Williams v. United States
| Decision Date | 27 May 2020 |
| Docket Number | No. 1:16-cv-773 (LMB),Crim. No. 1:04-cr-160 (LMB),1:16-cv-773 (LMB) |
| Citation | 462 F.Supp.3d 625 |
| Parties | Joseph E. WILLIAMS, Movant, v. UNITED STATES of America, Respondent. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Eastern District of Virginia |
Erik R. Barnett, U.S. Attorneys, Alexandria, VA, for Respondent.
Michael William Lieberman, Office of the Federal Public Defender, Alexandria, VA, for Movant.
Before the Court is Joseph E. Williams's ("Williams" or "movant") Second or Successive Motion to Correct Sentence under 28 U.S.C. § 2255 ("Motion to Vacate"), in which he argues that his life sentence should be vacated and corrected because he no longer qualifies as an armed career criminal in light of recent Supreme Court precedent.1 For the reasons stated below, Williams's Motion to Vacate will be dismissed.
In March 2003, Gail Collins, a resident of Alexandria, was found murdered by a gunshot to the head. The Alexandria Police Department, with the assistance of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms, initiated an investigation into this murder, which linked Williams to the crime. On April 14, 2004, a federal grand jury in the Eastern District of Virginia returned a two-count indictment charging Williams with being a felon in possession of a firearm, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 922(g). The grand jury handed down a superseding indictment on May 26, 2004, and a second superseding indictment on July 15, 2004, which charged Williams with one count of being a felon in possession of a firearm, and one count of being an unlawful drug user in possession of a firearm, in violation of § 922(g).
The case proceeded to a jury trial and on September 24, 2004, the jury found Williams guilty on both counts. The jury also answered several special interrogatories in which it unanimously found that the government had proven beyond a reasonable doubt that Williams killed Collins, that he killed her with malice, that the killing was premeditated and deliberate, and that he killed her during the commission or attempted commission of a robbery. See United States v. Williams, 445 F.3d 724, 729 (4th Cir. 2006).
Section 922(g) normally carries a maximum term of imprisonment of ten years, see 18 U.S.C. § 924(a)(2) ; however, the Armed Career Criminal Act ("ACCA") mandates a sentence of at least 15 years, and up to life imprisonment, for any defendant convicted of violating § 922(g) who has three prior convictions for a violent felony. 18 U.S.C. § 924(e)(1). Williams' Presentence Investigation Report ("PSIR") concluded that he was an armed career criminal under the ACCA because he had several prior adult felony convictions, including three convictions for Virginia common law robbery and three convictions for use or display of a firearm in commission of a felony in violation of Va. Code § 18.2-53.1.2 This enhancement increased his criminal history to a category VI. Williams's offense level was 43 under the then-mandatory sentencing guidelines. At the sentencing hearing on December 17, 2004, the Court adopted the findings in the PSIR, merged the punishment on both convictions into a single count, and sentenced Williams to life imprisonment, which was then the mandatory sentence under the applicable guidelines.
Williams appealed his conviction and sentence. The Fourth Circuit affirmed his conviction, but remanded for resentencing solely because the initial sentence had been imposed before the Supreme Court's decision in United States v. Booker, 543 U.S. 220, 125 S.Ct. 738, 160 L.Ed.2d 621 (2005), which rendered the sentencing guidelines advisory rather than mandatory. See Williams, 445 F.3d 724, 741. On remand, the Court again imposed a sentence of life imprisonment after finding:
I'm fully aware that a life sentence is the most extreme sentence that the Court by itself can impose under these circumstances, and I certainly impose such sentences very, very seldomly and only in the most extreme cases; however, this in my view clearly is one of those extreme cases. In section 3553(a), among the first things the Court looks at is the criminal history of the defendant and the nature of the crime for which he stands convicted. This defendant has a very severe record of violent criminal behavior, going back to at least 1977. As the government points out, he has numerous robbery convictions in his past, most of them involving guns, a very deadly combination .... [After a three-year hiatus] this terrible round of new activity began .... and resulted in a very violent crime for which [defendant] has still in my view never accepted responsibility or shown any remorse .... This case is a case where I see a person with a chronic record of violent crime who has been unable to control that violence, who once described himself or was described as a youth as a very violent person. He cannot stay away from guns. So he is a person for whom I feel the public would always be in danger, and that is therefore a reason why a life sentence is appropriate. And the other factors in 3553(a) also clearly in my view go in that direction. So I am going to use the criminal history VI as reflected in the ... pre-sentence report. That creates an offense level 43. The life sentence is what is called for by the guidelines. I think it is absolutely an appropriate sentence in this case, and the Court is therefore going to sentence the defendant as it did back on December 17 of 2004.
