Plunkett v. Sproul

Dist. Ct. did not err in denying defendant’s section 2241 collateral attack on his 212-month sentence following defendant’s guilty plea on charge of distributing crack cocaine, where Dist. Ct. had previously found that defendant’s prior 2008 Illinois conviction on charge of unlawful conviction for unlawful delivery of cocaine qualified as predicate felony drug offense under 21 USC section 841(b)(1)(C). While defendant contended in his section 2241 petition that subsequent case law disqualified defendant’s 2008 conviction from being predicate felony offense, Ct. of Appeals found that waiver of defendant’s collateral attack rights to challenge either his conviction or sentence contained in plea agreement precluded him from filing instant section 2241 petition that challenged his sentence. Although defendant argued that plea agreement allowed him to challenge his sentence based on any subsequent change in interpretation of law, actual language in plea agreement required that change in interpretation of law pertain only to underlying offense to which defendant had pleaded guilty, and defendant did not allege that change in law pertained to his conviction. As such, waiver language in plea agreement precluded defendant from filing instant collateral attack or from filing any appeal from denial of his section 2241 petition.