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CHRISTOPHER ALAN MITCHELL,
Petitioner-Appellant,
v.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Respondent-Appellee.
   No. 20-6031
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Tennessee at Greeneville.
Nos. 2:09-cr-00017-1; 2:14-cv-00183—J. Ronnie Greer, District Judge.
Argued: April 28, 2022
Decided and Filed: August 5, 2022
Before: McKEAGUE, GRIFFIN, and READLER, Circuit Judges.


_________________________
OPINION
_________________________

CHAD A. READLER, Circuit Judge. Almost a decade ago, inmate Christopher Alan Mitchell moved to vacate his sentence on the ground that he had been erroneously designated as a career offender under the Armed Career Criminal Act. At first, Mitchell’s efforts bore fruit. Relying on then-existing law, the district court granted Mitchell’s 28 U.S.C. § 2255 motion, vacated his sentence, and set the case for resentencing. The resentencing process began but, before it was completed, developments in other cases revealed that Mitchell was a career offender after all. So the court vacated the order granting relief, denied Mitchell’s § 2255 motion, and reinstated the original sentence.

Notwithstanding the denial of his § 2255 motion, Mitchell claims that the district court enjoyed the discretion to resentence him de novo. We disagree. After finding Mitchell ineligible for § 2255 relief, the court was required to reinstate his original sentence. Accordingly, we affirm the district court’s judgment. We also decline Mitchell’s request to expand his certificate of appealability.



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DOMINIQUE CORDELL WALLACE,
Petitioner-Appellant,
v.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Respondent-Appellee.
   No. 20-5764
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee at Nashville.
Nos. 3:15-cr-00098-1; 3:19-cv-01122—Aleta Arthur Trauger, District Judge.
Argued: June 8, 2022
Decided and Filed: August 5, 2022
Before: SUTTON, Chief Judge; KETHLEDGE and MURPHY, Circuit Judges.


_________________________
OPINION
_________________________

MURPHY, Circuit Judge. Dominique Wallace tried to rob a convenience store just weeks after his release on probation from a three-year detention for attempted murder. This crime left an accomplice dead and a victim terribly disabled. Wallace pleaded guilty to, among other things, discharging a firearm during a “crime of violence” that resulted in death, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 924(j), and illegally possessing a firearm as a felon, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1). In this collateral challenge, Wallace asserts that we should vacate these convictions because of a pair of decisions that the Supreme Court issued after he pleaded guilty.

Wallace is right with respect to his crime-of-violence conviction under § 924(j). In United States v. Davis, 139 S. Ct. 2319 (2019), the Court found part of § 924’s definition of “crime of violence” to be unconstitutionally vague. Id. at 2336. Given Davis, Wallace did not violate § 924(j) because his attempted robbery does not qualify as a “crime of violence” under the constitutional part of § 924’s definition. Despite his specific crime’s violent nature, his offense falls outside § 924 under the “categorical approach” to answering this crime-of-violence question.

But Wallace is wrong with respect to his felon-in-possession conviction under § 922(g)(1). In Rehaif v. United States, 139 S. Ct. 2191 (2019), the Court held that defendants do not violate § 922(g)(1) unless they know that they have been convicted of a crime punishable by more than one year in prison when they possess firearms. Id. at 2196. Citing Rehaif, Wallace argues that the district court erred by not informing him during his plea hearings that the government must prove that he knew his prior offense (attempted murder) was punishable by more than a year in prison. Yet Wallace procedurally defaulted this claim because he did not raise it in his criminal proceedings, and he has offered no valid reason for us to excuse this default. We thus affirm in part and reverse in part the district court’s denial of Wallace’s motion to vacate his convictions.