[DO NOT PUBLISH]
IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT FILED
________________________ U.S. COURT OF APPEALS
ELEVENTH CIRCUIT
February 3, 2006
No. 05-14813 THOMAS K. KAHN
Non-Argument Calendar CLERK
________________________
D. C. Docket No. 05-01788-CV-CAM-1
TERRANCE LAMONT MOORE,
Petitioner-Appellant,
versus
G. MALDONADO, JR.,
Warden,
Respondent-Appellee.
________________________
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Northern District of Georgia
_________________________
(February 3, 2006)
Before BLACK, CARNES and BARKETT, Circuit Judges.
PER CURIAM:
Terrance L. Moore appeals pro se the district court’s dismissal of his
28 U.S.C. § 2241 habeas corpus petition. The district court found that Moore
could not raise his claim in a § 2241 petition because he failed to show under the
savings clause of 28 U.S.C. § 2255 that § 2255 was inadequate or ineffective to test
the legality of his detention.
Moore presents two issues in this appeal. First, he contends that he was
“tried and convicted for acts . . . which Congress did not make criminal” because
one of the institutions he was charged with robbing did not meet all three prongs of
the definition a “bank” under the Federal Bank Robbery Act, 18 U.S.C. § 2113(f).
Second, he contends that the district court incorrectly dismissed his petition,
because 28 U.S.C. § 2255’s savings clause is “for actual innocence claims based
on new evidence[,] . . . particularly when, as here, [his] claim could not be
presented in a § 2255 petition in the first instance since § 2255 does not allow for
the presentation of such claims.”
The availability of habeas relief under 28 U.S.C. § 2241 presents a question
of law that we review de novo. Darby v. Hawk-Sawyer, 405 F.3d 942, 944 (11th
Cir. 2005). Typically, collateral attacks on the validity of a federal conviction or
sentence must be brought under 28 U.S.C. § 2255, which allows a prisoner to
attack a federal conviction or sentence as, inter alia, a violation of the United States
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Constitution, or “otherwise subject to collateral attack.” Id.; 28 U.S.C. § 2255.
However, that section severely restricts the circumstances in which a second or
subsequent motion can be filed. See 28 U.S.C. § 2255 ¶8. Moore admitted that he
has already presented the central claim of this petition—the bank definition/actual
innocence claim—in a § 2255 motion that was denied as a second or successive
motion because it did not fit within the requirements of such a motion.
In filing this petition, Moore relies on a provision of § 2255 that permits a
federal prisoner to file a petition under 28 U.S.C. § 2241. See 28 U.S.C.
§§ 2241(a), 2255. That provision, known as § 2255’s “savings clause,” provides
that:
[a]n application for a writ of habeas corpus in behalf of a prisoner
who is authorized to apply for relief by motion pursuant to this
section, shall not be entertained if it appears that the applicant has
failed to apply for relief, by motion, to the court which sentenced him,
or that such court has denied him relief, unless it also appears that the
remedy by motion is inadequate or ineffective to test the legality of
his detention.
28 U.S.C. § 2255 (emphasis added).
However, the savings clause applies only when: (1) the petitioner’s claim is
based on a retroactively applicable Supreme Court decision; (2) the holding of that
decision established that the petitioner was convicted of a “nonexistent offense”;
and (3) “circuit law squarely foreclosed such a claim at the time it otherwise should
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have been raised at the petitioner’s trial, appeal, or first § 2255 motion.” Wofford
v. Scott, 177 F.3d 1236, 1244 (11th Cir. 1999). Section 2255’s strict limitations on
successive motions alone “do not render that section ‘inadequate or ineffective’
within the meaning of the savings clause.” Darby, 405 F.3d at 945. The savings
clause “does not exist to free a prisoner of the effects of his failure to raise an
available claim earlier.” Wofford, 177 F.3d at 1245. Finally, before a prisoner
may argue actual innocence, he must “open the portal” to a § 2241 proceeding by
demonstrating that the savings clause applies to his claim. Id. at 1244 n. 3.
Moore’s present petition and its claim clearly does not fit within the savings
clause, as interpreted in Wofford. Accordingly, we affirm the district court’s
dismissal of it.
AFFIRMED.
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