Miller v. United States

Background

Athena Miller pleaded guilty in 2009 in the Western District of Texas to conspiring to manufacture methamphetamine. The sentencing court imposed 240 months of imprisonment and ten years of supervised release. The sentence was increased based on a 2002 Texas conviction for possessing methamphetamine with intent to manufacture it.

Miller did not appeal her federal conviction and had not filed a motion under 28 U.S.C. § 2255 in the sentencing court. In 2016, she sought a sentence reduction under 18 U.S.C. § 3582(c)(2), but that request was denied. In 2018, while housed at FCI-Dublin, she filed this petition under 28 U.S.C. § 2241 in the Northern District of California. She argued that the Texas conviction no longer qualified as a drug-trafficking offense and therefore could not be used to increase her sentence or identify her as a “career offender.”

The United States moved to dismiss. Miller did not file an opposition. The parties consented to jurisdiction by a magistrate judge.

Legal standard

The court explained that a federal prisoner generally must use a motion under § 2255 in the sentencing court to challenge the legality of a federal conviction or sentence. A prisoner may use a § 2241 petition only under a narrow exception commonly called the “escape hatch.” To use that exception, the prisoner must show both actual innocence and that she did not have an unobstructed procedural opportunity to present the claim.

Court’s analysis

The court held that Miller had not shown actual innocence. First, the required showing concerns factual innocence of the federal crime, not innocence of a sentencing enhancement. Second, the Ninth Circuit had not resolved whether a person can be “actually innocent” of a noncapital sentence for purposes of this exception. Third, Miller’s argument was a legal challenge to the use of the prior conviction, not a claim of factual innocence. The court stated that the decision in Mathis v. United States supported a legal argument about the classification of the prior conviction, not a claim of actual innocence.

The court also held that Miller had not shown she lacked an unobstructed procedural opportunity to present her claim. She had never filed a § 2255 motion or appealed her conviction, and she did not show why she could not have raised her arguments in a § 2255 motion in the sentencing court, including after Mathis was decided.

Disposition

The court concluded that Miller had not shown she was permitted to proceed under § 2241. It granted the United States’ motion to dismiss and dismissed the § 2241 action for lack of jurisdiction. The court stated that a certificate of appealability would not issue, directed the Clerk to terminate pending motions, entered judgment for the United States, and closed the file.