United States v. Miller

Rodney Miller was sentenced as a career offender under the 1998 version of the Sentencing Guidelines, based in part on his prior conviction for a crime of violence. After the Supreme Court’s decision in Johnson v. United States, 135 S. Ct. 2551 (2015), Miller filed a petition under 28 U.S.C. 2255 to vacate his career-offender sentence, arguing his sentence violates due process. The court agreed the residual clause in the mandatory Guidelines did not survive “Johnson,” but it concluded that the rule was not substantive and therefore did not have retroactive effect on collateral review. Instead, the court reasoned, a rule invalidating the residual clause in the Guidelines alters only the methods used to determine whether a defendant should be sentenced as a career offender and therefore has a procedural function. The Tenth Circuit affirmed the dismissal of Miller’s motion, though for different reasons: even assuming Johnson extended to the mandatory Guidelines, and that the rule has substantive, retroactive effect, the residual clause was not unconstitutionally vague as applied to Miller’s conduct. When Miller was sentenced, the commentary to the career-offender guideline designated robbery (Miller’s prior offense of conviction) as a crime of violence. Because Miller’s conduct was clearly proscribed, his vagueness challenge must fail on the merits. View "United States v. Miller" on Justia Law