United States v. John Jingles

Defendant-Appellant Jingles appeals from the denial of his motion to set aside his convictions and sentences for two counts of possession with intent to distribute cocaine base under 28 U.S.C. § 2255 . We have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 2253 . We affirm.

After a jury trial, Jingles was convicted of a number of offenses relating to his participation in a conspiracy to traffic cocaine and cocaine base. The district judge sentenced Jingles to imprisonment for an aggregate term of 6,240 months (520 years) on the bulk of his counts, and to three terms of life imprisonment on counts two, twenty-one, and twenty-two. On direct appeal, we affirmed the judgment. See United States v. Jingles (Jingles II), 64 Fed.Appx. 82 (9th Cir.2003) (mem.) (vacating and remanding sentence only to delete certain multiplicitous counts that did not affect the overall sentence). Acting pro se, Jingles subsequently filed a motion to correct or set aside the judgment pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2255 . The United States Magistrate Judge (MJ) who first considered the motion recommended that it be denied. Jingles objected to the MJ’s findings and recommendations, and the district court reviewed the…