Loggins v. Hannigan

FILED
United States Court of Appeals
Tenth Circuit
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
February 8, 2012
TENTH CIRCUIT
Elisabeth A. Shumaker
Clerk of Court
KEVIN D. LOGGINS, SR.,
Petitioner-Appellant,
v. No. 11-3323
(D.C. No. 5:99-CV-03102-SAC)
ROBERT D. HANNIGAN; (D. Kan.)
ATTORNEY GENERAL OF
KANSAS,
Respondents-Appellees.
ORDER DENYING CERTIFICATE OF APPEALABILITY *
Before GORSUCH, HOLMES, and MATHESON, Circuit Judges.
Kevin D. Loggins, Sr., a Kansas prisoner proceeding pro se, seeks to appeal
the district court’s dismissal of his Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 60(b)(4)
motion as an unauthorized second or successive 28 U.S.C. § 2254 application.
We deny a certificate of appealability (COA) and dismiss this proceeding.
Mr. Loggins was sentenced to 678 months of imprisonment for aggravated
robbery, aggravated kidnaping, aggravated burglary, aggravated sexual battery,
*
This order is not binding precedent except under the doctrines of law of the
case, res judicata, and collateral estoppel. It may be cited, however, for its
persuasive value consistent with Fed. R. App. P. 32.1 and 10th Cir. R. 32.1.
and criminal possession of a firearm. He unsuccessfully sought relief under
§ 2254. See Loggins v. Hannigan, 45 F. App’x 846, 850 (10th Cir. 2002)
(denying a COA). In 2011, he filed his Rule 60(b)(4) motion asserting that the
federal habeas judgment was void. The premise of his argument was that the state
court lacked jurisdiction to try him because he was not notified of the charges
against him as required by the Sixth Amendment. Therefore, he concluded, the
federal court also lacked jurisdiction to consider his § 2254 application. The
district court held that the motion was attempting to assert unauthorized second or
successive § 2254 claims, see 28 U.S.C. § 2244(b) (restricting second or
successive applications under § 2254), and dismissed it for lack of jurisdiction,
see In re Cline, 531 F.3d 1249, 1251 (10th Cir. 2008) (per curiam).
After Mr. Loggins moved for reconsideration, the district court reiterated
that the Rule 60(b)(4) motion was subject to the restrictions on second or
successive § 2254 applications. In the alternative, the court stated, “[e]ven if the
court considered the prior motion as a true Rule 60(b) motion, no factual basis or
legal grounds for relief were stated therein.” R. at 165. The court later denied
both a COA and leave to proceed on appeal without prepayment of costs and fees.
Mr. Loggins now seeks a COA from this court. To obtain one, he must
show both “that jurists of reason would find it debatable whether the petition
states a valid claim of the denial of a constitutional right and that jurists of reason
would find it debatable whether the district court was correct in its procedural
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ruling.” Slack v. McDaniel, 529 U.S. 473, 484 (2000). A COA shall issue only if
“reasonable jurists could debate whether (or, for that matter, agree that) the
petition should have been resolved in a different manner or that the issues
presented were adequate to deserve encouragement to proceed further.” Miller-El
v. Cockrell, 537 U.S. 322, 336 (2003) (internal quotation marks omitted).
A prisoner’s post-judgment filing (however entitled) should be treated like
a second or successive § 2254 application (and therefore subject to the
authorization requirements of § 2244(b)) if it asserts or reasserts claims of error
in the prisoner’s conviction. See Gonzalez v. Crosby, 545 U.S. 524, 531-32, 538
(2005); Spitznas v. Boone, 464 F.3d 1213, 1215-16 (10th Cir. 2006). But
authorization under § 2244(b) is not required “when a Rule 60(b) motion attacks,
not the substance of the federal court’s resolution of a claim on the merits, but
some defect in the integrity of the federal habeas proceedings.” Gonzalez,
545 U.S. at 532. Mr. Loggins argues that he is attacking only a defect (lack of
jurisdiction) in the integrity of the federal habeas proceeding, not seeking to
invalidate the underlying state conviction.
We disagree. If the district court had accepted Mr. Loggins’s argument and
vacated the federal judgment, it would have been determining that the state court
lacked jurisdiction, thus unavoidably undermining the state conviction. It
naturally follows that, even though Mr. Loggins’s motion ostensibly challenges
only the federal judgment, implicitly it attacks the state conviction. Accordingly,
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the motion requires authorization under § 2244(b). Cf. In re Lindsey, 582 F.3d
1173, 1175-76 (10th Cir. 2009) (per curiam) (piercing the veil of allegations
ostensibly aimed only at the integrity of the federal proceedings).
Further, even if the district court erred in determining that the
Rule 60(b)(4) motion requires this court’s authorization to proceed, on
reconsideration the court also indicated that it would deny relief on the merits.
The court was correct that the Rule 60(b)(4) motion was meritless. Therefore,
even if reasonable jurists could debate whether the district court erred in
concluding that the Rule 60(b)(4) motion properly was subject to the restrictions
on second or successive § 2254 applications, reasonable jurists could not debate
whether this matter deserves further proceedings.
We GRANT Mr. Loggins’s motion to proceed on appeal without
prepayment of costs or fees. We DENY a COA and DISMISS this matter.
Entered for the Court,
ELISABETH A. SHUMAKER, Clerk
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