United States of America v. Robert Meeks

United States Court of Appeals
For the Seventh Circuit
Chicago, Illinois 60604
Submitted August 4, 2026*
Decided August 4, 2026
Before
DIANE S. SYKES, Circuit Judge
DAVID F. HAMILTON, Circuit Judge
THOMAS L. KIRSCH II, Circuit Judge
No. 26-1276
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff-Appellee,
v.
ROBERT MEEKS,
Defendant-Appellant.
Appeal from the United States District
Court for the Northern District of
Illinois, Eastern Division.
No. 97 CR 169-4
Matthew F. Kennelly,
Judge.
O R D E R
Robert Meeks challenges the denial of his petition for a writ of coram nobis, in
which he sought to vacate his firearm convictions. The district court denied the petition
* We have agreed to decide the case without oral argument because the briefs and
record adequately present the facts and legal arguments, and oral argument would not
significantly aid the court. F ED. R. A PP . P. 34(a)(2)(C).
NONPRECEDENTIAL DISPOSITION
To be cited only in accordance with F ED. R. APP . P. 32.1

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because Meeks did not provide a sound reason for failing to appeal the denial of his
prior motion seeking the same relief under 28 U.S.C. § 2255. We affirm.
In 1996, Meeks conspired with three police officers in a scheme to rob drug
dealers. He identified targets for the officers, who then used their police-issued firearms
to threaten and rob the dealers of their money and drugs.
In 1997, Meeks and the officers were convicted by a jury of two counts of
attempted Hobbs Act robbery, 18 U.S.C. § 1951, and two counts of use of a firearm
during the attempted robberies, 18 U.S.C. § 924(c), among other charges. Meeks was
sentenced to 435 months’ imprisonment.
In 2019, after unsuccessful attempts to vacate his conviction and sentence, Meeks
filed a successive motion for habeas corpus relief under 28 U.S.C. § 2255. He argued that
his firearm convictions should be vacated because attempted robbery does not qualify
as a predicate offense under § 924(c). See United States v. Davis, 588 U.S. 445, 470 (2019)
(definition of “crime of violence” in § 924(c)’s residual clause is unconstitutionally
vague). His co-defendants, the three police officers, also filed § 2255 motions
challenging their § 924(c) convictions on the same grounds. District Judge Norgle
denied each of the motions.
The Supreme Court then decided United States v. Taylor, in which it held that
attempted Hobbs Act robbery does not qualify as a crime of violence under § 924(c)’s
elements clause. 596 U.S. 845, 851 (2022). Attempted Hobbs Act robbery, the Court
explained, requires proof of the defendant’s intention to take property by force and a
completed substantial step towards doing so, but not proof of the use, attempted use, or
threatened use of force itself. Id. Because a crime of violence under § 924(c)’s elements
clause requires the use, attempted use, or threatened use of force, a defendant convicted
of attempted Hobbs Act robbery is therefore not guilty of a crime of violence under
§ 924(c). Id.
The three police officers appealed the denial of their § 2255 motions and
benefited from the decision in Taylor: their § 924(c) convictions were vacated. Francies v.
United States, No. 19-2672, 19-2673, 19-2678, 2022 WL 2763385 (7th Cir. Jul. 15, 2022).
Meeks—who around that time was released from prison after successfully moving for a
sentence reduction under 18 U.S.C. § 3582(c)—did not appeal the denial of his § 2255
motion and never had his § 924(c) convictions vacated.

