United States v. Wesley, No. 22-3066 (10th Cir. 2023)
Annotate this CaseDefendant Monterial Wesley was convicted by jury of drug trafficking. In a post-conviction motion, Wesley alleged his prosecutor suborned perjury about the drug quantities attributable to him, in turn increasing his sentencing exposure. But, rather than asking the district court to vacate his sentence under 28 U.S.C. § 2255, he asked for a sentence reduction under the compassionate release statute, which permitted a sentencing court to reduce a federal prisoner’s sentence for “extraordinary and compelling reasons.” Wesley’s motion asserted various grounds for finding extraordinary and compelling reasons in his case, including the alleged prosecutorial misconduct. The district court concluded that the claim of prosecutorial misconduct must be interpreted as a challenge to the constitutionality of his conviction and sentence, which can only be brought under § 2255. Because Wesley had previously brought a § 2255 motion attacking the same judgment, and because the Tenth Circuit had not authorized him to file another one, the district court dismissed that portion of Wesley’s motion for lack of jurisdiction. As to the remaining grounds for relief, the district court found they did not justify a sentence reduction. On appeal, Wesley challenged the district court’s jurisdictional dismissal. He did not move for a certificate of appealability (COA), but Tenth Circuit case law required one for this appeal to proceed. “This in turn requires us first to consider whether jurists of reason would find debatable the district court’s decision to construe [Wesley’s compassionate release] motion as a motion to vacate, set aside, or correct his sentence pursuant to § 2255.” To this, the Tenth Circuit found the question debatable among jurists of reason, so it granted a COA. On the merits, however, the Court agreed with the district court that Wesley’s motion included a successive § 2255 claim because it attacked the validity of his sentence. Accordingly, the Court affirmed the district court’s jurisdictional dismissal.
The court issued a subsequent related opinion or order on August 28, 2023.
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