. Although we had not so ruled when Bridges pleaded guilty, the building blocks for a successful legal argument were already in place. Effective counsel would have considered this question that was so important in this case. At that time, minimal research would have uncovered a Tenth Circuit decision squarely holding that Hobbs Act robbery was no longer a crime of violence under a 2016 amendment to the guideline definition of a crime of violence.

We realize how counterintuitive it is to argue or hold that Hobbs Act robbery is not a crime of violence—and that counsel could be deficient for failing to argue for that unexpected result. Yet defense lawyers, prosecutors, and judges in the federal system all appreciate that both statutory and guideline sentencing enhancements for recidivism and crimes of violence have produced many counterintuitive results over the last several decades. During those years, both federal statutes and the Sentencing Guidelines have used the "categorical method" to classify prior convictions and current offenses. The Sentencing Commission proposed guideline amendments in 2018 to reduce reliance on the categorical method. 83 Fed. Reg. 65400, 65407–65412 (Dec. 20, 2018). The Commission has been unable to act on those proposed amendments, though, because it has lacked a quorum for years. Bridges may be a beneficiary of that odd circumstance.

I. Factual and Procedural Background

Over two days in March 2017, Bridges robbed four retail stores in Indianapolis. In three, he held his hand in a pocket in the shape of a gun. In the fourth, he threatened to "hurt" the cashier if his demands were not met. Bridges netted a total of $719.35.

Police quickly identified Bridges as a suspect. Five days after the last robbery, Bridges was stopped by police and admitted that he had committed the robberies. A federal grand jury indicted him on four counts of robbery in violation of the Hobbs Act, 18 U.S.C. § 1951(a).

Bridges pleaded guilty to all four robberies. His plea agreement stipulated to certain guideline calculations, including application of the career offender enhancement in § 4B1.1. This enhancement applies when a defendant with a sufficient history of violent or drug convictions is sentenced for a new "controlled substances offense" or "crime of violence." Bridges' plea stipulated that this enhancement applied based on two prior convictions for robbery in state court and assumed that his new Hobbs Act robbery convictions also counted as crimes of violence. The plea agreement was finalized on April 24, 2018. On July 31, 2018, he pleaded guilty in court and was sentenced on the same day.

At sentencing and after accounting for Bridges' acceptance of responsibility, his guideline offense level was 29, with criminal history VI as a career offender, for a range of 151 to 188 months. Without the career offender guideline, Bridges' advisory range would likely have been 57 to 71 months, based on offense level 21 and criminal history category IV.

Defense counsel did not challenge the guideline calculations. Instead, counsel focused on mitigation arguments. Bridges, he told the court, had had a difficult life and was trying to improve himself to help his family. Bridges was more or less abandoned by his parents and subjected to physical, emotional, and sexual abuse by family members. His drug problems, which he blames for the 2017 robberies, began before he was even thirteen years old. Defense counsel argued that despite these challenges, Bridges continued to try to better himself through treatment and education, and suggested that his age made him unlikely to commit future offenses. Bridges asked for a below-guideline 108-month sentence. The government asked for a 160-month sentence.

The district court accepted the agreed guideline calculations putting the advisory range at 151 to 188 months. The court dismissed out of hand the aging-out-of-crime argument. After all, Bridges had committed these robberies in his sixties. Bridges also had a long history of violent crime, including a now 45-year-old conviction for participating in a home invasion and rape and robbery, and he had shown dangerous tendencies and disrespect for the law and others. Other mitigation arguments had some weight. The judge explained that the final sentence was below the guideline range because of Bridges' experiences as a child and his continuing efforts at rehabilitation. The court sentenced Bridges a little below the low end of the guideline range, to 140 months in prison.

Pursuant to his plea deal, Bridges did not appeal directly. Instead, he brings this suit under the federal habeas corpus statute, 28 U.S.C. § 2255. His only path to challenge his sentence and avoid his waiver of his right to appeal is to argue that his lawyer was ineffective in negotiating the plea agreement with the career offender enhancement. Bridges argues that Hobbs Act robbery is not a crime of violence as the Guidelines now define that phrase and that his counsel should have recognized as much. Without holding an evidentiary hearing, the district court denied relief, reasoning that even if Hobbs Act robbery is not a crime of violence, there was no binding circuit precedent on that issue and that the Sixth Amendment does not require defense counsel to anticipate future developments in case law.

II. Legal Standard

The federal habeas statute permits a prisoner to petition for relief "upon the ground that the sentence was imposed in violation of the Constitution or laws of the United States." 28 U.S.C. § 2255(a). The trial court must "grant a prompt hearing" on the petition unless the motion and record "conclusively show that the prisoner is entitled to no relief." § 2255(b). When reviewing the denial of a federal prisoner's § 2255 petition, we review the district court's legal conclusions de novo, its factual findings for clear error, and its decision to deny an evidentiary hearing for abuse of discretion. Martin v. United States , 789 F.3d 703, 705 (7th Cir. 2015). A decision that rests on an error of law is always an abuse of discretion. Id. at 706.

III. Hobbs Act Robbery Is Not a Guidelines "Crime of Violence"

The career offender guideline applies here only if an offense of a conviction is a "crime of violence" as defined in the Guidelines. See U.S.S.G. §§ 4B1.1 ; 4B1.2. Before 2015, there would have been no doubt that Hobbs Act robbery was a crime of violence. That year, however, the Supreme Court decided Johnson v. United States , 576 U.S. 591, 135 S.Ct. 2551, 192 L.Ed.2d 569 (2015), which held that the so-called residual clause in the statutory definition of a "violent felony" in 18 U.S.C. § 924(e)(2)(B) was unconstitutionally vague. In response to uncertainty about whether Johnson would apply to the...