United States of America v.  Robert James Gadsen

PUBLISHED
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT
 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff-Appellee,
v. No. 02-7077 
ROBERT JAMES GADSEN,
Defendant-Appellant. 
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the District of South Carolina, at Charleston.
Patrick Michael Duffy, District Judge.
(CR-97-274, CA-01-4782-2-23)
Argued: May 8, 2003
Decided: June 12, 2003
Before WILKINSON, NIEMEYER, and KING, Circuit Judges.
Reversed and remanded by published opinion. Judge Wilkinson wrote
the opinion, in which Judge Niemeyer and Judge King joined.
COUNSEL
ARGUED: John Herman Hare, Assistant Federal Public Defender,
Columbia, South Carolina, for Appellant. Sean Kittrell, Assistant
United States Attorney, Charleston, South Carolina, for Appellee. ON
BRIEF: J. Strom Thurmond, Jr., United States Attorney, Charleston,
South Carolina, for Appellee.

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OPINION
WILKINSON, Circuit Judge:
Petitioner Robert Gadsen was convicted of two federal crimes and
received an enhanced sentence as a career offender in part because he
had previously been convicted in state court of a violent crime. That
state court conviction was subsequently vacated, and Gadsen brought
a petition under 28 U.S.C. § 2255 for post conviction relief from the
enhanced federal sentence. The district court dismissed Gadsen’s peti-
tion, holding that it had not been timely filed. We reverse.
I.
The central issue in this case arises out of the legal interaction of
two separate criminal prosecutions, one in state court and one in fed-
eral court. On February 27, 1997, Robert Gadsen pled no contest in
South Carolina state court to a charge of assault with intent to kill. He
was sentenced to ten years in prison and did not appeal his conviction
or sentence.
On December 3, 1997, Gadsen was convicted by a jury in United
States district court of two federal crimes: interference with com-
merce by threats or violence, see 18 U.S.C. § 1951 (2003), and carry-
ing a firearm during and in relation to a crime of violence, see 18
U.S.C. § 924(c) (2003). Because of Gadsen’s criminal history, the
court sentenced him to twenty-five years in federal prison as a career
offender. See U.S. Sentencing Guidelines Manual § 4A1.3, 4B1.1
(2002). We affirmed his sentence, see United States v. Gadsen, 178
F.3d 1287 (4th Cir. 1999) (Table), and our mandate rendering the
conviction final was issued on June 1, 1999.
On January 7, 1998, Gadsen filed a petition in South Carolina state
court for post-conviction relief from his state conviction. He alleged
that his no contest plea to the state charge of assault with intent to kill
had not been knowing and voluntary, and he argued that his chances
for acquittal would have been strong if he had proceeded to trial. On
December 20, 1999, the South Carolina court granted Gadsen’s appli-
cation for post conviction relief on the state conviction, holding that
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"Gadsen did not have a full understanding of the consequences of his
plea." The State of South Carolina appealed that decision to the South
Carolina Supreme Court. On January 10, 2001, the South Carolina
Supreme Court denied the state’s petition for a writ of certiorari.
On December 17, 2001, Gadsen filed a petition in United States
district court to vacate his federal sentence under 28 U.S.C. § 2255.
Gadsen argued that his federal sentence had been calculated on the
basis of an unconstitutional (and subsequently vacated) prior state
conviction, and that he should therefore be resentenced without being
treated as a career offender. See United States v. Bacon, 94 F.3d 158,
162 n.3 (4th Cir. 1996). He contended that his total sentence should
not have exceeded eleven and a half years.
The district court, however, held that Gadsen’s petition for federal
post-conviction relief was untimely. It therefore declined to address
Gadsen’s substantive claims and dismissed his petition with preju-
dice. It granted a certificate of appealability, see 28 U.S.C. § 2253(c)
(2003), and this appeal ensued.
II.
Under 28 U.S.C. § 2255, a prisoner in federal custody "may move
the court which imposed the sentence to vacate, set aside or correct
the sentence." 28 U.S.C. § 2255 (2003). Section 2255 creates a one
year statute of limitations for such claims, a period of time which runs
from the latest of:
(1) the date on which the judgment of conviction becomes
final;
(2) the date on which the impediment to making a motion
created by governmental action in violation of the
Constitution or laws of the United States is removed,
if the movant was prevented from making a motion by
such governmental action;
(3) the date on which the right asserted was initially recog-
nized by the Supreme Court, if that right has been
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newly recognized by the Supreme Court and made
retroactively applicable to cases on collateral review;
or
(4) the date on which the facts supporting the claim or
claims presented could have been discovered through
the exercise of due diligence.
