U.S. v. Hicks

• Decision Date: 26 March 2002
• Docket Number: No. 01-3040.,01-3040.
• Citation: 283 F.3d 380
• Parties: UNITED STATES of America, Appellee, v. Eric A. HICKS, a/k/a Fat Eric, Appellant.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — District of Columbia Circuit

283 F.3d 380

UNITED STATES of America, Appellee, v. Eric A. HICKS, a/k/a Fat Eric, Appellant.

No. 01-3040.

United States Court of Appeals, District of Columbia Circuit.

Argued February 1, 2002.

Decided March 26, 2002.

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Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of Columbia (No. 93cr00097-02).

Mary Manning Petras, appointed by the court, argued the cause and filed the briefs for appellant.

Valinda Jones, Assistant United States Attorney, argued the cause for appellee. With her on the brief were Roscoe C. Howard, Jr., United States Attorney, and John R. Fisher, Assistant United States Attorney. Mary-Patrice Brown, Assistant United States Attorney, entered an appearance.

Before: GINSBURG, Chief Judge, EDWARDS and SENTELLE, Circuit Judges.

Opinion for the court filed by Circuit Judge EDWARDS.

HARRY T. EDWARDS, Circuit Judge:

Eric Hicks received a Certificate of Appealability ("COA") to challenge a District Court decision striking his motion to supplement an application for collateral relief under 28 U.S.C. § 2255. After being convicted in federal court on various drug distribution and conspiracy offenses, Hicks filed a § 2255 motion claiming that, by offering leniency to some of its witnesses in exchange for their testimony, the Government had tainted his trial and made his continued incarceration unlawful. While this motion was still pending before the District Court, the Supreme Court decided Apprendi v. New Jersey, 530 U.S. 466, 120 S.Ct. 2348, 147 L.Ed.2d 435 (2000). Hicks believed that the Court's decision offered him another possible avenue of relief, so he sought to supplement his § 2255 application with an Apprendi claim. He failed, however, to submit this claim until after the trial court had denied his original motion. Hicks' proposed supplement was therefore stricken as untimely.

Hicks then asked the District Court to reconsider its decision. It did so, but only to strike the supplementary pleading again, this time on a different ground: because it did not "relate back" to Hicks' original § 2255 motion. See United States v. Hicks, Order, Crim. No. 93-0097-02 (Feb. 22, 2001) ("Reconsideration Order"), reprinted in Record Material for Appellee ("RMA")-J. This ruling formed the basis for Hicks' COA and, accordingly, it is this ruling that is at issue here. Hicks' challenge, however, fails.

Hicks did not file his Apprendi motion until more than a year after his criminal conviction became final. Therefore, that motion is barred by § 2255's one-year "period of limitation" unless, under Rule 15 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, it can be said to "relate back" to the date on which Hicks' original (and timely) application for relief was filed. Rule 15 prescribes how civil pleadings may be amended and supplemented, and it applies to § 2255 proceedings. Hicks' amendment is better classified as an "amendment" under 15(a) than as a "supplemental pleading" under 15(d). In either event, however, it does not meet the standards for "relation back" to his original application for relief. Hicks' attempt to amend his § 2255 motion raised an entirely new legal claim arising from a new set of facts; therefore, his application was untimely unless it independently satisfied the statute's one-year limitations period. It did not, and therefore was properly disallowed.

I. BACKGROUND

Hicks, a member of the notorious "First Street Crew," was convicted in February 1994 on an assortment of drug distribution and criminal conspiracy charges. He was sentenced to two life terms, along with two terms of 240 months and one of 480 months, all to run concurrently. His direct appeal, challenging both his conviction and his sentence, was rejected by this court. See United States v. White, 116 F.3d 903 (D.C.Cir.1997). Hicks' conviction was final on November 3, 1997, when the Supreme Court denied his petition for a writ of certiorari. See Hicks v. United States, 522 U.S. 960, 118 S.Ct. 391, 139 L.Ed.2d 306 (1997). On November 2, 1998, the day on which the one-year statute of limitations on motions for collateral relief was to expire, Hicks filed such a motion under § 2255.

An application for relief under § 2255 is properly termed a "motion," rather than a "petition," the term used in habeas corpus proceedings challenging state court criminal judgments under 28 U.S.C. § 2254. See Advisory Committee Notes to Rule 1 of the Rules Governing Section 2255 Proceedings For the United States District Courts. In his motion, Hicks relied on United States v. Singleton, 144 F.3d 1343 (10th Cir.1998), rev'd, 165 F.3d 1297 (10th Cir.1999) (en banc), to argue that the Government violated 18 U.S.C. § 201(c)(2) by promising leniency to its witnesses in exchange for their trial testimony. Hicks also adopted any arguments advanced in the § 2255 motions of his co-defendants, Antone White and Ronald Hughes, insofar as those arguments were applicable to him.

