FILED
United States Court of Appeals
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS Tenth Circuit
FOR THE TENTH CIRCUIT March 20, 2014
Elisabeth A. Shumaker
Clerk of Court
LAWRENCE L. MAYES,
Petitioner-Appellant,
v. No. 13-6280
(D.C. No. 5:13-CV-01080-C)
STATE OF OKLAHOMA; (W.D. Okla.)
COUNTY OF OKLAHOMA,
Respondents-Appellees.
ORDER DENYING CERTIFICATE OF APPEALABILITY*
Before KELLY, MATHESON, and BACHARACH, Circuit Judges.
Lawrence L. Mayes seeks a certificate of appealability (COA) to secure review
of a district court order dismissing his “Petition of Notice of Intent to Appeal from
the Court of Criminal Appeals” as a second-or-successive habeas petition lacking the
authorization required by 28 U.S.C. § 2244(b)(3). The district court’s disposition
was indisputably correct and this effort to appeal that disposition is frivolous. We
deny a COA, dismiss the appeal, and deny Mr. Mayes’ motion for leave to proceed
on appeal in forma pauperis.
*
This order is not binding precedent except under the doctrines of law of the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.
The “petition” Mr. Mayes filed in the district court challenges the same 2005
armed robbery conviction that he has unsuccessfully challenged numerous times in
pleadings filed both with the district court and this court. The district court properly
held that the novel label he applied to this latest pleading—styling it as an inapt
“appeal” from proceedings in the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals—did not
alter the fact that it was a second-or-successive habeas petition. As such, it is subject
to the constraints in § 2244(b), in particular to the jurisdictional requirement of
pre-authorization by this court under § 2244(b)(3), with which Mr. Mayes did not
comply.1 Dismissal was undebatably the appropriate disposition by the district court
and, thus, a COA is unwarranted. See Slack v. McDaniel, 529 U.S. 473, 484 (2000)
(holding in pertinent part that to obtain a COA the petitioner-appellant must show
“that jurists of reason would find it debatable whether the district court was correct in
its procedural ruling”).
Accordingly, we deny a COA and dismiss this appeal. Mr. Mayes’ motion for
leave to proceed on appeal in forma pauperis is also denied. We remind Mr. Mayes
that his obligation to remit the full amount of the filing fee persists despite our denial
1
We note that a separately pursued motion from Mr. Mayes seeking such
authorization for claims that are also asserted in the “petition” here was recently
denied as meritless by this court.
-2-
of a COA and dismissal of this appeal. See Clark v. Oklahoma, 468 F.3d 711, 714-15
(10th Cir. 2006).
Entered for the Court
ELISABETH A. SHUMAKER, Clerk
-3-