UNPUBLISHED
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT
No. 12-4619
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff - Appellee,
v.
JOHN JOEL FOSTER, a/k/a Jack Foster,
Defendant - Appellant.
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Western
District of Virginia, at Big Stone Gap. James P. Jones,
District Judge. (2:09-cr-00017-JPJ-PMS-1)
Submitted: May 3, 2013 Decided: May 13, 2013
Before AGEE and WYNN, Circuit Judges, and HAMILTON, Senior
Circuit Judge.
Affirmed by unpublished per curiam opinion.
Rhonda Lee Overstreet, OVERSTREET SLOAN, PLLC, Bedford,
Virginia, for Appellant. Timothy J. Heaphy, United States
Attorney, Ashley B. Neese, Assistant United States Attorney,
OFFICE OF THE UNITED STATES ATTORNEY, Roanoke, Virginia, for
Appellee.
Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.
PER CURIAM:
After the district court concluded that two of John
Joel Foster’s three previous felony convictions were not violent
felonies for purposes of the Armed Career Criminal Act (“ACCA”),
18 U.S.C. § 924(e)(1) (2006), the Government appealed. We
agreed with the Government, ruling that Foster’s prior
convictions “necessarily . . . qualify as violent felonies under
the ACCA,” and remanded the case for resentencing. United
States v. Foster, 662 F.3d 291, 297 (4th Cir. 2011). * The
Supreme Court denied certiorari. Foster v. United States, 133
S. Ct. 207 (2012).
On remand, the district court sentenced Foster to the
fifteen-year mandatory minimum required by the ACCA. Foster now
appeals his fifteen-year sentence, alleging that both we and the
district court erred in concluding, under the modified
categorical approach, that his prior convictions were violent
felonies for purposes of the ACCA.
As the Government observes, the mandate rule precluded
the district court from addressing the argument that Foster now
raises. The mandate rule is “a specific application of the law
*
Foster petitioned for rehearing en banc but narrowly
failed to persuade a majority of this court’s active judges to
vote in favor of rehearing. His petition was, as a result,
denied. United States v. Foster, 674 F.3d 391, 391 (4th Cir.
2012).
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of the case doctrine” to cases on remand following an
appeal. Volvo Trademark Holding Aktiebolaget v. Clark Mach.
Co., 510 F.3d 474, 481 (4th Cir. 2007). It “compels compliance
on remand with the dictates of a superior court and forecloses
relitigation of issues expressly or impliedly decided by the
appellate court.” United States v. Bell, 5 F.3d 64, 66 (4th
Cir. 1993). Here, of course, we ruled that Foster’s prior
convictions were “necessarily” violent felonies and that the
ACCA therefore applied. Foster, 662 F.3d at 297. Because the
proper characterization of Foster’s previous convictions was not
an issue remanded to the district court, the district court had
no authority to revisit that determination. Foster’s current
appellate arguments therefore attack the district court for a
ruling that it has not made.
To the extent that Foster urges us to revisit our
earlier decision, the panel’s holding “became, for all practical
purposes, the law of the case” when the Supreme Court denied
certiorari. United States v. Fulks, 683 F.3d 512, 521 (4th Cir.
2012), petition for cert. filed, U.S.L.W. (U.S. Nov. 21,
2012) (Nos. 12-8364, 12A248). And “as a practical matter, once
the decision of an appellate court establishes the law of the
case, it must be followed in all subsequent proceedings in the
same case in the trial court or on a later appeal.” United
States v. Aramony, 166 F.3d 655, 661 (4th Cir. 1999) (internal
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quotation marks omitted) (emphasis added). In other words, “the
doctrine of law of the case restricts a court to legal decisions
it has made on the same issues in the same case.” MacDonald v.
Moose, 710 F.3d 154, 161 n.10 (4th Cir. 2013).
We are not persuaded that exceptional circumstances
warrant sidestepping the usual operation of the doctrine in this
case. See United States v. Pileggi, 703 F.3d 675, 682-83 (4th
Cir. 2013); Aramony, 166 F.3d at 661. See also Sejman v.
Warner-Lambert Co., 845 F.2d 66, 69 (4th Cir. 1988) (“Clearly,
courts could not perform their duties satisfactorily and
efficiently if a question once considered and decided were to be
litigated anew in the same case upon any and every subsequent
appeal.” (internal quotation marks and ellipses omitted)).
Accordingly, we affirm the judgment of the district
court. We dispense with oral argument because the facts and
legal contentions are adequately presented in the materials
before this court and argument would not aid the decisional
process.
AFFIRMED
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