Whether 21 U.S.C. § 851(e) bars a defendant from seeking re-sentencing under 28 U.S.C. § 2255 after successfully challenging a prior state conviction that was used to enhance the federal sentence

QUESTION PRESENTED i Carl St. Preux is serving a mandatory life sentence for a federal drug | conspiracy conviction. He was found guilty after jury trial in 2007. Because Mr. St. | Preux, ostensibly, already suffered from two prior Florida state drug convictions, | one from 1995 and a second from 1998, the government filed its obligatory notice (its information), pursuant to 21 U.S.C. § 851(e), seeking that mandatory life sentence under 21 U.S.C. § 841(b)(1)(A). The sentencing court said that in light of the 5-year-limitations period at § 851(e), Mr. St. Preux was prevented from collaterally challenging his prior state convictions to ameliorate his sentencing | exposure. In short, Mr. St. Preux was sentenced to a mandatory life sentence | because of his two prior state drug convictions (which were outside and older than | the 5-year-limitations period at § 851(e)). | Following his federal sentencing proceedings in 2007, Mr. St. Preux went back to Florida state court and had one of his prior state convictions invalidated -the putative 1998 conviction was vacated, set aside, dismissed, and found void ab initio. Once his 1998 conviction was abolished, Mr. St. Preux then filed his federal post-conviction motion under 28 U.S.C. § 2255 in 2011 asking the district court to re-sentence him without the 1998 conviction, meaning, Mr. St. Preux would not be exposed to a mandatory life sentence. The district court said Mr. St. Preux couldn’t do that because, still, the 5-year-limitations period at § 851(e) not only applied i during his federal sentencing proceedings in 2007, it also applied during post-conviction § 2255 matters in 2011 to prevent any relief for Mr. St. Preux. The Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals agreed (§ 851(e) applies not only in federal : sentencing proceedings, it also applies during § 2255 post-conviction matters) and affirmed the dismissal of Mr. St. Preux’s 2255 motion. As such, the question presented here is whether 21 U.S.C. § 851(e), which clearly applies at and during federal sentencing proceedings, usurps and supplants relief under federal habeas corpus and also applies at and during § 2255 post-conviction proceedings — asked differently, whether Mr. St. Preux is procedurally (as well as substantively) barred from seeking re-sentencing in federal court based on the statute of limitations in 21 U.S.C. § 851(e) even after successfully challenging one of his prior state convictions. See, eg. Arreola-Castillo v. United States, 889 F.3d 378, 384 (7" Cir. 2018) (asking and deciding whether a “district court erred by holding that § 851(e) bars an individual from reopening his federal sentence under § 2255 when the state convictions that enhanced the sentence have since been vacated”). This question has been answered differently by the courts below and there remains a circuit split as to whether the 5-year-limitations period at 21 U.S.C. § 851(e) does or does not apply in habeas corpus and post-conviction proceedings under 28 U.S.C. § 2255. ii