FILED
United States Court of Appeals
Tenth Circuit
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS July 9, 2009
Elisabeth A. Shumaker
TENTH CIRCUIT
Clerk of Court
ALVIN PARKER,
Petitioner-Appellant, No. 08-6223
v. Western District of Oklahoma
GREG PROVINCE, Warden, (D.C. No. 5:08-CV-00769-D)
Respondent-Appellee.
ORDER AND JUDGMENT*
Before TACHA, KELLY and McCONNELL, Circuit Judges.
Alvin Parker is a state prisoner currently serving a sentence for second degree
murder. Mr. Parker appealed that sentence multiple times; after the ninth appeal, the
Oklahoma state court imposed sanctions, including the revocation of good-time credits.
57 Okla. Stat. § 566(C). He now seeks a writ of habeas corpus under 28 U.S.C. §
22411—not to challenge his original sentence, but to challenge those sanctions—on the
*
After examining the briefs and appellate record, this panel has determined
unanimously to grant the parties’ request for a decision on the briefs without oral
argument. See Fed. R. App. P. 34(f); 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 This order and judgment is not binding precedent,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. It may
be cited, however, for its persuasive value consistent with Fed. R. App. P. 32.1 and 10th
Cir. R. 32.1.
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Mr. Parker originally filed his petition using a § 2254 form, but the district court
treated his petition as a § 2241 petition in accordance with Hamm v. Saffle, 300 F.3d
grounds that the Oklahoma state court violated his due process rights by imposing
sanctions without sufficient evidence that his appeal was, in fact, frivolous. The district
court denied his petition. We granted COA on whether there was sufficient evidence to
justify the trial court’s imposition of sanctions under Oklahoma law in a manner
consistent with the Fourteenth Amendment, and we now reverse.
I. BACKGROUND
Mr. Parker is currently serving a 199-year sentence for second degree murder. On
February 22, 2008, he filed an application for post-conviction relief in the District Court
of Oklahoma County, claiming to have newly discovered evidence that a key prosecution
witness had testified falsely at his 1990 trial. At that trial, Glenn Briggs, Mr. Parker’s
accomplice, had told the jury that the state had agreed to reduce his murder charge to
grand larceny in exchange for his testimony. Eighteen years later, however, at Mr.
Parker’s parole hearing, the state told the parole board that no deal had been made with
Mr. Briggs in exchange for the testimony. Mr. Parker thereupon petitioned for post-
conviction relief, but the state court rejected his request, finding it to be frivolous.
This was not Mr. Parker’s first application for post-conviction relief to the District
Court of Oklahoma County—it was his ninth. In fact, the court had sanctioned Mr.
Parker on three prior occasions for filing frivolous pleadings. The court found that Mr.
Parker’s current application lacked merit because “prosecutorial misconduct and the
1213, 1216 (10th Cir. 2002).
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unreliability of the witnesses at his trial are not new issues” and that “[t]hese claims have
been extensively litigated and repeatedly denied on direct, appellate and collateral
review.” Order Imposing Sanctions at 1. Oklahoma law allows the court to impose
certain specified sanctions on inmates who file frivolous applications. 57 Okla. Stat. §
566(C). In light of Mr. Parker’s continuing to file frivolous applications despite being
warned and sanctioned in the past, the court imposed the following sanctions on Mr.
Parker: (1) $3000 to cover costs of attorney’s fees and costs, court clerk’s costs, and the
court’s time and expense; (2) the loss of 720 earned credits; and (3) the removal of Mr.
Parker’s non-essential personal property for nine months. Mr. Parker appealed the
imposition of sanctions to the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals, but his appeal was
denied.
It is this imposition of sanctions, and not the underlying claim of prosecutorial
misconduct and witness unreliability, for which Mr. Parker now seeks habeas relief in the
federal courts. He argues that the evidence was insufficient to support the imposition of
sanctions under 57 Okla. Stat. § 566(C), amounting to a violation of his due process rights
under the Fourteenth Amendment. Specifically, he contends that the state court’s finding
that his application was “frivolous” was based on the incorrect belief that his claim was
barred by res judicata. In rejecting Mr. Parker’s petition for post-conviction relief, the
state court said, “Petitioner’s sole proposition of error is not proper for consideration
because it has been previously raised and rejected by the Court of Criminal Appeals on
direct appeal. The doctrine of res judicata bars further consideration of this claim.”
