Damar D. Ruffin v. United States

Petitioner was sentenced to serve a mandatory term of life in prison because the law of the time required a mandatory life sentence when defendants had two or more felony drug offense convictions. 21 U.S.C. § 841(b)(1)(A); 21 U.S.C. § 851. Within a month of obtaining the orders expunging prior state convictions—orders that meant that if Petitioner were sentenced today, he would no longer be subject to a mandatory life sentence and would face a mandatory as low as 15 years—Petitioner filed a second-in-time § 2255 motion in the district court seeking a reduction in sentence as a result of the orders of expungement. He acknowledged that he had filed and lost a first § 2255 motion but cited this Court’s case law establishing that a second or successive actions based on new facts should be heard in the district court. See Panetti v. Quarterman, 551 U.S. 930, 943 (2007). The district court transferred the case to the Sixth Circuit as a § 2244 application. Petitioner appealed that order. Two separate actions proceeded in the circuit court. The applicable standards for those separate actions were vastly different. For the second or successive application, Petitioner needed to make a showing including that “no reasonable factfinder would have found the movant guilty of the offense.” 28 U.S.C. § 2255(h)(1). For the separate matter, Petitioner needed to show that, under this Court’s case law, he had filed an action that was properly brought in the district court and did not require pre-certification from the circuit court. The Sixth Circuit dismissed the second matter, noting that the circuit had held that transfer orders were not appealable and that it would address the appropriateness of transfer orders as a part of the second or successive application proceeding. See Howard v. United States, 533 F.3d 472, 474 (6th Cir. 2008). The Court has held that 28 U.S.C. § 2244(b)(3)(E)’s limitation on petitioning the Court for writ to certiorari did not apply to the district court’s finding that a filing was a second § 2255 rather than a first. Castro v. United States, 540 U.S. 375, 380-81 (2003). But case law is unclear on whether a related or similar questions, such as whether the district court erred in transferring the case on a finding that the law did not allow a second § 2255 motion requesting a reduction of sentence following an expungement order that could not have been entered any earlier. The question presented is whether a circuit court errs in finding that a transfer order is not appealable, dismisses a petitioner’s appeal of the district court’s decision that the petitioner’s filing was not a legitimate second-in-time § 2255 motion based on new facts, and fold the issue of the appropriateness of the transfer order into the § 2244 application proceeding. The circuit court may wait beyond the 90 days to petition this Court for review of the dismissal of the appeal of the transfer order, deny the § 2244 application and affirm the district court’s transfer. If 28 U.S.C. § 2244(b)(3)(E) applies, the Court is precluded from hearing Petitioner’s appeal of the district court’s transfer order. Petitioner notes that the Court has accepted review of a similar question whether “28 U.S.C. § 2244(b)(3)(E) deprives this Court of certiorari jurisdiction over the grant or denial of an authorization by a court of appeals to file a second or successive motion to vacate under 28 U.S.C. § 2255.” Bowe v. United States, No. 24-5438.