Janis v. United States
| Docket Number | 5:20-CV-5043-CBK |
| Decision Date | 05 May 2022 |
| Parties | TIFFANY JANIS, Petitioner, v. UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Respondent. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — District of South Dakota |
This Court must answer the question left unanswered in Borden v. United States, 141 S.Ct. 1817 (2021): does extreme recklessness offer sufficient mens rea to constitute a crime of violence under 18 U.S.C. § 924(c)(3)'s elements clause? Because the federal second-degree murder statute, and its malice aforethought element, always require the intentional killing of another person, the answer must be yes.
Tiffany Janis (“petitioner”) pleaded guilty to Second Degree Murder (“the Statute”), in violation of 18 U.S.C. §§ 1111(a), 1153; and Discharge of a Firearm During the Commission of a Crime of Violence, violative of 18 U.S.C. § 924(c)(1)(A)(iii), in United States District Court for the District of South Dakota on November 16, 2018 before United States Magistrate Judge Daneta Wollman. 5:18-CR-50024-JLV, [1] Doc. 66. In February 2018, Ms. Janis, a member of the Oglala Sioux Tribe, entered her home following a fight with her husband, Brian Garrett. Carrying a loaded 9-millimeter pistol, the petitioner walked in on her husband performing sexual acts with her cousin. Enraged, Ms. Janis fired the gun, missing Garrett. The bullet went through a window just above the bed where her children were sleeping. Janis fired again, hitting Garrett in the upper chest. Mr. Garrett died from the bullet wound.
United States District Court Judge Jeffrey Viken adopted Judge Wollman's Report and Recommendations on November 26, 2018, accepting the petitioner's guilty plea. C.R. Doc. 69. On March 22, 2019, Judge Viken sentenced Ms. Janis to 120 months custody, followed by three years of supervised release, on each of the two counts, which were to run consecutively. C.R. Docs. 87, 88.
Following the United States Supreme Court's decision in United States v. Davis, 139 S.Ct. 2319 (2019), petitioner filed a timely motion to reduce sentence, arguing her § 924(c)(3)(A) conviction no longer can stand. Doc. 1. The United States subsequently filed a motion for abeyance, Doc. 4, considering the Supreme Court's granting of certiorari in Borden v. United States, which was tasked with deciding whether reckless conduct can qualify as the use of necessary physical force within the context of the similarly worded “force clause” of the Armed Career Criminal Act. The Court granted the motion of abeyance, Doc. 6, which was released from its temporary stay on July 30, 2021. Doc. 9. The government then moved to dismiss petitioner's motion for failure to state a claim. Doc. 11. Briefing is complete and this matter is ripe for adjudication.
The government's motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim is applicable to 28 U.S.C. § 2255 habeas proceedings so long as its procedural commands do not conflict with habeas statutes or the Rules Governing Section 2255 Cases in the United States District Courts. Because it is consistent, the ordinary standard of review for motions under 12(b)(6) is applicable. See Wolfe v. United States, 2021 WL 5095953, at *5 (D.S.D. Sept. 20, 2021) ( interplay between Rule 12(b)(6) and motions to vacate under 28 U.S.C. § 2255).
When reviewing a motion to dismiss under Rule 12(b)(6), the Court assumes that all facts in the petitioner's motion to vacate are true and construes any reasonable inferences from those facts in the light most favorable to the nonmoving party. Monday Rests, v. Intrepid Ins. Co., - F.4th -, 2022 WL 1194000, at * 1 (8th Cir. April 26, 2022). See Bell Atl. Corp, v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 550 (2007); Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 678 (2009).
“In deciding a motion to dismiss, courts ordinarily do not consider matters outside the pleadings.” Gillick v. Elliott, 1 F.4th 608, 610 n.2 (8th Cir. 2021). However, courts may consider materials “necessarily embraced by the pleadings, including exhibits attached to the complaint and matters of public record.” LeMay v. Mays, 18 F.4th 283, 289 (8th Cir. 2021) (internal quotations omitted). Here, this Court can and will consider the docket in Janis' underlying criminal case, which is “incorporated by reference or integral to [her] claim.” Williams v. Emps. Mut. Casualty Co., 845 F.3d 891, 903-04 (8th Cir. 2017) (internal quotation marks omitted). The complaint must hold “‘enough facts to state a claim to relief that is plausible on its face.'” Spagna v. Phi Kappa Psi, Inc, 30 F.4th 710, 715 (8th Cir. 2022) (quoting Twombly, 550 U.S. at 570). The factual allegations must be enough to raise specificity “above the speculative level.” Richardson v. BNSF Ry. Co., 2 F.4th 1063, 1068 (8th Cir. 2021) (internal quotations omitted).