28 U.S.C. § 2255 (2003). As with the nearly identical restrictions
imposed by 28 U.S.C. § 2244 on prisoners in state custody, this provi-
sion "reduces the potential for delay on the road to finality by restrict-
ing the time that a prospective federal habeas petitioner has in which
to seek federal habeas review." Duncan v. Walker, 533 U.S. 167, 179
(2001). If a prisoner cannot fit his petition into the time frame speci-
fied by one of these four categories, it must be dismissed as untimely.
In the present case, Gadsen asserts that his federal habeas petition
fits within the fourth category: he claims, in other words, that he filed
his petition within a year of "the date on which the facts supporting
the claim or claims presented could have been discovered through the
exercise of due diligence." 28 U.S.C. § 2255 (2003). The government
rejects this contention. At the very least, the government suggests,
Gadsen had obviously discovered the factual basis for his challenge
to the state conviction by the date he filed his petition for post convic-
tion relief from that conviction. Since that was on January 7, 1998 —
more than a year before Gadsen filed his habeas challenge to the fed-
eral conviction — the government argues that Gadsen’s petition is
time-barred by the § 2255 statute of limitations.
To resolve this dispute, we must determine what constitutes the
"facts supporting [Gadsen’s] claim." The government argues that this
statutory phrase refers to the underlying historical facts and real-
world events that supported Gadsen’s separate challenge to the state
conviction. The First Circuit would agree. It has held that "[i]t would
make little sense for Congress to have used the phrase ‘facts support-
ing the claim . . .’ if ‘facts’ included a state court set aside of a prior
conviction." Brackett v. United States, 270 F.3d 60, 68 (1st Cir.
2001). "[T]he operative date under § 2255(4)," Brackett holds, "is not
the date the state conviction was vacated, but rather the date on which
the defendant learned, or with due diligence should have learned, the
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facts supporting his claim to vacate the state conviction." Id.; cf.
Ybanez v. Johnson, 204 F.3d 645 (5th Cir. 2000) (per curiam) (reach-
ing an arguably comparable conclusion with respect to the nearly
identical statute of limitations contained in 28 U.S.C. § 2244). With
all due respect to our sister circuit, we disagree.1
Gadsen’s challenge arises out of his contention that South Carolina
has vacated a key conviction relied on by the original federal court
in setting Gadsen’s career offender sentence. A critical "fact" with
respect to the operation of the sentencing guidelines in Gadsen’s orig-
inal federal case was the fact that Gadsen’s record included a prior
state conviction for assault with intent to kill. In just the same way,
the relevant "fact" with respect to the operation of Gadsen’s § 2255
claim today is the fact that Gadsen’s prior state conviction has been
conclusively invalidated. See U.S. Sentencing Guidelines Manual
§ 4A1.3, 4B1.1 (2002). And by definition, Gadsen could not have
"discovered" this "fact" — that this prior conviction had been conclu-
sively vacated — until it became clear that the lower court’s decision
was the last word on the matter.2 More specifically, this fact was not
1While our conclusion today conflicts with the only other circuit to
decide this question, our interpretation finds support in two District
Court opinions. See United States v. Hoskie, 144 F. Supp. 2d 108, 111
(D. Conn. 2001) (holding that "the one-year statute of limitations starts
to run on the date the state convictions are vacated, not an earlier date
when the defendant discovered the facts forming the basis for the attack
on the state convictions"); United States v. Cavallaro, 2000 WL 230225
(D. Me.) ("Cavallaro’s claim in this court is not the claim that the Massa-
chusetts convictions were invalid . . . . The only claim that Cavellaro
could bring here was the claim that the convictions no longer existed.
That ‘fact’ did not emerge until [the date that the Massachusetts convic-
tions were vacated in state court]."), overruled by Brackett, 270 F.3d at
68 & n.3.
2We are less concerned than the First Circuit about the fact that § 2255
refers to the "discover[y]" of "facts" rather than specifically to the issu-
ance of a state court opinion. See Brackett, 270 F.3d at 68. Section
2255(4) is not limited to the vacatur of a state court conviction; it poten-
tially encompasses a wide range of subsequently-discovered facts. The
use of a general categorical term ("facts") to refer to the spectrum of spe-
cific examples of that category (the universe of potential factual predi-
cates for a § 2255 challenge) is an ordinary technique in the drafting of
statutes.
