Edgar Keaton Martin v. United States of America

Summary

The Eighth Circuit affirmed the denial of Edgar Martin’s successive 28 U.S.C. § 2255 motion challenging his Armed Career Criminal Act sentence. The court held that Martin’s Arkansas first-degree terroristic-threatening convictions qualified as violent felonies under the ACCA’s force clause, applying the modified categorical approach and relying on the controlling decision in United States v. Myers. The court alternatively held that Descamps and Mathis did not establish new retroactive constitutional rules authorizing successive collateral relief.

Holdings

1. Martin's two Arkansas first-degree terroristic-threatening convictions qualified as violent felonies under the ACCA's force clause because the statute is divisible and the relevant state-court documents established that Martin was convicted of threatening to use physical force against another person.
2. Descamps and Mathis did not require reconsideration of the controlling Eighth Circuit precedent that Arkansas first-degree terroristic threatening is divisible and subject to the modified categorical approach.
3. Martin was not eligible for successive § 2255 relief based on Descamps and Mathis because those decisions did not announce new rules of constitutional law made retroactive to cases on collateral review by the Supreme Court.

Questions Presented

1. Whether Martin's Arkansas first-degree terroristic-threatening convictions qualified as violent felonies under the ACCA's force clause.
2. Whether Descamps v. United States and Mathis v. United States required reconsideration of the Eighth Circuit's prior determination that Arkansas first-degree terroristic threatening is a divisible offense subject to the modified categorical approach.
3. Whether Descamps and Mathis established new constitutional rules made retroactive on collateral review, thereby authorizing successive relief under 28 U.S.C. § 2255(h)(2).

Disposition

affirmed