FILED
United States Court of Appeals
Tenth Circuit
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
July 25, 2014
TENTH CIRCUIT
Elisabeth A. Shumaker
Clerk of Court
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff - Appellee,
v. No. 13-5146
(D.C. Nos. 4:12-CV-00264-GKF-FHM
MICHAEL LYNN CRISP, and 4:08-CR-00158-GKF-1)
(N.D. Okla.)
Defendant - Appellant.
ORDER DENYING CERTIFICATE OF APPEALABILITY
Before HARTZ, McKAY, and MATHESON, Circuit Judges.
Defendant Michael Crisp, a federal prisoner, filed a motion for relief under
28 U.S.C. § 2255 in the United States District Court for the Northern District of
Oklahoma. The district court denied his motion as untimely. Defendant now seeks a
certificate of appealability (COA) from this court to pursue an appeal. See 28 U.S.C.
§ 2253(c)(1)(B) (requiring a COA to appeal denial of § 2255 application). He argues that
his motion was not untimely because it came within one year of Supreme Court decisions
establishing a newly recognized right. He also challenges 10th Cir. R. 22.1(A), which
requires applicants to file a brief when seeking a COA from this court. We deny a COA,
reject the challenge to our local rule, and dismiss the appeal.
I. BACKGROUND
Defendant was indicted for possession with intent to distribute more than 50 grams
of cocaine base. The cocaine was discovered after a search of his mother’s home.
Defendant challenged admission of the cocaine in the district court, arguing that the
search exceeded the scope of his mother’s consent. He also challenged the admission of
self-incriminating statements. After the district court denied the motions to suppress,
Defendant pleaded guilty under a plea agreement and generally waived his right to
appeal, but he preserved his rights to appeal the decision on the motions to suppress and
to file claims in a § 2255 motion “based on ineffective assistance of counsel which
challenge the validity of the guilty plea or this waiver.” Plea Agreement at 3, United
States v. Crisp, No. 08-CR-158-GKF (N.D. Okla. Nov. 25, 2008). He was sentenced to
276 months’ imprisonment. He appealed the refusal to suppress his self-incriminating
statements, although not the denial of his motion to suppress the cocaine, and this court
affirmed his conviction. See United States v. Crisp, 371 F. App’x 925 (10th Cir. 2010).
Our decision on Defendant’s appeal was filed on April 5, 2010. Defendant did not
seek rehearing or petition for certiorari. On May 7, 2012, he filed a pro se motion for
relief under § 2255, arguing (1) that a previous conviction did not qualify as a felony
conviction under federal law and should not have been used to enhance his sentence, and
(2) that the search of his mother’s house was unlawful. The government moved to
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dismiss the motion on the grounds that it was untimely and that Defendant raised issues
waived in the plea agreement. Defendant retained counsel and moved to amend his
§ 2255 motion to include a claim for ineffective assistance of appellate counsel based on
counsel’s failure to appeal the district court’s denial of his motion to suppress evidence
found in the search. The district court dismissed the § 2255 motion as untimely, and
Defendant now seeks a COA from this court.
II. DISCUSSION
A. Standard of Review
A COA will issue “only if the applicant has made a substantial showing of the
denial of a constitutional right.” 28 U.S.C. § 2253(c)(2). This standard requires “a
demonstration that . . . includes showing 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) (internal quotation marks omitted). In other
words, the applicant must show that the district court’s resolution of the constitutional
claim was either “debatable or wrong.” Id. If the application was denied on procedural
grounds, the applicant faces a double hurdle. Not only must the applicant make a
substantial showing of the denial of a constitutional right, but he must also show “that
jurists of reason would find it debatable whether the district court was correct in its
procedural ruling.” Id. “Where a plain procedural bar is present and the district court is
correct to invoke it to dispose of the case, a reasonable jurist could not conclude either
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that the district court erred in dismissing the petition or that the petitioner should be
allowed to proceed further.” Id. While the inquiry into whether a COA should issue
“does not require full consideration of the factual or legal bases adduced in support of the
claims,” Miller-El v. Cockrell, 537 U.S. 322, 336 (2003), “[a] prisoner seeking a COA
must prove something more than the absence of frivolity or the existence of mere good
faith on his or her part,” id. at 338 (internal quotation marks omitted).