Nevertheless, courts “are not bound to accept as true a legal conclusion couched as a factual allegation.” Stoebner v. Opportuntiy Fin., LLC, 909 F.3d 219, 225-26 (8th Cir. 2018) (quoting Iqbal, 556 U.S. at 678). When assessing the merits of a complaint challenged under Rule 12(b)(6), a court should “begin by identifying pleadings that, because they are no more than conclusions, are not entitled to the assumptions of truth.” McDonough v. Anoka Cnty, 799 F.3d 931, 945-46 (8th Cir. 2015), cert, denied, 578 U.S. 1012 (2016) (citing Iqbal, 556 U.S. at 679).
Section 924(c) has a litigious past. 18 U.S.C. § 924(c)(1)(A) makes it a criminal offense for an individual to use or carry a firearm in furtherance of a “crime of violence.” But what is a “crime of violence?” Two separate paths were written into the statute, the “elements clause” and the “residual clause” definitions, located at §§ 924(c)(3)(A), (B).
In United States v. Davis, 139 S.Ct. 2319 (2019), the United States Supreme Court held that § 924(c)(3)(B), the “residual clause, ” is unconstitutionally vague. 139 S.Ct. 2319, 2323-33 (2019). The residual clause defined a crime of violence as a felony offense 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. § 924(c)(3)(B). Applying the categorical approach of interpretation, the Davis Court struck down the residual clause, one of two definitions for a “crime of violence.' See Mumad v. Garland, 11 F.4th 834, 838-39 (8th Cir. 2021), ( Supreme Court's vagueness jurisprudence in relation to Davis). Critical for this offense, then, is examining what the categorical approach entails.
The categorical approach requires courts to discern what the minimum conduct is required for a conviction under the predicate offense's statutory elements, without considering the specific facts of the case at hand. United States v. Roblero-Ramirez, 716 F.3d 1122, 1125 (8th Cir. 2013). Put differently, courts look to the “‘generic federal definition of a corresponding' crime of violence.” Id. (quoting Moncrieffe v. Holder, 596 U.S. 184, 190 (2013)). Under this approach of interpretation, the residual clause was struck down in its entirety. Now, the Court may turn to the remaining definition for a “crime of violence” under § 924(c)(3)(A), if it determines this motion is the proper place to determine the merits of the federal second-degree murder statute's applicability to the elements clause.
Before tackling the merits of Janis' claim, the Court must first identify whether this § 2255 motion is the proper vehicle to entertain the petitioner's attack on § 924(c)(3)(A). Borden was released after petitioner filed her motion to vacate, but prior to this Court announcing its decision in this matter. While Teague v. Lane, 489 U.S. 288 (1989), generally bars a “new constitutional rule of criminal procedure” from being applied during pending collateral motions, Borden was not announcing such a rule. United States v. Ryan, 227 F.3d 1058, 1062 (8th Cir. 2000) (quoting Teague, 489 U.S. at 310-11). “The Court has made clear, however, that Teague does not apply in those cases in which the Court determines the meaning of a criminal statute enacted by Congress, because such a decision involves the substantive reach of a federal statute, not a new rule of criminal procedure.” Id. Accordingly, Borden can be applied to Janis' motion.
The elements clause defines a “crime of violence” as a felony offense that “has an element the use, attempted use, or threatened use of physical force against the person or property of another.” 18 U.S.C. § 924(c)(3)(A). The United States Supreme Court recently weighed in again on discerning the proper definition of “crime of violence, ” but this time in relation to an analogous statutory definition of § 924(c)(3)'s elements clause.
In Borden v. United States, 141 S.Ct. 1817 (2021), Justice Kagan, writing fora four-justice plurality, with Justice Thomas concurring in the judgment, held that the underlying statutory offense giving way for the similarly worded “force clause” in the Armed Career Criminal Act (“ACCA”), requires the predicate felony offense to hold a mens rea of acting purposely or knowingly, not mere recklessness. 141 S.Ct. at 1825 (plurality opinion); 1835 (Thomas, J., concurring in the judgment). However, the plurality and Justice Thomas arrive at this disposition through different paths.
For the four-justice plurality, the analysis centers on the phrase “against another, ” which when acting as a modifier for “use of force, ” requires the purposeful or knowing direction of an action against the other individual. Reckless conduct does not hold such a concerted aim of direction. See Borden,...
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