[DO NOT PUBLISH]
IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT
________________________ FILED
U.S. COURT OF APPEALS
No. 08-16916 ELEVENTH CIRCUIT
AUGUST 21, 2009
Non-Argument Calendar
THOMAS K. KAHN
________________________ CLERK
D. C. Docket No. 08-00155-CV-BE-S
JERRY W. WIGGINS,
Petitioner-Appellant,
versus
C. PRICE, Warden,
ATTORNEY GENERAL OF THE STATE OF ALABAMA,
Respondents-Appellees.
________________________
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Northern District of Alabama
_________________________
(August 21, 2009)
Before CARNES, HULL and WILSON, Circuit Judges.
PER CURIAM:
Jerry W. Wiggins, an Alabama prisoner proceeding pro se, appeals the
district court’s denial of his habeas corpus petition brought under 28 U.S.C.
§ 2254. After review, we affirm.
I. BACKGROUND
After being convicted and sentenced to 50 years’ imprisonment for first-
degree rape, Wiggins filed a pro se § 2254 petition, alleging that his trial counsel
was ineffective for failing (1) to call a newspaper reporter to testify regarding a
newspaper article wherein the victim’s sister allegedly stated that the victim
consented to have sex with Wiggins because she had a “mind of a child,” (2) to
argue that the victim did not have the “mind of a child” because she graduated
from high school, and (3) to impeach the victim’s testimony that she had never had
sex by showing that she was common-law married.
After the state responded, a magistrate judge issued a report, finding that,
because Wiggins never raised these ineffective-assistance claims in state court,
Wiggins’s ineffective-assistance claims were unexhausted and therefore
procedurally barred. Over Wiggins’s objection, the district court adopted the
magistrate judge’s report and denied Wiggins’s § 2254 petition. This Court
granted Wiggins’s motion for a certificate of appealability (“COA”) on the
following issue:
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Whether the district court erred in finding the following ineffective
assistance of counsel claims to be procedurally barred from federal
habeas review: (a) counsel’s failure to call a newspaper reporter,
Kaysha Drexle, as a witness; (b) counsel’s failure to challenge
evidence that the victim “had the mind of a child” based on her
graduation from high school; and (c) counsel’s failure to use known
information that the victim was common-law married to Bill Morgan
to impeach her testimony that she had never had sex with anyone.
II. DISCUSSION
“[I]n an appeal brought by an unsuccessful habeas petitioner, appellate
review is limited to the issues specified in the [COA].” McClain v. Hall, 552 F.3d
1245, 1254 (11th Cir. 2008) (quotation marks omitted) (first alteration in original),
petition for cert. filed, (U.S. June 25, 2009) (No. 09-5004). A habeas petitioner
abandons the claims he does not address on appeal. See Atkins v. Singletary, 965
F.2d 952, 955 n.1 (11th Cir. 1992). While this Court is lenient when interpreting
the arguments of a pro se litigant, it will not act as de facto counsel. See GJR
Invs., Inc. v. County of Escambia, Fla., 132 F.3d 1359, 1369 (11th Cir. 1998).
Neither of Wiggins’s briefs addresses the single issue set forth in the COA
regarding the district court’s decision that his ineffective-assistance claims were
procedurally barred from federal habeas review. Instead, Wiggins’s initial brief
argues only the substantive issue of his trial counsel’s ineffectiveness. Moreover,
Wiggins’s reply brief argued that he was actually innocent of the rape offense and
failed to address the procedural bar question, even after the government pointed
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out that Wiggins had waived the procedural bar issue by failing to address it in his
initial brief. There simply is nothing in Wiggins’s briefs for this Court to construe
liberally as an argument related to the procedural bar issue in the COA.
Thus, we affirm the district court’s denial of Wiggins’s § 2254 petition.
AFFIRMED.
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