United States of America v. Miles Musgraves

NONPRECEDENTIAL DISPOSITION
To be cited only in accordance with Fed. R. App. P. 32.1
United States Court of Appeals
For the Seventh Circuit
Chicago, Illinois 60604
Submitted August 26, 2024*
Decided August 28, 2024
Before
FRANK H. EASTERBROOK, Circuit Judge
MICHAEL Y. SCUDDER, Circuit Judge
DORIS L. PRYOR, Circuit Judge
No. 24-1988
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff-Appellee,
v.
MILES MUSGRAVES,
Defendant-Appellant.
Appeal from the United States District
Court for the Southern District of
Illinois.
No. 3:13-cr-30276-NJR-1
Nancy J. Rosenstengel,
Chief Judge.
O R D E R
Miles Musgraves is serving a term of imprisonment that this court affirmed on
direct appeal. 883 F.3d 709 (7th Cir. 2018). He filed and lost a motion for collateral relief
under 28 U.S.C. §2255. Ever since, he has been seeking essentially the same relief, on
essentially the same grounds, through motions for compassionate release under 18
U.S.C. §3582(c)(1).
The district court denied his first motion, and we affirmed. No. 20-2702 (7th Cir.
Mar. 12, 2021) (nonprecedential disposition). That decision informed Musgraves that
* We have unanimously agreed to decide the case without argument because the briefs and record
adequately present the facts and legal arguments, and argument would not significantly aid the court.
See Fed. R. App. P. 34(a)(2)(C).

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No. 24-1988 Page 2
arguments about recanted testimony or (asserted) legal errors affecting the conviction
and sentence belong in proceedings under §2255 rather than requests for compassionate
release.
Musgraves filed a second motion under §3582(c)(1). He lost again in the district
court, and we affirmed again. No. 22-2091 (7th Cir. July 5, 2023) (nonprecedential
disposition). Once again we informed Musgraves that he cannot use §3582(c)(1) as if it
were a supplement to §2255. We ended by suggesting that the district court summarily
deny any further motions that Musgraves files using the same grounds of relief.
He promptly filed another, similar, motion. The district court acted on our
suggestion and summarily denied it. Now Musgraves has appealed yet again,
contending that he must be entitled to compassionate release because the sort of
arguments he wants to make—that some testimony has been recanted and that his
lawyer furnished ineffective assistance—cannot be advanced under §2255 because they
do not satisfy the criteria for successive collateral attacks.
Musgraves’ premise is that collateral review must be unending, and that if one
statute (such as §2255) will not serve, then another (such as §3582(c)(1)) must be
available. That premise is incorrect. Jones v. Hendrix, 599 U.S. 465 (2023), holds that the
time-and-number limits in §2255 must be enforced unless that statute is “inadequate or
ineffective” (§2255(e)) to raise a particular argument. The fact that a given prisoner has
used the one collateral attack available as of right does not make §2255 inadequate or
justify use of a different statute, Jones holds.
We have told Musgraves repeatedly that he must desist from trying to use
§3582(c)(1) as a way to avoid the time-and-number limitations of §2255. If he persists in
disregarding this principle, we will impose appropriate sanctions under Alexander v.
United States, 121 F.3d 312 (7th Cir. 1997).
Affirmed

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