B. Timeliness of Habeas Petition
Defendant’s sole argument in support of timeliness is that reasonable jurists could
debate whether his § 2255 motion was filed within one year of the initial recognition by
the Supreme Court of a “right [that] has been newly recognized by the Supreme Court
and made retroactively applicable to cases on collateral review.” 28 U.S.C. § 2255(f)(3).
He relies on the Supreme Court decisions in Missouri v. Frye, 132 S. Ct. 1399 (2012),
and Lafler v. Cooper, 132 S. Ct. 1376 (2012), both of which addressed a defendant’s right
to effective assistance of counsel when entering a guilty plea. But neither decision
recognized a new right.
Defendant concedes that we held in In re Graham, 714 F.3d 1181, 1183 (10th Cir.
2013), that Frye and Lafler “do not establish a new rule of constitutional law.”
Nevertheless, he attempts to distinguish Graham on the ground that it was not applying
§ 2255(f), but rather § 2255(h), which concerns whether a prisoner is allowed to bring a
second or successive § 2255 motion. We are not persuaded. We resolved the substance
of Defendant’s issue in Graham when we observed that “[t]he Supreme Court's language
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in Lafler and Frye confirm that the cases are merely an application of the Sixth
Amendment right to counsel, as defined in Strickland [v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668
(1984)], to a specific factual context.” 714 F.3d at 1183 (internal quotation marks
omitted). Of particular significance is that both Frye and Lafler were decided in
postconviction proceedings. Thus, the prisoners in those cases were able to obtain relief
only because of a violation of “clearly established federal law,” as determined by the
Supreme Court. Graham, 714 F.3d at 1183; see Lafler, 132 S. Ct. at 1390. The rationale
for the exception to the usual limitations period provided by § 2255(f)(3) is to give
prisoners an opportunity to bring claims when they could not have known of their rights
before a recent Supreme Court decision. That rationale could not apply here. After all,
the controlling law had long been “clearly established.” Defendant could have followed
the example of Lafler, who had known to bring his claim under 28 U.S.C. § 2254 well
before Defendant filed his direct appeal in this case. Hence, we hold that Defendant’s
§ 2255 motion was untimely. See United States v. Sheridan, No. 13-2204, 2014 WL
1363971, at *2 (10th Cir. Apr. 8, 2014) (rejecting reliance on Frye and Lafler to obtain
tolling under § 2255(f)(3)); United States v. Lawton, 506 F. App’x 722, 726 (10th Cir.
2012) (same).
Defendant also argues that these, and similar decisions in other circuits, should be
ignored because they all apply the retroactivity analysis outlined in Teague v. Lane, 489
U.S. 288 (1989), and that analysis does not apply to federal convictions challenged under
§ 2255. We have held, however, that “Teague’s nonretroactivity doctrine applies equally
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to habeas petitions brought under sections 2254 and 2255.” Daniels v. United States, 254
F.3d 1180, 1194 (10th Cir. 2001) (en banc).
No reasonable jurist would debate the district court’s determination that Frye and
Lafler did not announce a new constitutional right that would extend the limitations
period under § 2255(f)(3).
C. Challenge to Local Rule 22.1
Defendant also argues that our local rule 22.1(A) is unlawful. The rule reads:
“Required form. Although a notice of appeal constitutes a request for a certificate of
appealability, the appellant must also file a brief. The circuit clerk will provide pro se
appellants a form for this purpose which serves as both a brief and a request for a
certificate.” 10th Cir. R. 22.1(A). Defendant asserts that this rule is contrary to Fed. R.
App. P. 27(a)(1), which states that an application for an order (which presumably
includes a request for a COA) should be made by motion, and to 28 U.S.C. § 2253(c),
which states that appellate courts lack jurisdiction to hear the merits of a § 2255 appeal
until a COA has been granted.
We reject Defendant’s challenge to our local rule. The rule does not violate any
rule of appellate procedure or any statute. There is nothing unusual about requiring briefs
in support of motions. And we cannot grant a COA unless we are persuaded that there is
some merit to the applicant’s claims on the merits. If Defendant is simply complaining
about our nomenclature for memoranda that are obviously necessary for the performance
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of our work, he is being silly. If he is complaining about the substance of what this court
requires for it to resolve his request for a COA, he is being obtuse.
III. CONCLUSION
We DENY the application for a COA and DISMISS the appeal.
ENTERED FOR THE COURT
Harris L Hartz
Circuit Judge
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