Knight v. United States

• Decision Date: 31 January 2013
• Docket Number: 10-CR-179S,11-CV-919S
• Parties: RANDALL KNIGHT, Petitioner, v. UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Respondent.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Western District of New York

RANDALL KNIGHT, Petitioner,

v.UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Respondent.

11-CV-919S

10-CR-179S

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT WESTERN DISTRICT OF NEW YORK

Dated: January 31, 2013

DECISION AND ORDER

I. INTRODUCTION

Pro se Petitioner, Randall Knight, moves to vacate, set aside, or correct his sentence and conviction pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2255. For the reasons discussed below, this Court finds a hearing on this motion unnecessary and denies Knight's motion.¹

II. BACKGROUND

On July 3, 1994, Andie Gasper was found stabbed to death in the driver's seat of his pickup truck in the Town of Yorkshire, New York. (Isaacson Aff., 4; Docket No. 1.) Police suspected Petitioner Knight committed the crime. (Id., ¶¶ 6-10.) After an investigation, Knight was charged with and tried for second-degree murder in Cattaraugus County. (Id., 9.) On September 6, 1995, however, he was acquitted of that crime. (Id., ¶ 10.)

But that was not the end of the case against Knight. In April of 2009 the FBI, in conjunction with the Cattaraugus County Sheriff's Office cold case unit, renewed their investigation. This investigation revealed damaging evidence against both Knight and the victim's wife, Cheryl Gasper. Evidence demonstrated that Cheryl Gasper solicited Knight, with whom she had been having an affair, to murder her husband. (Plea Agreement, ¶ 4; Docket No. 9.) The two conspired to share in the proceeds of Andie Gasper's $100,000 life insurance policy. (Id.)

Consequently, new charges were then lodged against Knight, this time in federal court. On July 14, 2010, Knight pleaded guilty to the federal murder-for-hire statute, 18 U.S.C. § 1958.² (Docket Nos. 9, 10.) Several months later, this Court sentenced Knight to 288 months of imprisonment. (Docket Nos. 17, 20.)

He did not appeal that conviction, but less than year later, Knight timely filed the present motion to vacate his conviction and sentence. (Docket No. 21.)

III. DISCUSSION

A. Standard of Review

Twenty-eight U.S.C. § 2255 allows federal prisoners to challenge the constitutionality of their sentences. In pertinent part, that section provides:

A prisoner in custody under sentence of a court established by Act of Congress claiming the right to be released upon the ground that the sentence was imposed in violation of the Constitution or laws of the United States, or that the court was without jurisdiction to impose such sentence, or that the sentence was in excess of the maximum authorized by law, or is otherwise subject to collateral attack, may move the court which imposed the sentence to vacate, set aside or correct the sentence.

28 U.S.C. § 2255.

The Second Circuit has held that a "collateral attack on a final judgment in a criminal case is generally available under § 2255 only for a constitutional error, a lack of jurisdiction in the sentencing court, or an error of law or fact that constitutes 'a fundamental defect which inherently results in a complete miscarriage of justice.'" Graziano v. United States, 83 F.3d 587, 590 (2d Cir. 1996) (per curiam) (quoting United States v. Bokun, 73 F.3d 8, 12 (2d Cir. 1995)).

B. Knight's § 2255 Motion

Knight advances six grounds for relief, including arguments that he was denied effective assistance of counsel and that his conviction violated the Ex Post Facto Clause of the United States Constitution. See U.S. Const. Art. 1, §§ 9,10.

Although Knight did not file a direct appeal, his petition - at least on ineffective assistance of counsel grounds - is not procedurally barred. See Massaro v. United States, 538 U.S. 500, 504, 123 S. Ct. 1690, 1693, 155 L. Ed. 2d 714 (2003) (general rule that claims not raised on direct appeal may not be raised on collateral review absent cause and prejudice does not apply to an ineffective-assistance-of-counsel claim); Yick Man Mui v. United States, 614 F.3d 50, 54 (2d Cir. 2010) (same). Nor is his petition barred by the provision in his plea agreement wherein he agreed not to collaterally attack his sentence.See Parisi v. United States, 529 F.3d 134 (2d Cir. 2008) (though generally enforceable, waiver cannot bar ineffective-counsel claim if there is a connection between alleged ineffectiveness and voluntary nature of plea).

Although Knight raises various grounds for relief, most of those grounds are simply variations on one central premise: Knight was convicted of a crime for which the statute of limitations had expired.³

Though seemingly simple, this claim requires some explanation. In July of 2010, Knight pleaded guilty under the federal murder-for-hire statute for a crime he committed in the same month 16 years earlier. That statute makes it unlawful to

travel[] in or cause[] another (including the intended victim) to travel in interstate or foreign commerce, or use[] or cause[] another (including the intended victim) to use the mail or any facility in interstate or foreign commerce, with intent that a murder be committed in violation of the laws of any State or the United States as consideration for the receipt of, or as consideration for a promise or agreement to pay, anything of pecuniary value.

