Stoufflet v. United States

• Decision Date: 08 July 2014
• Docket Number: No. 13–10874.,13–10874.
• Citation: 757 F.3d 1236
• Parties: Christopher STOUFFLET, Petitioner–Appellant, v. UNITED STATES of America, Respondent–Appellee.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Eleventh Circuit

757 F.3d 1236

Christopher STOUFFLET, Petitioner–Appellant,

v.UNITED STATES of America, Respondent–Appellee.

No. 13–10874.

United States Court of Appeals,Eleventh Circuit.

July 8, 2014.

Wesley MacNeil Oliver, Massey McClusky, Memphis, TN, for Petitioner–Appellant.

Randy Scott Chartash, Michael John Brown, Lawrence R. Sommerfeld, Sally Yates, U.S. Attorney's Office, Atlanta, GA, for Respondent–Appellee.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Georgia. D.C. Docket Nos. 1:12–cv–01427–CC; 1:08–cr–00082–CC–1.

Before PRYOR, Circuit Judge, WOOD,^*Chief District Judge, EDENFIELD,^** District Judge.

PRYOR, Circuit Judge:

This appeal requires us to decide whether a federal prisoner may collaterally attack the voluntariness of his guilty plea in a motion to vacate his sentence, 28 U.S.C. § 2255, after he already presented that issue as an objection to his appointed counsel's motion to withdraw in his direct appeal. See Anders v. California, 386 U.S. 738, 87 S.Ct. 1396, 18 L.Ed.2d 493 (1967). We conclude that the prisoner is procedurally barred from relitigating the voluntariness of his plea. We affirm the denial of the prisoner's motion to vacate his sentence.

I. BACKGROUND

Christopher Stoufflet conspired with others to establish an online pharmacy in violation of federal law. Customers could order prescription drugs from the online pharmacy by completing a form, which required them to choose the type and quantity of drugs they wanted and to answer certain questions about their medical conditions. The website of the online pharmacy represented that a physician would review those forms before the online pharmacy distributed the drugs, but no physician had face-to-face contact with the customers. The conspirators dispensed over 260 thousand prescriptions, including Schedule III and Schedule IV controlled substances, and generated over $75 million in sales.

On August 8, 2006, a grand jury indicted Stoufflet and six others with engaging in a drug conspiracy, 21 U.S.C. § 846, engaging in a money laundering conspiracy, 18 U.S.C. § 1956(h), money laundering, id. §§ 1956, 1957, and distributing controlled substances, 21 U.S.C. § 841. Stoufflet pleaded not guilty and proceeded to trial. In 2007, Stoufflet disclosed that he planned to defend himself at trial on the ground that he lacked the mens rea to conspire because he thought the online business was legal after consulting various attorneys.

Initially, the United States asked Stoufflet to confirm that he intended to rely on that advice-of-counsel defense so that it could interview the attorneys who had advised him. But then in February 2008, the United States filed a motion in limine to exclude Stoufflet's advice-of-counsel defense. The United States argued that the defense was irrelevant. The United States contended that, because Stoufflet was charged with general-intent crimes, not specific-intent crimes, any advice he received from attorneys was not a defense for his illegal conduct.

Then on March 4, 2008, the United States initiated a second criminal proceeding against Stoufflet by filing an information charging him with engaging in a drug conspiracy, 21 U.S.C. §§ 841, 846, and money laundering, 18 U.S.C. § 1957. Stoufflet pleaded guilty the same day. He admitted to “conspir[ing], combin[ing], confederat[ing], agree[ing], and ha [ving] a tacit understanding with others, including ... [the codefendants], to knowingly and intentionally distribute and dispense Schedule III and IV controlled substances, ... other than for a legitimate medical purpose and not in the course of professional practice.” In exchange for that guilty plea, the United States agreed to dismiss the counts against Stoufflet in the 2006 indictment.

The district court accepted Stoufflet's guilty plea as knowing and voluntary. Three days after Stoufflet pleaded guilty, the district court denied the motion in limine filed by the United States to exclude the advice-of-counsel defense in the prosecution of the 2006 charges. The court ruled, contrary to the argument of the United States, that the crimes were specific-intent crimes and Stoufflet's advice-of-counsel defense was relevant.

Stoufflet then attempted to withdraw his guilty plea. Stoufflet's newly appointed counsel contended in the motion to withdraw that Stoufflet pleaded guilty “under extreme pressure” because his former counsel advised that it was “highly probable” that the district court would grant the motion in limine filed by the United States for the trial of the 2006 charges. He stated that he was “numb” at the plea hearing and that his attorneys forced him into the plea agreement.

The district court conducted a hearing on Stoufflet's motion to withdraw his guilty plea, and Stoufflet and his former counsel testified. The district court denied the motion to withdraw and later sentenced Stoufflet to 70 months of imprisonment and 3 years of supervised release.

