United States v. Bowen, No. 17-1011 (10th Cir. 2019)
Annotate this CaseDefendant-appellant Aaron Bowen appealed a district court’s dismissal of his motion to vacate, set aside, or correct his sentence. Bowen challenged his conviction for brandishing a firearm in furtherance of a crime of violence, which rested on the trial court’s instruction that witness retaliation was a crime of violence under 18 U.S.C. 924(c)(3). Given the narrowing of issues by the parties and developments in the law while this appeal was pending, resolution of this case called for the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeal to answer certain questions and leave others for another day. In short, the Court held that United States v. Davis, 139 S. Ct. 2319 (2019), in which the Supreme Court held that section 924(c)(3)(B) was void for vagueness, created a new substantive rule that was retroactively applicable on collateral review, and Bowen’s convictions for witness retaliation did not qualify as crimes of violence under 18 U.S.C. 924(c)(3)(A). Therefore, the Court found Bowen was actually innocent of 18 U.S.C. 924(c)(1). The parties agreed in this case that, if Bowen was actually innocent, his 28 U.S.C. 2255 motion was timely. Because Bowen was entitled to relief under section 2255, the Court reversed the district court’s dismissal of Bowen’s section 2255 motion and remanded for the trial court to vacate his section 924(c)(1) conviction.
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