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conclusive for our purposes until the South Carolina Supreme Court
denied the government’s petition for certiorari.
Any doubt about the implications of the plain text of the statute is
foreclosed by the Supreme Court’s decision in Daniels v. United
States, 532 U.S. 374 (2001). Like Gadsen, the petitioner in that case
filed a motion to correct his federal sentence under § 2255. Id. at 377.
Daniels’ sentence had been enhanced under the Armed Career Crimi-
nal Act, 18 U.S.C. § 924(e) (2003), based partly on two prior state
court convictions for robbery. Id. at 377. Daniels alleged that these
robbery convictions were the result of "guilty pleas that were not
knowing and voluntary," and that enhancing his sentence based on
them therefore violated the Constitution. Id. The Supreme Court
rejected his claim. The majority held that, with some exceptions not
relevant in Gadsen’s case, prisoners may not challenge their federal
sentences under § 2255 on the ground that their predicate felony con-
victions were unconstitutionally obtained. Id. at 376. See also Custis
v. United States, 511 U.S. 485 (1994) (holding that, with the sole
exception of convictions obtained in violation of the right to counsel,
defendants have no right during sentencing or on direct appeal to col-
laterally attack the validity of prior state convictions used to enhance
their federal sentence).3
Critically for the present case, however, the Supreme Court went
on to note that "after an enhanced federal sentence has been imposed
. . ., the person sentenced may pursue any channels of direct or collat-
eral review still available to challenge his prior conviction." Daniels,
532 U.S. at 382. In other words, the Supreme Court instructed peti-
tioners such as Gadsen to attack the predicate felony conviction itself,
either in state court or through federal habeas review, rather than
attacking it indirectly by seeking to obviate the effect it has on the
sentencing process for another, recidivist, conviction. "If any such
challenge to the underlying conviction is successful," the majority
3Daniels and Custis apply "whether the sentence enhancement was
imposed because of [the] ACCA or because of the Sentencing Guide-
lines." Brackett, 270 F.3d at 65; see also United States v. Arango-
Montoya, 61 F.3d 1331, 1336 (7th Cir. 1995); United States v. Garcia,
42 F.3d 573, 581 (10th Cir. 1994).
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opinion continued, "the defendant may then apply for reopening of his
federal sentence." Id.
If we adopt the government’s interpretation of § 2255, we would
be punishing Gadsen and other litigants like him for having faithfully
followed these instructions. The entire point of Custis and Daniels
was that litigants should not bypass state courts to litigate the facts
underlying their state convictions during challenges to a federal sen-
tencing determination. Instead, "[a]fter an enhanced federal sentence
has been imposed," inmates should first initiate a separate proceeding
challenging the validity of their state court convictions. Daniels, 532
U.S. at 382. That is precisely what Gadsen did here. And he can
hardly be charged with delaying that challenge: he filed his state
application for post conviction relief less than a year after being con-
victed in state court. Even if Gadsen had filed his state challenge the
next day "after [his] enhanced federal sentence [was] imposed," he
would not have been able to bring a § 2255 challenge within a year
without violating Daniels, since it took more than three years for the
South Carolina court system to reach final resolution on his challenge.
Any real delay in this case was due to the state court system’s deci-
sionmaking process, something obviously not under Gadsen’s control.
As the Massachusetts district court indicated in addressing the
implications of Custis for a different procedural question, "[i]t would
be an illogical, if not cruel, gesture for the Supreme Court to invite
prisoners to attack their predicate convictions and then inform them
that their efforts must go for naught and their enhanced sentences
must stand." United States v. Payne, 894 F. Supp. 534, 543 (D. Mass.
1995) (internal citations omitted). We do not believe the Supreme
Court would countenance any such result. The plain text of § 2255
and the logic of the Supreme Court’s opinion in Daniels point to the
same conclusion: in cases like Gadsen’s, the federal statute of limita-
tions begins running when the state court conviction is conclusively
invalidated.
III.
The South Carolina Supreme Court denied the government’s peti-
tion for certiorari on January 10, 2001. Gadsen filed his petition for
federal habeas relief on December 17, 2001. His petition was thus
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timely filed within the one-year period set forth in 28 U.S.C. § 2255.
We therefore remand to the district court with instructions to address
the merits of the petition. We express no view on the merits at this
time.
REVERSED AND REMANDED
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