Stoufflet filed a direct appeal, and the district court appointed appellate counsel. The appointed appellate counsel moved to withdraw her representation. See Anders, 386 U.S. 738, 87 S.Ct. 1396. In her Anders brief, counsel concluded that Stoufflet's potential arguments on appeal were frivolous. Stoufflet filed a response to the Anders brief, in which he argued that his plea was invalid because he was unaware of all the elements of the crimes for which he was charged. He explained that he did not understand that conspiracy was a specific-intent crime until the district court denied the motion in limine in the other criminal proceeding.

We granted the appointed counsel's motion to withdraw, and we affirmed Stoufflet's judgment of conviction and sentence. United States v. Stoufflet, 424 Fed.Appx. 881 (11th Cir.2011). We stated, in part, “Because independent examination of the entire record reveals no arguable issues of merit, counsel's motion to withdraw is GRANTED, Stoufflet's motion for the appointment of new counsel is DENIED, and Stoufflet's conviction and sentence are AFFIRMED.” Id. at 881.

Stoufflet next filed a pro se motion to vacate his sentence. 28 U.S.C. § 2255. He stated that he was “obliged to plead guilty” and that the “Court accepted [his] plea without informing him that criminal intent was essential.”

The district court denied the motion. Because our Court had rejected Stoufflet's claim that his plea was involuntary when we affirmed his conviction and sentence in his direct appeal, the district court ruled that Stoufflet could not relitigate that issue in a motion to vacate his sentence. But the district court granted a certificate of appealability, which asks whether Stoufflet may again litigate whether his guilty plea was voluntary even though the appointed appellate counsel and Stoufflet presented that claim in the Anders briefing and our Court rejected it on direct appeal.

II. STANDARD OF REVIEW

When we review the denial of a motion to vacate, 28 U.S.C. § 2255, we review legal conclusions de novo and findings of fact for clear error. Thomas v. United States, 572 F.3d 1300, 1303 (11th Cir.2009).

III. DISCUSSION

It is long settled that a prisoner is procedurally barred from raising arguments in a motion to vacate his sentence, 28 U.S.C. § 2255, that he already raised and that we rejected in his direct appeal. See United States v. Nyhuis, 211 F.3d 1340, 1343 (11th Cir.2000) (“Once a matter has been decided adversely to a defendant on direct appeal it cannot be re-litigated in a collateral attack under section 2255.” (internal quotation marks omitted)); Mills v. United States, 36 F.3d 1052, 1056 (11th Cir.1994) ( “[P]rior disposition of a ground of error on direct appeal, in most cases, precludes further review in a subsequent collateral proceeding.”); United States v. Rowan, 663 F.2d 1034, 1035 (11th Cir.1981) (“This Court is not required on § 2255 motions to reconsider claims of error raised and disposed of on direct appeal.”); United States v. Johnson, 615 F.2d 1125, 1128 (5th Cir.1980) (“When an issue has already been determined on direct appeal, a Court need not reconsider it on a Section 2255 motion.”); Buckelew v. United States, 575 F.2d 515, 517–18 (5th Cir.1978) (“[A] matter need not be reconsidered on a section 2255 motion if it has already been determined on direct appeal.”).

Instead of applying this procedural bar, both Stoufflet and the United States argue about whether the “law of the case” bars Stoufflet's motion to vacate his sentence, but we decline to invoke that doctrine. We have never applied the law-of-the-case doctrine by name to a motion to vacate a prisoner's sentence that raises again an argument raised earlier in a prisoner's direct appeal. See Rozier v. United States, 701 F.3d 681, 684 (11th Cir.2012) (declining to reconsider a claim already decided against a prisoner because there had been no intervening change in law, but not explicitly stating that the law-of-the-case doctrine barred the appeal); Thomas v. United States, 572 F.3d 1300, 1304 (11th Cir.2009) (“Because we find that the law of the case doctrine does not bar review here as to each claim specified in the [Certificateof Appealability], we assume that it could apply in such a scenario.”).

The law-of-the-case doctrine is similar to the procedural bar limiting the claims a federal prisoner may bring in a motion to vacate his sentence, but it is unfit to describe the interplay between claims raised in a direct appeal and those raised in a collateral proceeding attacking a final judgment. Like the procedural bar for federal prisoners, the law-of-the-case doctrine bars relitigation of issues that a court necessarily or by implication decided against the litigant in an earlier appeal. See Schiavo ex rel. Schindler v. Schiavo ex rel. Schiavo, 403 F.3d 1289, 1291 (11th Cir.2005). Even though the law-of-the-case doctrine would control multiple collateral attacks of a sentence, see Sanders v. United States, 373 U.S. 1, 9, 83 S.Ct. 1068, 1074, 10...