[Dkt. No. 124-1] at 13:24-15:23. Williams again appealed, and the Fourth Circuit affirmed. See United States v. Williams, 257 F. App'x 674 (4th Cir. 2007).
On April 14, 2009, Williams filed his first motion to vacate under 28 U.S.C. § 2255, which was dismissed. Williams appealed that decision, but the Fourth Circuit declined to issue a certificate of appealability and dismissed the appeal. See United States v. Williams, 381 Fed. App'x 269 (4th Cir. 2010). On June 26, 2016, Williams filed the instant Motion to Vacate, arguing that his sentence should be vacated and he should be resentenced because he no longer qualifies as an armed career criminal in light of Johnson v. United States, 576 U.S. 591, 135 S. Ct. 2551, 192 L.Ed.2d 569 (2015), in which the Supreme Court held that the "residual clause" of the ACCA was unconstitutionally vague, see id. at 2557-63.3 Two days later, the Fourth Circuit authorized movant to file a second or successive motion to vacate under § 2255. On July 5, 2016, the action was stayed pursuant to Williams's request to await further guidance from the Fourth Circuit and the Supreme Court. On June 18, 2018, the stay was lifted pursuant to movant's request. The government filed an opposition to the Motion to Vacate, movant filed a reply, and the parties have filed supplemental briefs. The Motion to Vacate is ripe for review.
Id. § 924(e)(2)(B). Although Johnson struck down the ACCA's residual clause, it held that the force clause and enumerated crimes clause remain valid. The parties agree that because none of Williams's prior convictions are listed in the enumerated crimes clause, his prior convictions may only qualify as violent felonies if they satisfy the requirements of the ACCA's force clause.
To determine whether a state crime qualifies as a violent felony under the ACCA's force clause, the Court must apply the "categorical approach," which focuses on the elements of the crime of conviction and not on the underlying facts. United States v. Reid, 861 F.3d 523, 527 (4th Cir. 2017). This approach requires considering whether the predicate crime at issue has as an element the "use, attempted use, or threatened use of physical force against the person of another." 18 U.S.C. § 924(e)(2)(B)(i). The term "physical force" under the ACCA long has been defined as "violent force—that is, force capable of causing physical pain or injury to another person." Johnson v. United States, 559 U.S. 133, 138, 130 S.Ct. 1265, 176 L.Ed.2d 1 (2010) (emphasis in original).
The state crimes at issue in this case are Williams's three prior felony convictions for Virginia common law robbery and three convictions for use of a firearm in commission of a felony in violation of Va. Code § 18.2-53.1. When the government filed its first memorandum in opposition to Williams's Motion to Vacate in 2018, the governing precedent was United States v. Winston, 850 F.3d 677 (4th Cir. 2017), in which the Fourth Circuit held that Virginia common law robbery does not constitute a violent felony under the ACCA force clause because it "can be committed when a defendant uses only a ‘slight’ degree of force that need not harm a victim," id. at 685. In reaching this conclusion, the Fourth Circuit discussed a case where the defendant was convicted of Virginia common law robbery after he "approached the victim from behind, tapped her on the shoulder, and jerked her around by pulling her shoulder, took her purse, and ran." Id. (citing Jones v. Commonwealth, 26 Va. App. 736, 496 S.E.2d 668 (1998) (internal quotation marks omitted)). The Fourth Circuit concluded that because convictions for Virginia common law robbery may be based on simple "physical jerking" where the "victim's resistance ... was limited to the fact that she was ‘forc[ed]...
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