## Facts

- Ezell Gilbert, a federal prisoner, pleaded guilty in the Middle District of Florida to crack-cocaine trafficking offenses involving more than 50 grams.
- Under the then-mandatory Sentencing Guidelines, his non-career-offender range would have been 151–188 months.
- The sentencing court applied the career-offender guideline based on two prior convictions, including a Florida conviction for carrying a concealed firearm, treated at the time as a “crime of violence.”
- The career-offender designation increased the guideline range to 292–365 months; the court imposed 292 months.
- On direct appeal, the Eleventh Circuit affirmed the career-offender designation; Gilbert’s first motion to vacate under 28 U.S.C. § 2255 was denied.
- Years later, Eleventh Circuit precedent changed and held that carrying a concealed weapon under Florida law is not a “crime of violence” for career-offender purposes.
- Gilbert sought to raise the Guidelines error again but could not satisfy AEDPA’s limits on “second or successive” § 2255 motions under § 2255(h).
- He filed a 28 U.S.C. § 2241 habeas petition, invoking the § 2255(e) “savings clause” and asserting “actual innocence” of the career-offender enhancement.
- The district court granted § 2241 relief; the Eleventh Circuit (en banc) reviewed and reversed.

## Issues

1. Whether § 2255(e)’s savings clause permits a federal prisoner to use § 2241 to challenge a Guidelines career-offender sentence after a change in circuit law, when a successive § 2255 motion is barred by § 2255(h).
2. Whether “actual innocence” of a Guidelines enhancement, without a sentence exceeding the statutory maximum, makes § 2255 “inadequate or ineffective” to test the legality of detention.

## Decision

- The Eleventh Circuit (en banc) reversed the grant of § 2241 relief.
- The court held the § 2255(e) savings clause does not allow a § 2241 petition to challenge an allegedly erroneous career-offender Guidelines designation when the sentence does not exceed the statutory maximum.
- The court rejected the argument that § 2255 is “inadequate or ineffective” merely because AEDPA bars a second or successive § 2255 motion.
- The court also rejected “actual innocence” of a Guidelines enhancement as a basis to bypass § 2255(h) where the sentence remains within the statutory maximum.

## Legal Principles

- Section 2255 is the ordinary mechanism for federal prisoners to collaterally attack convictions or sentences; § 2241 is not a substitute for circumventing § 2255(h)’s successive-motion limits.
- The § 2255(e) savings clause is narrow and applies only when the § 2255 remedy is structurally unavailable or ineffective to test legality, not when it is merely procedurally barred.
- A Guidelines misclassification that produces a sentence within the statutory maximum is not cognizable under the savings clause through § 2241 in the Eleventh Circuit.
- “Actual innocence” in this context refers to innocence of the offense (and, in limited settings, predicates that authorize punishment beyond a statutory ceiling), not innocence of a Guidelines label that affects the advisory/Guidelines range.

## Conclusion

The Eleventh Circuit held that a federal prisoner cannot use § 2241 via § 2255(e)’s savings clause to relitigate a Guidelines career-offender enhancement after an intervening change in law when the sentence remains within the statutory maximum and a successive § 2255 motion is barred by AEDPA.


Gilbert v. United States, 640 F.3d 1293 (11th Cir. 2011) (en banc)