United States v. De Castro

• Citation: 49 F.4th 836
• Decision Date: 27 September 2022
• Docket Number: 21-2817
• Parties: UNITED STATES of America v. Amin DE CASTRO, Appellant
• Court: United States Courts of Appeals. United States Court of Appeals (3rd Circuit)

49 F.4th 836

UNITED STATES of America

v.Amin DE CASTRO, Appellant

No. 21-2817

United States Court of Appeals, Third Circuit.

Argued June 16, 2022

Filed: September 27, 2022

Kenneth L. Mirsky [ARGUED], 2033 Walnut Street, Philadelphia, PA 19103, Counsel for Appellant

Jennifer Arbittier Williams, United States Attorney, Jessica Rice, Assistant United States Attorney [ARGUED], Office of United States Attorney, 615 Chestnut Street, Suite 1250, Philadelphia, PA 19106, Counsel for Appellee

Before: HARDIMAN, SMITH and FISHER, Circuit Judges.

OPINION OF THE COURT

FISHER, Circuit Judge.

Amin De Castro, a native and citizen of the Dominican Republic, appeals from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania's order denying his petition for a writ of error coram nobis. De Castro seeks to vacate his conviction for being an illegal alien in possession of a firearm in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(5)(A). De Castro's conviction led to his deportation, and he now seeks to undo those collateral immigration consequences. He bases his petition on the recent Supreme Court decision Rehaif v. United States , ––– U.S. ––––, 139 S. Ct. 2191, 204 L.Ed.2d 594 (2019), in which the Court held that under § 922(g), an illegal alien in possession of a firearm must be found to have had knowledge he was an illegal alien at the time of his arrest. We will affirm the District Court's denial of the coram nobis petition, but for the following reasons, we do so on different grounds.

I.

A.

De Castro came to the United States through Puerto Rico around 2002 or 2003 using a Dominican passport. In 2012, he married a U.S. citizen. On his behalf, his spouse submitted Immigration Form I-130, Petition for Alien Relative, in January 2014. The United States Citizenship and Immigration Services approved the petition and sent notice to De Castro's spouse in June of that same year. This notice stated that "[t]he approval of this visa petition does not in itself grant any immigration status and does not guarantee that the alien beneficiary will subsequently be found to be eligible for a visa [or] for admission to the United States." App. 90. A month later, the Department of State National Visa Center notified De Castro that his immigrant visa petition was eligible for further processing.

In September 2014, a Philadelphia police officer arrested De Castro for being an alien in possession of a weapon under 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(5)(A). The officer approached De Castro after receiving a report that a Hispanic man was pointing a gun at children outside of a flower shop on the 1800 block of North 31st Street in Philadelphia. Upon arriving at the location, the officer noticed De Castro—who matched the description of the suspect—standing outside of an abandoned store front with his right hand in his front pants pocket. The officer asked De Castro to remove his hand from his pocket. When De Castro complied, his movement revealed the handle of a pistol in his pants pocket. The officer asked for identification and whether De Castro had a permit to carry a firearm. De Castro informed the officer that he was in the United States illegally and did not have a license to carry a firearm. The officer arrested De Castro.

B.

The grand jury indicted De Castro on one count of possession of a firearm by an illegal alien under § 922(g)(5)(A). A jury found him guilty in September 2016. De Castro subsequently filed a motion for a new trial, asserting ineffective assistance of counsel. The District Court granted the motion. Rather than face a second jury, De Castro pleaded guilty in April 2017. The District Court accepted the plea and sentenced him to time served plus two years of supervised release.¹

Following his conviction, the Department of Homeland Security initiated removal proceedings against De Castro. However, De Castro was allowed to depart voluntarily to the Dominican Republic in 2017 after an immigration judge determined he qualified as a legal permanent resident. Thirteen months after the Supreme Court's decision in Rehaif v. United States , De Castro filed a petition for a writ of error coram nobis challenging his conviction. In Rehaif , notwithstanding decades worth of circuit caselaw to the contrary, the Supreme Court held that the "knowingly" provision of § 922(g) applies to both the possession and immigration status elements. 139 S. Ct. at 2200. Based on Rehaif , De Castro petitioned the District Court to issue a writ of error coram nobis vacating his conviction because the Government never proved he knew he was illegally or unlawfully in the United States, and the District Court never informed him at his plea colloquy that the Government was required to prove that element. The District Court denied his petition, and De Castro filed this timely appeal.

II.