Whatever arguable merit Hicks' § 201(c)(2) claim had when he originally made it was obviated by this court's decision in United States v. Ramsey, 165 F.3d 980, 986-91 (D.C.Cir.1999). Hicks' motion nevertheless languished in the District Court; indeed, the Government did not even file an opposition to the motion until February 1, 2000. On June 26, 2000, while Hicks' motion was still pending, the Supreme Court issued its decision in Apprendi. The Court held that any fact other than a prior conviction that increases the penalty for an offense beyond the prescribed statutory maximum must be submitted to a jury and proved beyond a reasonable doubt. 530 U.S. at 490, 120 S.Ct. 2348.

On November 6, 2000, the District Court ruled on, and denied, Hicks' original application for collateral relief. The court rejected Hicks' § 201(c)(2) argument on the strength of Ramsey, and held that neither of the "incorporated" claims advanced by Hicks' co-defendants offered him any basis for relief. See United States v. Hicks, Memorandum Order (Nov. 6, 2000), reprinted in RMA-F.

A week later, on November 13, 2000, Hicks filed a new motion, contending that Apprendi applied to his case, because the drug quantities on which his sentence was based had not been found by his jury but rather by the trial judge. This new motion was presented as a supplement to Hicks' § 2255 motion that had been denied a week earlier.

On November 28, 2000, the District Court struck Hicks' Apprendi motion. The trial court held that there was nothing to supplement, because the original § 2255 motion had been denied. The trial court instructed Hicks that, if he wished to press his Apprendi argument, he would have to file a "second or successive motion," one subject to the strict gatekeeping rules imposed by § 2255. See Hicks v. United States, Order (Nov. 28, 2000) ("Order Striking Supplement"), reprinted in RMA-H. Rather than do so, however, Hicks urged the District Court to reconsider its decision. Hicks argued that his Apprendi claim should be addressed, because Hughes, whose § 2255 arguments Hicks had incorporated, had added such a claim to his own motion before the trial judge denied the one made by Hicks. Hicks also asserted that his attorney never received a copy of the court's November 6 Order, and, therefore, did not know that her client's original application had been denied when she filed the later motion on November 13.

On February 22, 2001, the District Court accepted Hicks' request for reconsideration. At the same time, however, the court once again decided to strike the Apprendi motion. In the decision denying Hicks' request for relief, the District Court rested primarily on Rule 15(c) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, and concluded that any claim filed after February 1, 2000, when the Government responded on the merits to Hicks' § 2255 motion, "had to relate back to the original petition." The District Court then held that the Apprendi claim could only be presented in a separate motion, because it did not relate back to the original motion. See Reconsideration Order, RMA-J.

Following the District Court's rejection of his request for relief, Hicks sought a COA on the grounds that the District Court had confused Rule 15(d), which covers supplements, with Rule 15(a), which concerns amendments. Alternatively, he argued that his Apprendi claim did sufficiently relate back to his original motion, because both grew out of the same criminal conviction and sentence. On April 10, 2001, the District Court judge granted Hicks' motion for a COA on the question of "whether an amendment to a Section 2255 petition is supplemental under Rule 15(c) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure." United States v. Hicks, Order (April 10, 2001), reprinted in RMA-L. Hicks now pursues that issue in this court.

II. DISCUSSION

While the COA that serves as the basis for this appeal is hardly a model of clarity it does invite us to consider the circumstances under which a § 2255 applicant may amend or supplement his original motion in an attempt to raise new claims or clarify existing ones. We must therefore consider the intersection of Rule 15 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure and 28 U.S.C. § 2255, and, in particular, the strict time limits that Congress has placed on prisoners seeking collateral relief.

A. The Distinction Between Amendments and Supplemental Pleadings under Rule 15

The first issue that we must resolve is whether Hicks' Apprendi motion is an "amendment" under Rule 15(a) or a "supplemental pleading" under Rule 15(d). Both Hicks and the Government have assumed the motion to be supplementary. We disagree.

It is true that these labels are often confused in practice and that the distinction is in most instances of little moment. There are, however, at least two ways in which the nomenclature might matter. First, while a party may freely offer an amendment at any time before a responsive pleading is served, supplements always require leave of the court. See 6A CHARLES ALAN WRIGHT ...