Hope v. U.S.

Decision Date20 February 1997
Docket NumberNo. 97-8011,97-8011
Citation108 F.3d 119
PartiesWilliam HOPE, Petitioner, v. UNITED STATES of America, Respondent.
CourtU.S. Court of Appeals — Seventh Circuit

Kathleen T. Zellner (submitted on briefs), Daniel W. Pisani, Zellner & Associates, Naperville, IL, for Petitioner.

James B. Burns, Office of the United States Attorney, Chicago, IL, for Respondent.

Before POSNER, Chief Judge, and MANION and KANNE, Circuit Judges.

POSNER, Chief Judge.

After William Hope was convicted of federal crimes and his conviction affirmed in United States v. Hope, 906 F.2d 254 (7th Cir. 1990), he sought to vacate his sentence under 28 U.S.C. § 2255, the federal prisoner's substitute for habeas corpus. His motion was denied and the denial affirmed. Hope v. United States, 43 F.3d 1140 (7th Cir.1994). He now seeks our permission to file, on the basis of newly discovered evidence, a second 2255 motion, which under the recent amendments made to the statute by the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 he may do only if the evidence would enable him to show that "no reasonable factfinder would have found the movant guilty of the offense" of which he had been convicted. The only nonfrivolous issue that the proposed motion presents, however, is whether Hope's sentence was properly enhanced on the basis of his being a career criminal. The motion (more precisely the nonfrivolous part of the motion, and we ignore the rest) thus assumes that he was guilty of the offense of which he was convicted. His only quarrel is with the sentence, and thus the motion does not fit within the narrow confines of the amended statute, at least if it is interpreted literally.

Should it be interpreted literally? Courts that before the amendment had to decide whether an application for postconviction relief came within the "actual innocence" exception to the requirement of proving cause and prejudice in order to be permitted to revive a waived ground for relief extended the exception to sentencing issues, e.g., Sawyer v. Whitley, 505 U.S. 333, 340-41, 112 S.Ct. 2514, 2519-20, 120 L.Ed.2d 269 (1992); Callins v. Johnson, 89 F.3d 210, 214 (5th Cir.1996)--and (at least in this circuit) not only in capital cases. Mills v. Jordan, 979 F.2d 1273, 1278 (7th Cir.1992); contra, Reid v. Oklahoma, 101 F.3d 628, 630 (10th Cir.1996). But we do not think the exception survives the amendment. The "actual innocence" exception of the prior law was judge-made, and so its contours were appropriately judge-fashioned and permissibly judge-expanded. The exception in the new law is graven in statutory language that could not be any clearer. When we consider how limited the review of sentencing traditionally was, how strongly Congress evidently disfavors successive rounds of collateral attacks on duly reviewed convictions such as that of Hope, how doubtful it is that any violation of the sentencing guidelines rises to the level necessary to justify collateral relief even under the standards of the old law, Scott v. United States, 997 F.2d 340 (7th...

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  • United States v. Vargas-Soto
    • United States
    • U.S. Court of Appeals — Fifth Circuit
    • 2 Junio 2022
    ...of the predicate crimes, and not from the legal classification of the predicate crimes." (quotation omitted)); Hope v. United States , 108 F.3d 119, 120 (7th Cir. 1997) ("We conclude that a successive motion under 28 U.S.C. § 2255 ... may not be filed on the basis of newly discovered eviden......
  • Embrey v. Hershberger
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    • U.S. Court of Appeals — Eighth Circuit
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    ...(holding application of actual innocence exception is not limited to cases involving capital sentencing); see also Hope v. United States, 108 F.3d 119, 120 (7th Cir.1997) (noting that prior to the AEDPA amendments to § 2255, courts extended the actual innocence exception to sentencing issue......
  • Keen v. State
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    • Tennessee Supreme Court
    • 20 Diciembre 2012
    ...Cir.2010); In re Webster, 605 F.3d 256, 257–58 (5th Cir.2010); In re Dean, 341 F.3d 1247, 1248–49 (11th Cir.2003); Hope v. United States, 108 F.3d 119, 120 (7th Cir.1997). The year before Congress enacted the AEDPA, the Tennessee General Assembly enacted the Post–Conviction Procedure Act,16......
  • Goldman v. Winn
    • United States
    • U.S. District Court — District of Massachusetts
    • 1 Julio 2008
    ...979 F.2d 1273, 1279 (7th Cir.1992) that the actual innocence exception applied in the non-capital sentencing context. In Hope v. United States, 108 F.3d 119 (1997), however, the Circuit held that AEDPA's 1996 amendments to § 2255 precluded resort to the exception to permit second or success......
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2 books & journal articles
  • The End of Innocence? Federal Habeas Corpus Law After in Re Davis
    • United States
    • Georgia State University College of Law Georgia State Law Reviews No. 27-2, December 2010
    • Invalid date
    ...the underlying offense (rather than ineligibility for the death penalty, as the Court permitted) . . . .”). But see Hope v. United States, 108 F.3d 119, 120 (7th Cir. 1997) (holding that the AEDPA abrogated collateral attack of ineligibility of a death sentence only for successive habeas pe......
  • Dretke v. Haley and the still unknown limits of the actual innocence exception.
    • United States
    • Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology Vol. 95 No. 3, March 2005
    • 22 Marzo 2005
    ...at 1278-79. (107) Id. (citing Sawyer, 505 U.S. at 339). (108) Id. at 1279. (109) Id. at 1278-79 (citing Sawyer, 505 U.S. at 339). (110) 108 F.3d 119 (7th Cir. (111) Id. at 120. As amended by the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996, Pub. L. No. 104-132, [section] 105, 110 S......

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