UNPUBLISHED
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT
No. 09-7617
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff - Appellee,
v.
RODRICK DELANE WILLIAMS,
Defendant - Appellant.
Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of
South Carolina, at Rock Hill. Cameron McGowan Currie, District
Judge. (0:05-cr-00499-CMC-1; 0:09-cv-70030-CMC)
Submitted: July 14, 2010 Decided: September 24, 2010
Before SHEDD and DUNCAN, Circuit Judges, and HAMILTON, Senior
Circuit Judge.
Vacated and remanded by unpublished per curiam opinion.
Joshua Snow Kendrick, Columbia, South Carolina, for Appellant.
Robert Frank Daley, Jr., Assistant United States Attorney,
Columbia, South Carolina, for Appellee.
Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.
PER CURIAM:
Rodrick Delane Williams appeals an order of the
district court denying relief on his motion filed under 28
U.S.C.A. § 2255 (West Supp. 2010), alleging that he was wrongly
sentenced as an armed career criminal pursuant to 18 U.S.C.
§§ 922(g)(1), 924(e) (2006). Although the court denied
Williams’ motion, it granted a certificate of appealability. We
find that, under the current law of this circuit, Williams is
entitled to relief. We therefore vacate the district court’s
order and remand for resentencing.
Williams was convicted in 2005 of unlawful possession
of a firearm and ammunition by a felon, and sentenced as an
armed career criminal. One of the predicate offenses for his
armed career criminal status was a prior South Carolina
conviction for failure to stop for a blue light. On appeal,
Williams claimed unsuccessfully that another predicate
conviction was not a serious drug offense. We affirmed the
sentence. United States v. Williams, 508 F.3d 724 (4th Cir.
2007).
After the Supreme Court decided Begay v. United
States, 128 S. Ct. 1581 (2008), Williams filed a § 2255 motion
in which, relying on our post-Begay decision in United States v.
Roseboro, 551 F.3d 226 (4th Cir. 2009), he claimed that his
South Carolina conviction for failure to stop for a blue light
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was not a violent felony because there was no evidence that his
conduct was willful or knowing. The district court first noted
that Begay was applicable to Williams’ case because his
certiorari petition was pending in the Supreme Court when Begay
was decided. The court decided that Williams had procedurally
defaulted his claim by not raising it in his direct appeal, and
would thus need to show either (1) cause for the default and
prejudice resulting from it, or (2) actual innocence of being an
armed career criminal because his blue light conviction was not
a violent felony within the meaning of the statute. The court
subsequently considered the transcript of Williams’ guilty plea
to the blue light offense and held that his failure to stop was
intentional, rejected Williams’ argument that Roseboro was
wrongly decided because the South Carolina blue light statute
set out a strict liability offense, and denied Williams’ § 2255
motion. Williams appealed.
A defendant may appeal the district court’s order
denying relief under § 2255 if the district court judge issues a
certificate of appealability based on a substantial showing of
the denial of a constitutional right. 28 U.S.C. § 2253(c)
(2006); Fed. R. App. P. 22(b)(1); Miller-El v. Cockrell, 537
U.S. 322 (2003). Here, the district court denied § 2255 relief
on the merits, but granted Williams a certificate of
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appealability. We therefore review the district court’s ruling
de novo.
Issues that could have been raised on direct appeal
but were not may not be raised in a collateral proceeding under
§ 2255, see Stone v. Powell, 428 U.S. 465, 477 n.10 (1976),
unless the movant can show cause for the default and resulting
prejudice, United States v. Frady, 456 U.S. 152, 167-68 (1982),
or a miscarriage of justice, United States v. Addonizio,
442 U.S. 178, 185 (1979); United States v. Mikalajunas, 186 F.3d
490, 493 (4th Cir. 1999). For a miscarriage of justice to
exist, a defendant must show actual innocence by clear and
convincing evidence. Murray v. Carrier, 477 U.S. 478, 496
(1986); Mikalajunas, 186 F.3d at 493.
Williams claims that Roseboro, the authority on which
the district court relied, was wrongly decided. Since Williams
filed his informal brief, we have held, in United States v.
Rivers, 595 F.3d 558 (4th Cir. 2010), that, in light of the
Supreme Court’s post-Roseboro decision in United States v.
Chambers, 129 S. Ct. 687 (2009), “under no circumstance is a
violation of South Carolina’s blue light statute a violent
felony under the ACCA.” Rivers, 595 F.3d at 559. Thus,
“Roseboro is no longer good law as applied to the South Carolina
blue light statute.” Rivers, 595 F.3d at 562.
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Consequently, while the district court’s decision was
correct under the law of this circuit when it was issued, the
change in the law renders Williams actually innocent of being an
armed career criminal. Accordingly, we vacate the district
court’s order denying § 2255 relief and remand this case to the
district court for resentencing in light of Rivers. We grant
Williams’ motion for appointment of counsel. We dispense with
oral argument because the facts and legal contentions are
adequately presented in the materials before the court and
argument would not aid the decisional process.
VACATED AND REMANDED
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