REED O'CONNOR, District Judge.
Before the Court are federal prisoner Hugo Hernandez's ("Hernandez") petition for writ of habeas corpus under 28 U.S.C. § 2241 and brief in support (ECF Nos. 1-2) and the FMC-Fort Worth Warden's response with appendix (ECF Nos. 11-12).
Hernandez was convicted in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Texas, Sherman Division, of conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute 100 grams or more of heroin, in violation of 21 U.S.C. §§ 846 and 841(b)(1)(B). J., United States v. Hernandez, No. 4:11-cr-248-21 (E.D. Tex. Nov. 27, 2013), ECF No. 1026.
Hernandez asserts that the convicting court improperly sentenced him as a "career offender" because his prior state controlled substance convictions that were used as predicate offenses no longer qualify under the recent rulings of DesCamps v. United States, 570 U.S. 254 (2013), Molina-Martinez v. United States, 136 S.Ct. 1338 (2016), Mathis v. United States, 136 S.Ct. 2243 (2016), United States v. Hinkle, 832 F.3d 569 (5th Cir. 2016), and United States v. Tanksley, 848 F.3d 347 (5th Cir.), supplemented by 854 F.3d 284 (5th Cir. 2017). Mem. 1-6, ECF No. 2. Hernandez seeks to have the career-offender enhancement vacated. Id. at 7.
A motion under § 2255 is the primary means of collaterally attacking a federal conviction or sentence. Jeffers v. Chandler, 253 F.3d 827, 830 (5th Cir.2001) (per curiam) (citing Tolliver v. Dobre, 211 F.3d 876, 877 (5th Cir.2000) (per curiam)). "While § 2241 is more typically used to challenge the execution of a prisoner's sentence, a federal prisoner may bring a petition under § 2241 to challenge the legality of his conviction or sentence if he can satisfy the mandates of the `savings clause' of § 2255." Christopher v. Miles, 342 F.3d 378, 381 (5th Cir. 2003) (citing Reyes-Requena v. United States, 243 F.3d 893, 900-01 (5th Cir. 2001)). The statutory "savings clause" provides,
28 U.S.C. § 2255(e). Under the "savings clause," the petitioner has the burden of showing that the § 2255 remedy is "inadequate or ineffective to test the legality of his detention." Jeffers, 253 F.3d at 830.
Hernandez cannot rely on § 2241 merely because he might now be limited in seeking relief under § 2255. Cf. Pack v. Yusuff, 218 F.3d 448, 453 (5th Cir. 2000) (citing Tolliver, 211 F.3d at 878) (holding that neither a prior, unsuccessful § 2255 motion, the limitations bar, nor successiveness renders the § 2255 remedy inadequate or ineffective). Moreover, the Fifth Circuit has determined that, before a petitioner may pursue relief through § 2241 under the language of the § 2255 savings clause, he must show that:
Christopher, 342 F.3d at 382 (citing Reyes-Requena, 243 F.3d at 904 and Jeffers, 253 F.3d at 830).
Hernandez has not made these showings, and a review of the grounds asserted in his § 2241 petition shows that he cannot make them. Hernandez does not claim or attempt to demonstrate that he was convicted of a nonexistent offense. Rather he challenges the imposition of his sentence, and not his conviction, and such claims do not fall within the savings clause of § 2255(e). See generally Padilla v. United States, 416 F.3d 424, 427 (5th Cir. 2005) (contrasting claims challenging a sentence from those challenging a conviction).
In Logan v. Warden Fed. Corr. Complex Beaumont, the Fifth Circuit reviewed the denial of a § 2241 petition brought pursuant to the savings clause in which the petitioner asserted, as Hernandez does in this case, that he was erroneously sentenced. Logan, 644 F. App'x 280 (5th Cir. 2016). The Fifth Circuit held that "[i]n the absence of an en banc decision by this court or an intervening Supreme Court decision overruling circuit precedent holding that a § 2241 petition cannot be used to challenge solely the validity of a federal sentence, this court is bound by its own precedent." Id. at 281 (citing United States v. Traxler, 764 F.3d 486, 489 (5th Cir. 2014)).
