United States v. Lewis

Petitioner Aaron Lewis, Jr., a federal prisoner acting pro se, sought a certificate of appealability to appeal the district court’s denial of his section 2255 petition. In 2010, Petitioner pled guilty to being a felon in possession of a firearm. The court found Petitioner to be an armed career criminal based on two prior drug convictions and one burglary conviction and sentenced him to 188 months of imprisonment. He did not appeal his conviction. In this habeas petition, Petitioner sought sentencing relief based on Johnson v. United States, 135 S. Ct. 2551 (2015), which invalidated the residual clause of 18 U.S.C. 924(e)(2)(B). The gravamen of his argument was that he was entitled to Johnson relief because the necessary third prior conviction for burglary under Kansas statute 21-3715 only qualified as a violent felony under the now-void residual clause. Petitioner also contended the district court erred in holding that Mathis v. United States, 136 S. Ct. 2243 (2016), was not retroactively applicable on collateral review. Having granted the COA, the Tenth Circuit nevertheless denied Petitioner’s appeal on the merits. Though Petitioner asserted a timely Johnson claim, he did not establish a Johnson error, meaning that the Court's analysis could not go further than the initial, historical evaluation of the sentencing court’s decision. Petitioner was sentenced in 2010; Mathis was decided in 2016. Because Mathis was a “post-sentencing decision” that was not part of the “controlling law . . . at the time of sentencing,” and as such, the Court did not apply it on collateral review. View "United States v. Lewis" on Justia Law