[DO NOT PUBLISH]
IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT FILED
________________________ U.S. COURT OF APPEALS
ELEVENTH CIRCUIT
No. 04-16675 July 14, 2005
Non-Argument Calendar THOMAS K. KAHN
CLERK
________________________
D.C. Docket No. 04-20185-CV-FAM
WILLIE REYNOLDS,
Petitioner-Appellant,
versus
LOREN GRAYER, Warden,
Respondent-Appellee.
__________________________
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Southern District of Florida
_________________________
(July 14, 2005)
Before HULL, WILSON and PRYOR, Circuit Judges.
PER CURIAM:
Federal prisoner Willie Reynolds appeals pro se the denial of his petition for
a writ of habeas corpus under 28 U.S.C. section 2241. Reynolds contends that,
because his career offender status was not used in the calculation of his sentence
under the Sentencing Guidelines, any reference to his status as a career offender
violates his right to accurate information and should be deleted from his
Presentence Investigation Report and Bureau of Prison records. Because the
district court did not have subject matter jurisdiction to reach the merits of
Reynolds’s petition, we vacate and direct the district court, on remand, to dismiss
the petition.
Although the district court did not dismiss Reynolds’s petition on
jurisdictional grounds, we must examine subject matter jurisdiction sua sponte
whenever it may be lacking. Univ. of S. Ala. v. Am. Tobacco Co., 168 F.3d 405,
410 (11th Cir. 1999). We must examine both our jurisdiction and that of the
district court. Id. at 409. If we are without jurisdiction, then we will not address
the merits of Reynolds’s petition.
Section 2241 does not offer Reynolds an avenue for relief. “The ‘savings
clause’ of § 2255 permits a prisoner to file a § 2241 petition only if an otherwise
available remedy under § 2255 is ‘inadequate or ineffective’ to test the legality of
his detention.” Darby v. Hawk-Sawyer, 405 F.3d 942, 945 (11th Cir. 2005). The
statutory prohibition against filing successive petitions under section 2255 without
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our permission does not render Reynolds’s remedies under section 2255
inadequate or ineffective for purposes of the savings clause:
The Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act’s . . . restrictions on
successive § 2255 motions, standing alone, do not render that section
“inadequate or ineffective” within the meaning of the savings clause,
and, consequently, a petitioner who has filed and been denied a previous
§ 2255 motion may not circumvent the successive motion restrictions
simply by filing a petition under § 2241.
Id. The district court did not have jurisdiction to consider Reynolds’s petition,
because he did not meet the requirements of the savings clause of section 2255.
We, therefore, vacate the decision of the district court and remand so that the
district court may dismiss Reynolds’s motion for lack of subject matter
jurisdiction.
VACATED and REMANDED.
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