Barnes v. United States of America
Split Score
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Case Summary
Disposition
Affirmed
The Second Circuit affirmed the district court’s denial of Calieb Barnes’s successive § 2255 motion, holding that his 2012 § 924(c) conviction for brandishing a firearm during an attempted Hobbs Act robbery was predicated on the statute’s elements clause, not its now-invalid residual clause. Because his claim therefore rested only on statutory interpretation under United States v. Taylor rather than on the new constitutional rule announced in United States v. Davis, Barnes failed to satisfy AEDPA’s gate-keeping requirement for successive habeas petitions.
Circuit Split Identified
Legal Issue
What burden of proof a § 2255 petitioner must satisfy, when the original record is unclear, to show that a prior § 924(c) conviction rested on the now-invalid residual clause rather than the elements clause.
Circuit Positions
Petitioner need only show that the conviction may have been predicated on the residual clause.
Petitioner must prove that it is more likely than not that the conviction rested exclusively on the residual clause.
Issue undecided; court has expressly reserved ruling on the petitioner’s burden.
Conflict Summary
Some circuits allow the petitioner to proceed if he can show the conviction merely may have been based on the residual clause, while other circuits require the petitioner to demonstrate it is more likely than not that the conviction relied solely on that clause. The Second Circuit has acknowledged the split but has expressly reserved deciding which standard to adopt.