Shabudin v. Castellano

Background

Ebrahim Shabudin was convicted by a Northern District of California jury in 2015 of conspiracy, securities fraud, making false bank entries, and other financial crimes. The court sentenced him to 97 months in prison, ordered forfeiture of his $348,000 salary, and ordered him to pay $946 million in restitution. The Ninth Circuit affirmed his conviction but reversed the restitution award.

Shabudin previously sought relief under 28 U.S.C. § 2255, arguing that his trial lawyer should have challenged the Sentencing Guidelines calculations. The court denied that petition in October 2019, and Shabudin voluntarily dismissed his appeal. After his release in January 2022, he remained on supervised release under the Northern District of California’s U.S. Probation Office, headed by respondent Anthony Castellano.

Petition

Shabudin filed this petition under 28 U.S.C. §§ 2241 and 2255(e). He relied on later decisions from the Supreme Court and the Ninth Circuit: Kelly v. United States and United States v. Yates. He argued that those decisions showed the government’s theory was legally insufficient to support his federal fraud prosecution. He claimed that he would not have been convicted of conspiracy and fraud under those decisions and that his other convictions depended on those counts.

Because Shabudin had already filed a § 2255 petition, the court addressed the general rule against unauthorized successive petitions. Section 2255(e), sometimes called the “escape hatch,” can allow a successive petition under § 2241 when the petitioner shows actual innocence and lacked an unobstructed procedural opportunity to present the claim earlier. The court described actual innocence as a showing that it is more likely than not that no reasonable juror would have convicted the petitioner.

Ruling

At this initial review stage, the court had to determine whether it plainly appeared that Shabudin was not entitled to relief. The court explained that summary dismissal is appropriate only when the allegations are vague, conclusory, plainly incredible, frivolous, or false.

The court held that it could not say that Shabudin was plainly not entitled to relief. It therefore ordered the petition to receive a response rather than dismissing it at that stage. The clerk was directed to serve Castellano with the order, petition, and attachments. Castellano was ordered to file and serve an answer by May 31, 2022. Shabudin could file a reply by June 30, 2022. The court stated that it would later decide whether to take the matter under submission or hold a hearing. The order did not decide whether Shabudin would ultimately obtain relief or whether his convictions were legally valid.