Ruiz v. United States, 18-1114

• Decision Date: 10 March 2021
• Docket Number: No. 18-1114,18-1114
• Citation: 990 F.3d 1025
• Parties: Jesus RUIZ, Petitioner-Appellant, v. UNITED STATES of America, Respondent-Appellee.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Seventh Circuit

990 F.3d 1025

Jesus RUIZ, Petitioner-Appellant,

v.UNITED STATES of America, Respondent-Appellee.

No. 18-1114

United States Court of Appeals, Seventh Circuit.

Argued December 4, 2020

Decided March 10, 2021

Thomas W. Patton, Attorney, Office of the Federal Public Defender, Peoria, IL, Peter W. Henderson, Attorney, Office of the Federal Public Defender, Urbana, IL, for Petitioner-Appellant.

Andrianna D. Kastanek, Angel M. Krull, Attorneys, Office of the United States Attorney, Chicago, IL, for Respondent-Appellee.

Before Kanne, Wood, and Scudder, Circuit Judges.

Scudder, Circuit Judge.

In 1997 a federal jury convicted Jesus Ruiz of several crimes for his participation in a deadly kidnapping scheme designed to collect drug debts. Ruiz received seven concurrent life sentences plus an additional consecutive term of 45 years’ imprisonment for using a firearm during the underlying crimes of violence in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 924(c).

Now some 20 years later, Ruiz challenges the validity of his § 924(c) convictions. He contends that the predicate offenses underlying these convictions are not "crimes of violence" under the categorical approach required by United States v. Davis , ––– U.S. ––––, 139 S. Ct. 2319, 204 L.Ed.2d 757 (2019). Rather than reaching the merits of this claim, however, the district court dismissed Ruiz's petition on harmless error grounds, concluding that any error in the § 924(c) convictions would have no effect on Ruiz's seven life sentences. Because we agree that Ruiz is not entitled to relief under 28 U.S.C. § 2255, we affirm.

I

A

Jesus Ruiz worked as an "enforcer" collecting drug debts for a Mexican cartel. Ruiz and his co-conspirators—Luis Alberto Carreno, Jose de la Paz Sanchez, Miguel Torres, and Salome Varela—collected payments by kidnapping at gunpoint debtors or their family members, holding them hostage, and beating the victims until ransom payments were made.

In June 1996 the group committed a spree of four kidnappings. Three victims escaped. But a fourth hostage was not so fortunate. Jaime Estrada—a 17-year-old boy and brother of a debtor—was kidnapped by Ruiz and his confederates in Milwaukee. After the kidnappers drove Estrada to Chicago and held him captive in an apartment, they called his brothers demanding a $30,000 ransom payment. While waiting for the payment, Torres shot Estrada in the stomach and locked him in a bathroom, leaving him bleeding and vomiting.

In the meantime, instead of making the ransom payment, Estrada's family contacted law enforcement. The FBI intervened and orchestrated a controlled ransom delivery operation. As the FBI moved in on Ruiz, Varela, and Torres, the kidnappers fled the scene and led the FBI on a high-speed chase reaching speeds of nearly 100 miles per hour. At one point during the chase, Varela pointed a gun at a federal agent. The chase ended after an agent struck the conspirators’ car, and Ruiz, Varela, and Torres were apprehended.

The next morning, an attendant at a used-car lot on Chicago's west side discovered Estrada alive but gravely wounded. Seventeen days later, he succumbed to his injury. A coroner determined that Estrada had died from his gunshot wound and the 30-hour delay in receiving treatment.

B

A federal grand jury returned an indictment against Ruiz, Sanchez, Torres, and Varela. In a superseding indictment, Ruiz faced charges of conspiracy to commit racketeering ( 18 U.S.C. § 1962(d) ), conspiracy to commit kidnapping ( 18 U.S.C. § 1201(c) ), kidnapping resulting in death ( 18 U.S.C. § 1201(a) ), assaulting a federal officer ( 18 U.S.C. § 111 ), four counts of violating the Hostage Act, including one count resulting in death ( 18 U.S.C. § 1203(a) ), and three counts of using a firearm during and in relation to a crime of violence ( 18 U.S.C. § 924(c) ). The indictment listed a different predicate offense for each of the three § 924(c) counts—specifically, the underlying conspiracy to commit kidnapping, kidnapping, and assault on a federal officer charges.

A jury convicted Ruiz on all counts. The district court then imposed seven concurrent life sentences, a 10-year concurrent sentence, and—for the three § 924(c) convictions—an additional 45-year consecutive sentence. The district court determined that two counts of conviction carried a mandatory life or death sentence. See 18 U.S.C. § 1201(a) (kidnapping, with the district court finding that death resulted); 18 U.S.C. § 1203(a) (hostage taking, with the district court finding that death resulted). Ruiz's sentencing occurred before the Supreme Court's decisions in Apprendi v. New Jersey , 530 U.S. 466, 120 S.Ct. 2348, 147 L.Ed.2d 435 (2000) and Alleyne v. United States , 570 U.S. 99, 133 S.Ct. 2151, 186 L.Ed.2d 314 (2013), so the findings that resulted in the imposition of mandatory life sentences were made by the trial judge and not the jury. No aspect of this appeal, however, presents a question under Apprendi or Alleyne .