The District Court had jurisdiction under 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(5)(A) (alien in possession of firearm) and 18 U.S.C. § 3231 (offenses against the laws of the United States). We exercise jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291 (final decision) and 18 U.S.C. § 3742 (sentence review). We review the District Court's legal conclusions de novo and its factual findings for clear error. Ragbir v. United States , 950 F.3d 54, 60 (3d Cir. 2020).

III.

A writ of error coram nobis is an "extraordinary remedy" that may only be issued in the most limited of circumstances. United States v. Denedo , 556 U.S. 904, 911, 129 S.Ct. 2213, 173 L.Ed.2d 1235 (2009). A petitioner may seek a writ of error coram nobis to challenge his federal conviction when he is no longer in custody but still faces consequences from his conviction. Ragbir , 950 F.3d at 62. We recently synthesized decades of coram nobis law into a straightforward, five-part test. See id. We write today to emphasize the need for strict adherence to Ragbir 's five-part test and to announce the applicable standard for assessing its fundamental error element.

A.

The background for our discussion is our decision in Ragbir . So we begin with a brief summary. Ravidath Ragbir was a green card holder from Trinidad and Tobago who was convicted of mortgage fraud with a loss of more than $10,000. Id. at 57–58. Given Ragbir's immigration status and the extent of his fraud, DHS sought to remove him to his native country. Id. at 58. Trying to avoid removal as a result of his conviction, Ragbir filed a petition for a writ of error coram nobis, which the United States District Court for the District of New Jersey denied. Id. at 57. We affirmed, holding that Ragbir did not meet the necessary conditions for relief. Id.

Because coram nobis petitions are few and far between, we took the opportunity in Ragbir to condense decades of coram nobis law from our Court and the Supreme Court. We explained that this rare remedy may be granted only if five prerequisites are met: "the petitioner (1) is no longer in custody; (2) suffers continuing consequences from the purportedly invalid convictions; (3) provides sound reasons for failing to seek relief earlier; (4) had no available remedy at the time of trial; and (5) asserted error(s) of a fundamental kind." Id. at 62. After providing more color to the law of the final three elements, we held that Ragbir did not have a sound reason for delay. Id. at 66. Because a petition must be denied if even one element is not satisfied, we affirmed the district court's denial.

B.

Here, the District Court denied De Castro's petition for a writ of error coram nobis, but it did not rely on the detailed framework we outlined in Ragbir to do so. Instead, it used this Court's logic from a recent habeas corpus decision regarding unpreserved Rehaif claims and applied it to the coram nobis context.

When seeking habeas relief, a prisoner may successfully bring a second or successive habeas petition only in the event of a new rule of constitutional law made retroactive to cases on collateral review by the Supreme Court. 28 U.S.C. § 2255(h)(2). We held that such second or successive petitions based on the Supreme Court's decision in Rehaif must fail. In re Sampson , 954 F.3d 159, 161 (3d Cir. 2020) (per curiam). We explained that " Rehaif did not state a rule of constitutional law at all.

Rather, it addressed what the statutes enacted by Congress require for a conviction under 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)." Id. Relying on our recognition that coram nobis relief is a rarity, the District Court concluded that if De Castro would be ineligible for relief under the standards for second or successive habeas petitions, he must also be ineligible for coram nobis relief. The District Court explained that, because the coram nobis standard "is more stringent than that applicable on direct appeal or in habeas corpus," a claim in a coram nobis petition that would be unsuccessful in a habeas petition should likewise fail. App. 8 (quoting Ragbir , 950 F.3d at 62 ).

Although we understand the temptation to analogize to habeas law—as we previously have for coram nobis petitions—second and successive petitions are not sufficiently comparable. Thus, the District Court's habeas analysis was flawed and unnecessary. Second and successive habeas petitions are governed by statutory language not applicable to coram nobis petitions. See 28 U.S.C. § 2255(h)(2). And we hesitate to make any generalized rule that a coram nobis petition necessarily fails because a habeas petition would. Analogizing to habeas is also unnecessary here because Ragbir clearly sets forth the framework for analyzing a petition for coram nobis relief. To be sure, comparisons to habeas law may be helpful when considering unexplored areas of coram nobis law. But when dealing with coram nobis issues on which this Court has spoken, resorting to statutory habeas principles is unnecessary and improper.

C.

Anticipating that its reliance on Sampson might be disfavored, the District Court also analyzed De Castro's petition based on the five prerequisites outlined in Ragbir and found they were met but the petition should still be denied. Although we...