Cothrum v. Hargett ( 2006 )

F I L E D
United States Court of Appeals
Tenth Circuit
UNITED STATES CO URT O F APPEALS
May 26, 2006
TENTH CIRCUIT Elisabeth A. Shumaker
Clerk of Court
RICHARD LEE COTHRUM ,
Petitioner - A ppellant, No. 05-5220
v. N. D. Oklahoma
STEVE HA RG ETT, (D.C. No. 97-CV-491-TCK)
Respondent - Appellee.
OR D ER AND JUDGM ENT *
Before TA CH A, HA RTZ, and TYM KOVICH, Circuit Judges.
This is an appeal from a district-court order denying Appellant Richard Lee
Cothrum’s motion to declare its prior judgment void under Fed. R. Civ. P.
60(b)(4). W e find no error and affirm.
In simplified form, the tortuous procedural history of this appeal is as
follows: On M ay 21, 1997, M r. Cothrum filed in the United States D istrict Court
*
After examining the brief and appellate record, this panel has determined
unanimously that oral argument would not materially assist the determination of
this appeal. See Fed. R. App. P. 34(a)(2); 10th Cir. R. 34.1(G). The case is
therefore ordered submitted without oral argument. This order and judgment is
not binding precedent, except under the doctrines of law of the case, res judicata,
and collateral estoppel. The court generally disfavors the citation of orders and
judgments; nevertheless, an order and judgment may be cited under the terms and
conditions of 10th Cir. R. 36.3.
for the Northern District of Oklahoma an application for a writ of habeas corpus
under 28 U.S.C. § 2254. On September 28, 1999, the court dismissed the
application as untimely under the one-year limitations period imposed by
28 U.S.C. § 2244(d)(1). On November 15, 2000, M r. Cothrum filed a motion for
relief from the judgment under Fed. R. Civ. P. 60(b)(2), seeking to present new
evidence that the limitations period should have been tolled. The district court
construed his motion as a second or successive habeas petition and transferred it
to this court for authorization under 28 U.S.C. § 2244(b). By order dated
February 22, 2001, we denied authorization to file the transferred second petition.
On August 19, 2005, M r. Cothrum filed the pleading currently at issue, a motion
under Fed. R. Civ. P. 60(b)(4) for relief from the district court’s order transferring
his Rule 60(b)(2) motion on the ground that it is void. The district court denied
that motion (and M r. Cothrum’s later motion to reconsider), and he now appeals
the denial of his Rule 60(b)(4) motion and the motion to reconsider. W e have
jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291, and review the district court’s decision on
the Rule 60(b)(4) motion de novo, see United States v. Buck, 281 F.3d 1336, 1344
(10th Cir. 2002). 1
1
It is an open question in this circuit whether a certificate of appealability
(COA) under 28 U.S.C. § 2253(c)(2), must be issued for a habeas petitioner to
appeal a district court’s ruling on a Rule 60(b) motion associated with his petition
for habeas corpus. See Gonzalez v. Crosby, 125 S. Ct. 2641, 2650 & n.7 (2005).
Here, the district court did not consider w hether to grant a C OA, presumably
because of the procedural posture of this case, and M r. Cothrum does not appear
(continued...)
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M r. Cothrum is probably correct that we and the district court erred in the
treatment of his Rule 60(b)(2) motion. At the time of those rulings, circuit
precedent held that “Rule 60(b) cannot be used to circumvent restraints on
successive habeas petitions” and “the successive petition restrictions contained in
the amendments to 28 U.S.C. § 2244(b) apply to Rule 60(b) proceedings,” Lopez
v. Douglas, 141 F.3d 974, 975 (10th Cir. 1998) (internal quotation marks and
brackets omitted). But the Supreme Court recently took a different view. In
Gonzalez v. Crosby, 125 S. Ct. 2641 (2005), which also involved a habeas
applicant’s assertion that the federal court had misapplied the statute of
limitations, the Court held that
[i]f neither the motion itself nor the federal judgment from which it
seeks relief substantively addresses federal grounds for setting aside
the movant’s state conviction, allowing the motion to proceed as
denominated creates no inconsistency with the habeas statute or
rules. Petitioner’s motion in the present case, which alleges that the
federal courts misapplied the federal statute of limitations set out in
§ 2244(d), fits this description.
Id. at 2648. M r. Cothrum’s Rule 60(b)(2) motion likewise appears to fit that
description: neither the underlying disposition of his habeas application on
statute-of-limitations grounds nor the motion, which purported to present new
evidence that the limitations period should have been tolled, addressed the
1
(...continued)
to seek one from us. W e need not resolve this issue in this case, however,
because were a COA required we would grant one to M r. Cothrum. See Slack v.
M cDaniel, 529 U.S. 473, 484 (2000) (stating criteria for granting COA).
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substantive attacks on his state-court conviction that were made in the habeas
application.