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No. 26-1276 Page 3
In 2025, Meeks petitioned for a writ of coram nobis, seeking to vacate his § 924(c)
convictions as invalid under Taylor. The writ of coram nobis is a collateral attack on a
conviction, like a § 2255 motion, but available only when the petitioner is no longer in
custody. United States v. Delhorno, 915 F.3d 449, 452 (7th Cir. 2019). Meeks, whose
supervised release was terminated in 2023, is no longer in custody.
District Judge Kennelly, who had been reassigned the case, denied Meeks’s
petition. The judge concluded that, even though Meeks demonstrated a fundamental
error with his § 924(c) convictions, he gave no sound reason for not seeking relief
through an appeal of his § 2255 motion. Had Meeks appealed, the judge noted, he likely
would have been granted relief, as had his co-defendants. Because Meeks did not
explain his failure to appeal that decision, he could not be granted relief under the writ
of coram nobis.
The writ of coram nobis is reserved for “extraordinary cases.” Delhorno, 915 F.3d
at 452–53 (quoting United States v. Denedo, 556 U.S. 904, 911 (2009)). To be granted relief
under the writ, a petitioner must show that “(1) the error alleged is of the most
fundamental character as to render the criminal conviction invalid; (2) there are sound
reasons for the defendant’s failure to seek earlier relief; and (3) the defendant continues
to suffer from his conviction even though he is out of custody.” Id. at 453 (internal
quotations omitted).
We agree with the district judge that the second element is dispositive: Meeks
did not justify his failure to appeal the denial of his § 2255 motion. Unlike his
co-defendants, Meeks did not appeal the denial of his § 2255 motion, so he did not
benefit from the Supreme Court’s decision in Taylor that would have invalidated his
§ 924(c) convictions. See United States v. Hassebrock, 21 F.4th 494, 498 (7th Cir. 2021)
(denying coram nobis because petitioner could have raised all his arguments on direct
appeal or in his prior § 2255 motion and provided no sound reason for failing to do so).
Meeks argues that he cannot be penalized for failing to appeal his § 2255 motion
because he filed the motion before Taylor was decided. But he made a Taylor-style
argument in his § 2255 motion, asserting that his firearm convictions were not predicate
offenses under § 924(c). True, the Supreme Court did not decide Taylor until years after
his § 2255 motion was filed (and months after his motion was denied), but that did not
prevent Meeks from advancing the argument in the district court. And by the time his
motion was denied, the Court had granted certiorari on the issue in Taylor. That the
decision in Taylor followed Meeks’s § 2255 motion did not mean the argument was
unknown or unavailable to Meeks until after Taylor was decided. Because he did not

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justify his failure to appeal the denial of his § 2255 motion, he cannot gain relief via the
“extraordinary form” of a writ of coram nobis. Delhorno, 915 F.3d at 455; see also
Hassebrock, 21 F.4th at 498.
Meeks maintains that his § 924(c) convictions must be vacated because the
Supreme Court has deemed them invalid under Taylor. Invoking the first element of the
test for a writ of coram nobis, he argues that an invalid conviction should be vacated no
matter whether the relief sought is via § 2255 or a writ of coram nobis. But a grant of a
writ of coram nobis requires that all three elements be met, and Meeks’s interpretation
disregards the second and third. That he lacks any other procedural mechanism to
vacate his § 924(c) convictions does not excuse him from meeting all the requirements
for relief. See United States v. Wyatt, 672 F.3d 519, 524 (7th Cir. 2012) (“Wyatt would not
be sentenced as a career offender today and likely would receive a substantially lower
sentence … but there is no longer any judicial procedure to remedy the situation.”).
Finally, Meeks asserts that the divergent outcomes of his and his co-defendants’
motions—allowing his co-defendants’ § 924(c) convictions to be vacated while his was
not—create an unjustifiable disparity between alike cases. This asymmetry did not
escape the district judge’s notice: “[I]t seems unfair that Meeks’s [§] 924(c) convictions
stand when he did not carry a gun during the robberies and was not a law enforcement
officer, in contrast to his co-defendants, who abused their status as law enforcement
officers and carried their service revolvers during the offenses.” But as the judge
concluded, this unfairness does not excuse Meeks from providing a sound reason for
failing to pursue the denial of his § 2255 motion to conclusion.
AFFIRMED

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