The Court notes that Hernandez recites claims for relief based upon three Supreme Court decisions: Descamps v. United States, 570 U.S. 254 (2013); Molina-Martinez v. United States, 136 S.Ct. 1338 (2016); and Mathis v. United States, 136 S.Ct. 2243 (2016). Mem. 2-6, ECF No. 2. He also cites two Fifth Circuit decisions: United States v. Hinkle, 832 F.3d 569 (5th Cir. 2016) and United States v. Tanksley, 848 F.3d 347 (5th Cir.), supplemented by 854 F.3d 284 (5th Cir. 2017). Mem. 1-3, ECF No. 2. Although Hernandez cites to the three recent Supreme Court decisions, he has not argued that they have been made retroactively applicable, and/or that any of the decisions establishes that he was actually innocent of the charge against him because the conduct for which he was convicted has been decriminalized. See Christopher, 342 F.3d at 382. Moreover, relevant caselaw establishes that Descamps, Mathis, and Molina-Martinez do not provide a basis for invoking the savings clause. See e.g., Jackson v. Daniels, 637 F. App'x 173, 174 (5th Cir. 2016) (affirming district court's rejection of invocation of a savings-clause claim based upon Descamps because it had no "effect on whether Jackson was convicted of nonexistent federal drug offenses"); Oxner, 616 F. App'x at 191 (5th Cir. 2015) ("As Descamps addresses sentencing issues and has no effect on whether the facts of Oxner's case would support his convictions for the substantive offenses, it is not a retroactively applicable Supreme Court decision indicating that he was convicted of a nonexistent offense") (citations omitted); Getachew v. Harmon, No. 3:17-cv-224-D, 2017 WL 2348834, at * 3-4 n. 1 (N.D. Tex. March 27, 2017) (rejecting Mathis based claims under the § 2241 savings clause), rep. and rec. adopted, 2017 WL 2345707 (N.D. Tex. May 30, 2017)(Fitzwater, J.); Avila v. United States, No.7:16-cv-700, 2017 WL 2391224, at *1 (S.D. Tex. April 21, 2017) (Molina-Martinez "addressed what showing a defendant must make on direct appeal [when claiming the trial court erred in its guideline calculations]; Molina-Martinez is not a vehicle for complaining of alleged guideline miscalculations on collateral review"); United States v. Warren, No. 8:96-cr-64-T-23 TBM, 2017 WL 4426549, at *3 (M.D. Fla. Oct. 5, 2017) ("Molina-Martinez neither asserts a new rule of constitutional law nor announces that the rule is retroactive on collateral review.")
Furthermore, Hinkle and Tanksley are not Supreme Court decisions, and the Fifth Circuit's application of Mathis in those cases case arose on direct appeal, not collateral review. See Hinkle, 832 F.3d at 574-77; Tanksley, 848 F.3d at 349-51. Thus, Hinkle and Tanksley provide no basis for relief under the savings clause. See Nelson v. Pollock, 2017 WL 3881500, at *2 (W.D. La. July 11, 2017) (rejecting petitioner's claims that he was entitled to seek relief under § 2241 against his career offender sentence under Mathis and Hinkle based upon the savings clause), rep. and rec. adopted, 2017 WL 38811163 (Sep. 1, 2017); Spotts v. Lara, 728 F. App'x 409, 410 (5th Cir. 2018) (affirming district court's dismissal of savings clause claim relying upon Mathis, Tanksley, and Hinkle); Lott v. Willis, EP-16-cv-514-DCG, 2017 WL 384074 at *4-5 (W.D. Tex. Jan. 26, 2017) (rejecting savings clause claim based in part upon Tanksley). Hernandez's reliance on DesCamps, Mathis, Molina-Martinez, Hinkle, and Tanksley does not invoke the savings clause.
As Hernandez does not contend that he is actually innocent of the charge for which he was convicted based upon a retroactively applicable Supreme Court decision, and as he otherwise challenges the imposition of sentence, the Court concludes that he is not entitled to relief under § 2241. Hernandez's § 2241 petition must be dismissed for want of jurisdiction. See Christopher, 342 F.3d at 379, 385 (finding that a court must dismiss a § 2241 petition for lack of jurisdiction when the requirements of the savings clause are not met).
Accordingly, it is