18 U.S.C. 1958(a).

Before September 13, 1994, "if death result[ed]" in the commission of this crime, the maximum penalty was life imprisonment. By operation of 18 U.S.C. § 3282(a), the general "catchall" federal criminal statute of limitations, the limitations period for this crimewas five years, as it was for all non-capital federal offenses.⁴ But that changed on September 13, 1994, when, as part of the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act, Congress amended § 1958 by increasing the maximum punishment to death. Pub. L. No. 103-322, §§ 60003(a)(12), 330016(2)(c), 108 Stat. 1796, effective September 13, 1994. Because there is no statute of limitations on an indictment for an offense punishable by death, see 18 U.S.C. § 3281, a present-day murder-for-hire that results in a death is not subject to any statute of limitations.

Here, there is no dispute that Knight completed his crime in July of 1994, two months before the amendment became effective. Knight therefore contends that the five-year-limitation period applies to him, and correspondingly, that the law violates the Ex Post Facto Clause of the United States Constitution. Indeed, should the pre-September 1994 law apply, the statute of limitations would have long since expired by the time Knight pleaded guilty. And if that were the case, Knight would have a viable ineffective-assistance-of-counsel claim. See United States v. Hansel, 70 F.3d 6, 8 (2d Cir. 1995) (per curiam) (despite guilty plea, court allowed ineffective-assistance claim based on counsel's failure to move to dismiss counts as time-barred, as petitioner "would not have pled guilty to counts that he knew to be time-barred").

Yet typically, this claim would be a non-starter. "The long-standing rule in this [C]ircuit is that Congress has the power to extend the period of limitations without running afoul of the [E]x [P]ost [F]acto [C]lause, provided the original period has not already run."United States v. Morgan, 113 F.3d 1230 (2d Cir. 1997) (unpublished); see United States v. Madia, 955 F.2d 538, 539-40 (8th Cir. 1992) ("The law is settled that extending a limitation period before a given prosecution is barred does not violate the [E]x [P]ost [F]acto clause"); Falter v. United States, 23 F.2d 420, 425-26 (2d Cir.1928) (Hand L., J.); United States v. Roselli, No. 93-CR-220, 1994 WL 4195, at *3 (N.D.N.Y. Jan. 3, 1994) ("[T]he court concurs with the jurisdictions which have unanimously ruled that Congress does not violate the ex post facto clauses of the United States Constitution when it extends the statute of limitations for a crime where the original time period has not expired"); see also Stogner v. California, 539 U.S. 607, 618, 123 S. Ct. 2446, 2453, 156 L. Ed. 2d 544 (2003) (holding that extension of statute of limitations after its expiration is prohibited as ex post facto, but distinguishing such a scenario from cases where statute has not run). Because Congress amended § 1958 only two months after Knight committed the crime, the amendment fell safely within the limitations period as it applied to him.

But there is one complication: Congress did not directly extend the statute of limitations for this crime; rather, it increased the maximum punishment for murder-for-hire, and thereby only indirectly extended the relevant statute of limitations. At the outset, Knight correctly notes that under the Ex Post Facto Clause he could not have been sentenced to death. See Collins v. Youngblood, 497 U.S. 34 , 41, 111 L. Ed. 2d 30, 110 S Ct. 2715 (1990) (citing Beazell, 269 U.S. at 169) (statute that "makes more burdensome the punishment for a crime after its commission . . . is prohibited as ex post facto"); United States v. Pope, No. (S3)94CR.631 (JSM), 2003 WL 21271915, at *1 (S.D.N.Y. May 30, 2003), aff'd, 24 F. App'x 680, 682 (2d Cir. 2005) (defendant could not be sentenced to death because 18 U.S.C. § 1958 was amended after defendant committed the crime). Inother words, the availability of the death penalty applies only prospectively. But the question remains whether the law's indirect effect on the statute of limitations should also apply only prospectively. Of the two courts to have addressed this specific issue, one concluded that it should. In United States v. Owens, the district court, ruling on a motion to dismiss, noted that "Congress fully understood that the added punishment constitutionally could operate only prospectively" and it concluded "[a]s the increased penalty can apply only to those crimes committed after enactment of the Violent Crime Act, absent a contrary expression of Congressional intent, the same holds true for the statute's indirect impact on the statute of limitations." 965 F. Supp. 158, 164 (D. Mass. 1997).

The only other court to have considered this issue disagreed. Rejecting a Report and Recommendation advising the district court to grant a motion to dismiss, the court i...