Rule 60(b)(4), however, is not a remedy for every prior judicial error. Rule
60(b)(4) provides for relief from a judgment on the ground that “the judgment is
void.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 60(b)(4). A judgment is void “only if the court which
rendered it lacked jurisdiction of the subject matter, or of the parties, or acted in a
manner inconsistent with due process of law." Arthur Anderson & Co. v. Ohio (In
re Four Seasons Sec. Laws Litig.), 502 F.2d 834, 842 (10th Cir.1974). “[A]
judgment is not void merely because it is erroneous.” Id. Thus, our failure to
anticipate Gonzalez does not render void the decisions (by the district court and
us) on M r. Cothrum’s R ule 60(b)(2) motion. There can be no doubt that both
courts had jurisdiction to render their (probably erroneous) decisions regarding
whether M r. Cothrum’s pleading constituted a second habeas application.
Still, if, as M r. Cothrum contends, the proceedings on his Rule 60(b)(2)
motion denied him due process he might be able to obtain relief under Rule
60(b)(4). See id. But his contention lacks merit. He complains of being denied
both “Access to the Courts” and “Notice and [a] right to object” by the transfer of
the m otion to us. A plt B r. at 2. Yet he was not denied access to the courts. He
presented his motion (and a motion to reconsider) to the district court, which
acted upon it consistently with legal authority as it stood at the time. In addition,
he had access to this court in its consideration of the motion as a second-or-
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successive petition. Similarly, his notice and opportunity-to-object arguments are
unavailing, given the opportunities he had to present his contentions before this
court; he filed both a motion and a reply brief in the proceedings considering his
Rule 60(b)(2) motion.
Additionally, M r. Cothrum asserts that denial of his habeas claim on the
ground of untimeliness constituted a “M anifest Injustice.” A plt. Br. at 2. This is
not a ground for relief under Rule 60(b)(4), but it might suffice under Rule
60(b)(6), which covers “any other reason justifying relief from the operation of
the judgment.” See Fed. R. Civ. P. 60(b)(6). Although M r. Cothrum has not
invoked that rule, he is proceeding without counsel, so we will liberally construe
his pleading to raise a Rule 60(b)(6) motion. See Haines v. Kerner, 404 U.S. 519,
520-21 (1972).
Nevertheless, we are not persuaded that the denial of his original § 2254
application for untimeliness constituted a “manifest injustice.” M r. Cothrum’s
Oklahoma conviction for first-degree rape, robbery, and kidnapping became final
in February 1990, after he had exhausted his state-court direct appeals and the
period had passed for petitioning for a writ of certiorari from the United States
Supreme Court. W e have held that the one-year limitations period of the
Antiterrorism and Effective Dealth Penalty Act begins running at the time of its
enactment on April 24, 1996, for convictions, such as this one, that were final
before its enactment. See United States v. Simmonds, 111 F.3d 737, 744-46 (10th
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Cir. 1997), overruled on other grounds by United States v. Hurst, 322 F.3d 1256,
1260-61 & n.4 (10th Cir. 2003). M r. Cothrum therefore had over seven years,
until A pril 24, 1997, see Hurst, 322 F.3d at 1261 n.4, to file a timely habeas
application and yet did not file one until M ay 21, 1997. He pursued state post-
conviction relief, but even that avenue was exhausted by February 15, 1995, with
more than two years remaining for the timely filing of his application.
M r. Cothrum asserted in his Rule 60(b)(2) motion and to us in this appeal
that he was incapacitated by mental illness that prevented him from timely filing
his § 2254 application. He urges us to consider such an incapacity to be an
extraordinary circumstance justifying tolling. See M iller v. M arr, 141 F.3d 976,
978 (10th Cir. 1998). To support his Rule 60(b)(2) motion he provided his prison
medical records from June 1994 to M ay 1997 as evidence of his mental illness.
Those records, however, are insufficient to demonstrate an incapacity that would
toll the limitations period. Although it is clear that he has experienced some
bouts with anxiety, perhaps severe, the records do not indicate that he was
confined to a mental institution or under inpatient care at any time (other than a
two-day period in June 1996 when he was apparently sent to another facility for
evaluation). The records suggest that his symptoms have been generally
controlled with medication and that his condition was not materially different in
M ay 1997, when he ultimately filed his voluminous application with the district
court. In this light we cannot conclude that his illness would justify equitable
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tolling. Therefore, no manifest injustice resulted from the district court’s failure
to address this new evidence when it was presented with his Rule 60(b)(2)
motion. He has not met his heavy burden to justify relief under Rule 60(b)(6).
See Searles v. Dechant, 393 F.3d 1126, 1131 (10th Cir. 2004) (“Such relief is
extraordinary and may only be granted in exceptional circumstances.” (internal
quotation marks and brackets omitted)).
Finally, we have reviewed all the claims made in M r. Cothrum’s § 2254
application and are satisfied that there has been no fundamental miscarriage of
justice in the district court’s failure to address its merits. His allegation that his
state-court trial was fundamentally unfair because it was a “circus,” Aplt Br. at
40, appears to arise mainly from a variety of contempt citations and evidentiary
rulings that went against him, results brought about largely by his insistence on
representing himself at trial. That the jury and gallery occasionally may have
been guilty of speaking or even snickering during the proceedings does not render
the trial fundamentally unfair or rise to a constitutional violation. Again, he has
not shown exceptional circumstances justifying relief under Rule 60(b)(6).
W e AFFIRM the district court’s denial of M r. Cothrum’s Rule 60(b)(4)
motion and the denial of his motion to reconsider that decision.
ENTERED FOR THE COURT
Harris L Hartz
Circuit Judge
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