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United States v. Swanson

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT
Dec 5, 2018
No. 17-15290 (9th Cir. Dec. 5, 2018)

Opinion

No. 17-15290

12-05-2018

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. ROBERT LEE SWANSON, Jr., Defendant-Appellant.


NOT FOR PUBLICATION

D.C. Nos. 3:16-cv-02743-SI 3:09-cr-00475-SI MEMORANDUM Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of California
Susan Illston, District Judge, Presiding Before: CANBY, TASHIMA, and FRIEDLAND, Circuit Judges.

This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent except as provided by Ninth Circuit Rule 36-3.

Federal prisoner Robert Lee Swanson, Jr., appeals from the district court's denial of his 28 U.S.C. § 2255 motion to vacate. We have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 2253. We review the district court's denial of a section 2255 motion de novo, see United States v. Reves, 774 F.3d 562, 564 (9th Cir. 2014), and we affirm.

Swanson's section 2255 motion argued that Johnson v. United States, 135 S. Ct. 2551 (2015), rendered the residual clause in U.S.S.G. § 4B1.2(a)(2) unconstitutionally vague, and therefore his bank robbery convictions under 18 U.S.C. § 2113(a) could no longer support his career offender sentence under U.S.S.G. § 4B1.1. This argument is foreclosed. See Beckles v. United States, 137 S. Ct. 886, 895 (2017). The government's concession in the district court that the residual clause in § 4B1.2(a)(2) was void does not bind this court. See United States v. Perez-Silvan, 861 F.3d 935, 938 n.2 (9th Cir. 2017) (courts "are not bound by a party's concession as to the meaning of the law" (internal quotations omitted)).

Swanson further contends that he is actually innocent of being a career offender because his predicate bank robbery convictions no longer constitute a crime of violence under the elements clause of U.S.S.G. § 4B1.2. This argument is foreclosed. See United States v. Watson, 881 F.3d 782 (9th Cir.), cert. denied, 139 S. Ct. 203 (2018). Compare 18 U.S.C. § 924(c)(3)(A) with U.S.S.G. § 4B1.2(a)(1).

AFFIRMED.


Summaries of

United States v. Swanson

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT
Dec 5, 2018
No. 17-15290 (9th Cir. Dec. 5, 2018)
Case details for

United States v. Swanson

Case Details

Full title:UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. ROBERT LEE SWANSON, Jr.…

Court:UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

Date published: Dec 5, 2018

Citations

No. 17-15290 (9th Cir. Dec. 5, 2018)

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