We affirmed Ruiz's convictions and sentences on appeal. See United States v. Torres , 191 F.3d 799 (7th Cir. 1999). Ruiz was just 18 years old when he committed these crimes.

C

For the last 20 years, Ruiz has made several attempts to challenge his sentence through 28 U.S.C. § 2255 and § 2241. So far, none has succeeded.

As for the appeal before us here, the procedural background began six years ago when the Supreme Court decided Johnson v. United States , 576 U.S. 591, 135 S.Ct. 2551, 192 L.Ed.2d 569 (2015). In Johnson , the Supreme Court invalidated as unconstitutionally vague the so-called residual clause of the Armed Career Criminal Act, which provided one of the Act's alternative definitions for a predicate "violent felony." See 576 U.S. at 606, 135 S.Ct. 2551. Ruiz, in turn, sought permission under 28 U.S.C. § 2244(b)(3) to file a new collateral attack, contending that the residual clause of § 924(c) ’s definition of "crime of violence" was not only unconstitutionally vague in light of Johnson , but also that his predicate offenses otherwise did not count as crimes of violence under § 924(c) ’s elements clause. We granted Ruiz's request. See Ruiz v. United States , No. 16-1193 (7th Cir. Feb. 19, 2016).

Ruiz then filed a new § 2255 petition and argued to the district court that his § 924(c) convictions should be vacated because those convictions were based on the residual clause's unconstitutionally vague definition of "crime of violence," and, in any event, that the predicate offenses used to support these convictions did not categorically require "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 government maintained that all three of Ruiz's underlying "crimes of violence" remained valid even after Johnson because they involved as an element the "use, attempted use, or threatened use" of force. Alternatively, the government characterized any error as harmless because the validity of the § 924(c) convictions would not affect Ruiz's multiple life sentences.

The district court denied Ruiz's § 2255 motion but, in doing so, declined to reach the merits of his claims. The court instead concluded that any error relating to the § 924(c) convictions was harmless because Ruiz faced seven life sentences, including two mandatory life sentences. Even if Ruiz could show that the reasoning in Johnson required his § 924(c) convictions to be vacated, the district court explained, it would not change the reality that he remains subject to seven unchallenged, valid life sentences.

Ruiz appealed, and we granted his certificate of appealability. While his appeal was pending, the Supreme Court decided United States v. Davis , holding that the residual clause's definition of "crime of violence" in § 924(c)(3)(B) is indeed void for vagueness under similar reasoning employed in Johnson . See ––– U.S. ––––, 139 S. Ct. 2319, 2336, 204 L.Ed.2d 757 (2019).

II

When reviewing the district court's denial of a § 2255 petition, we review its legal conclusions de novo . See Hrobowski v. United States , 904 F.3d 566, 569 (7th Cir. 2018). Under 28 U.S.C. § 2255(b), if a court "finds that the judgment was rendered without jurisdiction, or that the sentence imposed was not authorized by law," then "the court shall vacate and set the judgment aside," and shall discharge the prisoner, resentence him, grant a new trial, or correct the sentence "as may appear appropriate."

Mindful of this standard, the parties present their arguments from opposite ends of the spectrum. On one end, Ruiz invites us to proceed directly to the merits of his Davis claim and vacate his § 924(c) convictions. On the other end, the government asks us to affirm the district court's harmless error analysis and denial of relief. In the government's view, because Ruiz advances no challenge to his seven life sentences, any relief on the § 924(c) convictions would not affect the amount of time he spends in prison—the definition of harmless error, as the government sees it.

The question of which route to take—Ruiz's or the government's—is not answered by our case law. Nor has our court had occasion to decide whether two of the potential predicate offenses underlying Ruiz's § 924(c) convictions—kidnapping resulting in death ( 18 U.S.C. § 1201(a) ) and assault on a federal law enforcement officer ( 18 U.S.C. § 111 )—are crimes of violence under § 924(c)(3) ’s elements clause. In the end, we agree with the district court's approach, so we decline to address the more complicated merits questions.

A

The doctrine of harmless error is the product of judicial reform dating to the early twentieth century. See Chapman v. California , 386 U.S. 18, 48, 87 S.Ct. 824, 17 L.Ed.2d 705 (1967) (Harlan, J., dissenting) (describing the evolution of the American harmless error rule). Most American appellate courts previously followed the English rule, which "held that any error of substance required a reversal of conviction." Id. (emphasis added). This approach—which applied to...