Roberts v. United States

Background

Marlon Roberts was charged with, among other offenses, a racketeering conspiracy, a narcotics conspiracy, and using and discharging firearms in connection with those conspiracies under 18 U.S.C. § 924(c)(1)(A)(iii). In August 2017, he pleaded guilty to the firearm count under a plea agreement. The government dropped the remaining charges, and Roberts received the mandatory minimum sentence of 120 months. Before the agreement, he faced a mandatory minimum sentence of 20 years on all four counts.

Roberts later sought relief under 28 U.S.C. § 2255, a law permitting a federal prisoner to challenge a conviction or sentence. He relied on the Supreme Court’s decision in United States v. Davis, which held that a racketeering conspiracy could no longer serve as the relevant type of predicate offense for a § 924(c) conviction. The government agreed that the racketeering conspiracy could not serve as that predicate but argued that the narcotics conspiracy could.

Arguments and analysis

Roberts argued that the record did not establish that the narcotics conspiracy supported his firearm conviction. Alternatively, he argued that the conviction should be vacated because the record was ambiguous and the court might have relied on the invalid racketeering-conspiracy predicate.

The court did not reach those arguments directly because it found the claim procedurally barred. Procedural default generally prevents a defendant from raising a claim in a later collateral challenge when the defendant failed to raise it on direct appeal, unless the defendant shows a legally sufficient reason for the failure and actual harm, or proves actual innocence. Roberts did not claim actual innocence. He argued that the legal basis for his claim was previously unavailable or, alternatively, that ineffective assistance by his lawyer supplied a sufficient reason.

The court assumed, without deciding, that Roberts could establish that reason. It nevertheless found that he could not establish prejudice, meaning a substantial disadvantage caused by the alleged error. The court concluded that the record contained legally sufficient evidence that the narcotics conspiracy occurred. It relied on evidence that members of the BMB gang sold drugs, used violence to protect gang territory and drug locations, and that Roberts had possessed drugs and drug paraphernalia during two arrests and described drug dealing in Facebook posts. The court also found that the racketeering and drug-trafficking conspiracies were closely connected in the record.

The court concluded that Roberts had not shown he would have rejected the plea agreement if it had identified the narcotics conspiracy, rather than the racketeering conspiracy, as the § 924(c) predicate. Before pleading guilty, Roberts faced a 20-year mandatory minimum; the agreement reduced his exposure to the 120-month mandatory minimum on the firearm count. The court reasoned that the government could have pursued the firearm conviction based only on the narcotics conspiracy and that Roberts would have accepted the same sentence.

The court distinguished a Second Circuit decision involving a separate record that clearly separated an invalid racketeering predicate from a valid drug-trafficking predicate. According to the court, Roberts’s record did not contain that same factual separation, so the decision did not require vacatur.

Disposition

Judge Alison J. Nathan denied Roberts’s motion to vacate his conviction. The order resolved the motions identified as docket numbers 2691 and 3223, directed the clerk to close civil case number 18-cv-5625 and enter judgment, and stated that no certificate of appealability would issue because Roberts had not made the required substantial showing that a constitutional right was denied. The court also denied permission to appeal without paying filing fees, finding that an appeal would not be taken in good faith.