FILED
United States Court of Appeals
Tenth Circuit
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS March 18, 2009
TENTH CIRCUIT Elisabeth A. Shumaker
Clerk of Court
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff-Appellee,
v. No. 08-5139
KENNETH MAURICE WOODS, (D.C. Nos. CR-99-020-K and
CV-02-829-K)
Defendant-Appellant. (N. D. Oklahoma)
ORDER DENYING CERTIFICATE OF APPEALABILITY *
Before KELLY, ANDERSON, and BRISCOE, Circuit Judges.
Kenneth Woods, a federal prisoner appearing pro se, seeks a certificate of
appealability (COA) in order to challenge the district court’s denial of his 28
U.S.C. § 2255 motion to vacate, set aside, or correct sentence. Because Woods
has failed to satisfy the standards for the issuance of a COA, we deny his request
and dismiss the matter.
I.
In September of 1999, Woods was convicted of one count of conspiracy to
distribute various controlled substances and one count of distributing heroin.
*
This order is not binding precedent, except under the doctrines of law of
the case, res judicata, and collateral estoppel.
Woods was sentenced to a term of imprisonment of 216 months, to be followed by
a five-year term of supervised release. This court affirmed Woods’ convictions
and sentence on direct appeal. United States v. Busby, 16 F. App’x 817 (10th
Cir. 2001). On October 29, 2001, the United States Supreme Court denied
Woods’ petition for writ of certiorari. Woods v. United States, 534 U.S. 1012
(2001).
On October 28, 2002, Woods filed a § 2255 motion to vacate, set aside, or
correct sentence arguing that (1) there was a fatal variance between the
indictment, which alleged a single, nine-year-long conspiracy, and the
government’s evidence at trial, which established the existence of multiple,
shorter conspiracies, (2) the district court committed plain error by sentencing
him on the basis of inaccurate information proffered by the government and
recounted in the presentence report, (3) his counsel was ineffective for failing to
make objections during trial and at sentencing, and for failing to raise meritorious
arguments on direct appeal, and (4) enhancement of his sentence based upon prior
state court convictions constituted multiple punishment triggering double
jeopardy protections. Woods subsequently filed three motions seeking,
purportedly, to amend the issues contained in his § 2255 motion. On July 28,
2008, the district court issued an order denying Woods’ motions to amend, and
denying on the merits the four issues raised in Woods’ § 2255 motion.
Woods filed a timely notice of appeal and a request for COA. The district
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court denied Woods’ request for COA. Woods has now renewed his request for
COA with this court.
II.
The issuance of a COA is jurisdictional prerequisite to an appeal from the
denial of a § 2255 motion. Miller-El v. Cockrell, 537 U.S. 322, 336 (2003). A
COA may be issued “only if the applicant has made a substantial showing of the
denial of a constitutional right.” 28 U.S.C. § 2553(c)(2). To make such a
showing, an applicant must demonstrate “that 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.” Slack v. McDaniel, 529 U.S. 473, 484 (2000)
(citation and internal quotation marks omitted). “When the district court denies a
habeas petition on procedural grounds without reaching the prisoner’s underlying
constitutional claim, a COA should issue when the prisoner shows, at least, 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 ruling.” Id.
Woods first seeks a COA in order to challenge the district court’s denial of
his third motion to amend his § 2255 motion. In that third motion, which was
filed on December 10, 2003, Woods requested “leave to amend . . . his initial 28
U.S.C. § 2255 Petition” to include two arguments: (1) “that the general verdict
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only authorize[d] the District Court to sentence [Woods] to the lesser included
offense, conspiracy to distribute five (5) grams of heroin,” and (2) Woods’
“attorney rendered ineffective assistance of counsel for failing to raise the
ambiguous general verdict issue at sentencing or on direct appeal.” ROA, Vol. 1,
Doc. 607 at 1. The district court concluded it was “precluded from considering
the[se] new claims because they d[id] not ‘relate back’ to the original § 2255
motion” under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 15(c)(2) “and [we]re [thus] barred
by the one-year statute of limitations provided by the Antiterrorism and Effective
Death Penalty Act . . . .” Id., Doc. 759 at 4-5. Although Woods now argues in
his application for COA that the two issues identified in his third motion to
amend related back to the first substantive claim alleged in his § 2255 motion, we
are not persuaded, after reviewing the record on appeal and the materials
submitted by Woods, that “jurists of reason would find it debatable whether the
district court was correct in its procedural ruling.” Slack, 529 U.S. at 484.
Woods also seeks a COA in order to challenge the district court’s rejection
of the first substantive claim alleged in his § 2255 motion, i.e., his fatal variance
claim. In disposing of that claim, the district court noted that the same claim was
“considered and rejected by” this court “on direct appeal,” and that “Woods ha[d]
failed to demonstrate the existence of an intervening change in the law of this
circuit or any other reason justifying reconsideration of [this court’s] rejection of
th[at] claim[].” ROA, Vol. 1, Doc. 759 at 8. In his application for COA, Woods
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makes no attempt to explain why the district court should have deviated from the
longstanding rule that, “[a]bsent an intervening change in the law of [this] circuit,
issues disposed of on direct appeal generally will not be considered on a collateral
attack by a motion pursuant to § 2255.” United States v. Prichard, 875 F.2d 789,
791 (10th Cir. 1989). Thus, we conclude Woods has failed to establish his
entitlement to a COA on this issue.
The application for COA is DENIED and the matter is DISMISSED.
Entered for the Court
Mary Beck Briscoe
Circuit Judge
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