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Order Denying Petitioner’s Ninth Application for Post Conviction Relief 8. But Mr.
Parker had never before raised his current claim that the prosecutor had allowed Glenn
Briggs to offer false testimony—indeed, he had only just learned of the alleged disparity
between Mr. Briggs’s trial testimony and statements he later made to the parole board.
Mr. Parker had raised an issue of prosecutorial impropriety regarding a witness’s
testimony on his direct appeal, but, as Mr. Parker informed the state court in his reply
brief opposing sanctions, this had been in regard to another witness, Oscar Henry
Branham. See Reply Br. 1–3. Nevertheless, finding that Mr. Parker’s petition for post-
conviction relief was barred by res judicata and therefore frivolous, and finding that Mr.
Parker had a long history of filing frivolous appeals, the trial court imposed sanctions.
Mr. Parker challenged the imposition of sanctions before the Oklahoma Court of
Criminal Appeals. In order to show that his current claim had not been resolved on direct
appeal, he provided a side-by-side comparison of his post-conviction application, in
which he challenged the testimony of Mr. Briggs, and his original direct appeal brief, in
which he challenged only the testimony of Mr. Branham. The OCCA nevertheless
upheld the sanctions. It repeated the trial court’s finding that Mr. Parker’s “claims of
prosecutorial misconduct and the unreliability of the witnesses at his trial are not new
issues and that these claims have been ‘extensively litigated and repeatedly denied on
direct, appellate, and collateral review.’” Order Affirming Sanctions 2. It did not address
Mr. Parker’s contention that he had in fact never raised his present claims and that the
trial court had erred in finding the claims barred by res judicata.
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Mr. Parker then sought habeas relief from the imposition of sanctions in federal
court, again claiming that there was no evidence supporting sanctions because the trial
court erred in finding the claim barred by res judicata. The district court found that the
issue of whether res judicata applied was “unnecessary to the disposition of this case,
which does not concern the merits of the order denying Petitioner’s ninth application.”
Dist. Op. 3, n.3. The court found that there was sufficient evidence supporting the
imposition of sanctions, as Mr. Parker had “both a lengthy litigation history with respect
to post-conviction challenges and a history of sanctions related to such challenges,” had
“repeatedly filed frivolous claims,” and had “ignored the previous admonishments and
sanctions.” Id. at 3. Mr. Parker’s arguments that res judicata should not have applied
were beside the point, as Mr. Parker was not collaterally attacking the state district court’s
denial of his application, but rather the sanctions imposed alongside that denial. The
district court denied Mr. Parker’s request for habeas. We then granted Mr. Parker’s
request for COA.
II. DISCUSSION
“[A]n inmate’s liberty interest in his earned good time credits cannot be denied
without the minimal safeguards afforded by the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth
Amendment.” Mitchell v. Maynard, 80 F.3d 1433, 1444 (10th Cir. 1996) (citations
omitted). In evaluating whether or not the evidence before the state court was sufficient
for justifying sanctions under the Oklahoma statute, the district court adopted the “some
evidence” standard that we use when a prisoner challenges a prison disciplinary
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conviction that revokes earned credits. See Superintendent, Mass. Corr. Inst., Walpole v.
Hill, 472 U.S. 445, 454 (1985) (“[R]evocation of good time does not comport with the
minimum requirements of procedural due process unless the findings of the prison
disciplinary board are supported by some evidence in the record.”) (citations omitted);
Mitchell, 80 F.3d at 1445. The parties dispute whether this standard, which we use when
evaluating revocation of good time credits made by prison disciplinary boards, should
also apply to revocations made by state courts. The state focuses on the proceeding’s
effect, which in both cases is revocation of good time credits, and argues that the
standards of review should be the same; Mr. Parker focuses on the tribunal conducting the
proceeding, which in one case is a prison disciplinary board and in the other is a state
court, and argues that our review of the latter should be more demanding. We need not
resolve this dispute, however, as the “some evidence” standard is not even implicated
when there is no evidence supporting the state court’s finding that Mr. Parker’s appeal
was frivolous.
The state tells us in its brief that the fact that Mr. Parker “had been previously
sanctioned and warned and that the issues raised in the 9th application to the District Court
were procedurally barred” constitutes sufficient evidence for sanctions under this
standard. Aple. 10. It also refers us to the district court’s order, in which that court cited
evidence of Mr. Parker’s “lengthy litigation history with respect to post-conviction
challenges and a history of sanctions related to such challenges.” Dist. Op. 3. In doing
so, the state, like the previous courts that have considered Mr. Parker’s sanctions, fails to
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address Mr. Parker’s primary argument: that there was no evidence that Mr. Parker’s
claim was frivolous and therefore no grounds to impose sanctions under § 566(C) in the
first place.
The Oklahoma statute allows a court to impose sanctions if “one or more of the
causes of action are frivolous or malicious.” 57 Okla. Stat. § 566(C). A finding that the
claim was either frivolous or malicious is therefore a necessary precondition to sanctions.
The statute defines “frivolous” as “having no reasonable basis in law or fact, or lacking
any good faith legal argument for the extension, modification, or reversal of existing law,
or being maintained solely or primarily for delay or to harass the party filed against.” 57
Okla. Stat. § 566(B)(1). It defines “malicious” as “filing numerous actions, or actions
brought in bad faith on de minimus issues.” 57 Okla. Stat. § 566(B)(3). The trial court
based its sanctions on the grounds that Mr. Parker’s most recent petition was “frivolous,”
as it concerned “matters that have been previously considered and ruled on.” Order
Imposing Sanctions 2.
The problem, as Mr. Parker has pointed out several times, is that his current claim
had not been previously considered and ruled on. Though the trial court found his claim
barred by res judicata, by all indications that was an erroneous conclusion. Mr. Parker
had never before claimed any impropriety regarding the testimony of Mr. Briggs; indeed,
he only brought that claim once new evidence had surfaced in a newspaper article.
Under Oklahoma law, courts “will apply the doctrines of res judicata and waiver where a
claim either was, or could have been, raised in the petitioner’s direct appeal.” Browning
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v. State, 144 P.3d 155, 156 (Okla. Crim. App. 2006). The state does not contest that Mr.
Parker had never before challenged the testimony of Mr. Briggs. Instead the state relies
entirely on Mr. Parker’s long litigation history and previous sanctions. It is
understandable that officials would become exasperated after a long string of frivolous
proceedings, but that history does not constitute evidence that Mr. Parker’s current
argument was repetitive or otherwise frivolous. Mr. Parker has never made his current
claim before, nor does it seem that Mr. Parker would have been able to previously raise it
on an earlier occasion, as it was based upon new evidence.
The Oklahoma statute, 57 Okla. Stat. § 566(C), creates a two-step process for
imposing sanctions: the court must first find that the claim is either frivolous or
malicious, and only then does it have the discretion to sanction the petitioner, presumably
considering matters such as his litigation history and response to past sanctions. If there
is no basis for finding the claim frivolous or malicious, the sanctions are unwarranted, no
matter how lengthy the litigation history or how unresponsive the petitioner has been to
past sanctions. As Mr. Parker has shown that his ninth petition presented a new claim,
and as the state has given no argument for why that new claim was nonetheless precluded
by res judicata, we agree with Mr. Parker that evidence of past frivolous claims alone is
not sufficient to justify the imposition of sanctions under Oklahoma law in the present
case.
III. CONCLUSION
The state court violated Mr. Parker’s due process rights under the Fourteenth
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Amendment by imposing sanctions under 57 Okla. Stat. § 566(C) for filing a frivolous
claim when there was no evidence that the claim was indeed frivolous. We therefore
REVERSE the district court’s decision denying Mr. Parker’s petition for a writ of habeas
corpus, and we REMAND the case to the district court with instructions to grant the writ
as to the imposition of Mr. Parker’s sanctions.
Entered for the Court
Michael W. McConnell
Circuit Judge
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