Steven Bixby v. Bryan Stirling

USCA4 Appeal: 22-4 Doc: 56 Filed: 11/27/2023 Pg: 1 of 31

PUBLISHED

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT

No. 22-4

STEVEN VERNON BIXBY,

Petitioner – Appellant,

v.

BRYAN P. STIRLING, Commissioner, South Carolina Department of Corrections;
LYDELL CHESTNUT, Deputy Warden, Broad River Correctional Institution,

Respondents – Appellees.

------------------------------

LEGAL ETHICS PROFESSORS,

Amici Supporting Appellant.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of South Carolina, at Florence.
Bruce H. Hendricks, District Judge. (4:17-cv-00954-BHH)

Argued: September 22, 2023 Decided: November 27, 2023

Before DIAZ, Chief Circuit Judge, and AGEE and HARRIS, Circuit Judges.

Vacated and remanded with instructions by published opinion. Judge Agee wrote the
opinion in which Chief Judge Diaz and Judge Harris joined.

ARGUED: David Weiss, FEDERAL DEFENDERS OF WESTERN NORTH
CAROLINA, INC., Charlotte, North Carolina, for Appellant. William Joseph Maye,
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OFFICE OF THE ATTORNEY GENERAL OF SOUTH CAROLINA, Columbia, South
Carolina, for Appellees. ON BRIEF: John G. Baker, Federal Public Defender, Gretchen
L. Swift, Assistant Federal Public Defender, FEDERAL DEFENDERS OF WESTERN
NORTH CAROLINA, INC., Charlotte, North Carolina; Joshua Snow Kendrick,
KENDRICK & LEONARD, P.C., Greenville, South Carolina, for Appellant. Alan Wilson,
Attorney General, Donald J. Zelenka, Deputy Attorney General, Melody J. Brown, Senior
Assistant Deputy Attorney General, OFFICE OF THE ATTORNEY GENERAL OF
SOUTH CAROLINA, Columbia, South Carolina, for Appellees. Joseph B. Warden,
Wilmington, Delaware, Daniel A. Tishman, FISH & RICHARDSON P.C., Washington,
D.C., for Amici Curiae.

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AGEE, Circuit Judge:

After the district court denied Steven Vernon Bixby’s initial 28 U.S.C. § 2254

petition, he obtained new counsel and filed a motion to reopen that judgment under Federal

Rule of Civil Procedure 60(b). He argued that exceptional circumstances warranted this

relief because his original § 2254 counsel had, in effect, abandoned him by submitting a §

2254 petition that omitted several potentially meritorious issues and inadequately presented

the issues that had been raised. He asked the court to reopen the judgment and allow him

to file additional briefing and new claims.

The district court concluded that Bixby’s motion was not a true Rule 60(b) motion.

Rather, Bixby was attempting to use Rule 60(b) to circumvent the statutory limits placed

on second or successive § 2254 petitions. Recognizing that it would lack jurisdiction to

consider a second § 2254 petition, the district court denied Bixby’s motion without

considering its merits.

Bixby now appeals, and for the reasons set out below, we agree with the district

court’s conclusion that it lacked jurisdiction to consider Bixby’s Rule 60(b) motion because

he effectively sought to file a second or successive § 2254 petition, something that a district

court cannot authorize. Because we also conclude that the district court should have

dismissed Bixby’s motion rather than deny it, we vacate the district court’s order and

remand with instructions to dismiss.

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I.

A.

Amidst a dispute involving the state of South Carolina’s claim to a right of way

across the Bixby family property, Bixby and his father shot and killed two law enforcement

officers. State v. Bixby, 698 S.E.2d 572, 535–39 (S.C. 2010).

After Bixby and his parents learned of the state’s plan to expand a road across their

property, they resisted construction efforts and responded with threats of violence. Id. at

536. So state officials scheduled a meeting with the Bixbys to discuss the construction

plans, which they asked law enforcement to mediate. Id. at 536–37. The day before the

meeting, Bixby told others that he and his family had been planning an armed altercation

for some time, that “[t]omorrow” they intended to shoot “anybody [who] comes in the

yard,” and that “if the shooting starts I won’t come out alive.” Id. at 577.

The next day, when law enforcement approached the Bixby home, Bixby and his

father shot and killed two officers. In the hours that followed, Bixby and his father engaged

in an armed stand-off with additional law enforcement officers, but surrendered late in the

evening after law enforcement “returned fire and shot tear gas into the home.” Id. at 578.

For his role in these events, Bixby was indicted in South Carolina state court on

multiple counts, and the State sought the death penalty for the two murders. Id. at 578. A

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jury found Bixby guilty on all counts and recommended a sentence of death for each

murder. Id. The trial judge agreed and sentenced Bixby to death. Id. 1

On direct appeal, the Supreme Court of South Carolina affirmed the convictions and

imposition of the death penalty. Id. at 578–89. Two of the five justices dissented on two

issues implicating constitutional concerns related to sentencing. Id. at 589–91 (Pleicones,

J., dissenting). The dissenting justices would have vacated the death sentences and

remanded for a new sentencing proceeding. Id.

Bixby later filed a timely state petition for post-conviction relief (PCR), which the

PCR court denied. The Supreme Court of South Carolina denied certiorari.

B.

Bixby, through counsel, filed documents indicating an intent to file a federal petition

for writ of habeas corpus under § 2254 and requested that counsel be appointed to represent

him during those proceedings. A magistrate judge granted Bixby’s request for appointed

counsel, selecting two attorneys from the District of South Carolina’s Criminal Justice Act

Death Penalty Panel Attorney List, Miller Williams Shealy, Jr., and William H. Monckton,

VI (collectively “initial § 2254 counsel”). They prepared a § 2254 petition setting out

twenty-nine enumerated claims, all but one of which had been raised in the state PCR

proceedings. Although the petition was seventy-six pages in length, the first ten pages

reflected responses to the form § 2254 petition provided to pro se petitioners and recounted

1
Charges were also brought against Bixby’s parents relating to these events. His
father was found incompetent to stand trial and he died in prison. His mother was convicted
of being an accessory before the fact to murder and criminal conspiracy. She was sentenced
to life imprisonment and has also since died.
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basic case information and procedural history. The next sixty-one pages were copied and

pasted from the state-court decision and PCR filings, which recounted the factual and

procedural narrative as well as background information related to the investigation and

Bixby’s social history. The final substantive pages raised issues that had been brought and

rejected in the state PCR proceedings. Instead of providing any analysis or argument about

these issues, though, the petition simply “incorporate[d] by reference” the arguments

relating to those issues that had been presented in the state PCR filings. J.A. 1320. The

initial § 2254 petition also identified one new issue for the district court’s consideration:

whether trial counsel had provided ineffective assistance based on a purported failure to

protect Bixby’s rights under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). With the district

court’s permission, initial § 2254 counsel filed a supplemental eight-page memorandum

laying out arguments in greater detail supporting that issue. Later, in response to the State’s

116-page memorandum supporting summary judgment as to all claims, initial § 2254

counsel filed a nine-page memorandum asserting that the petition had established adequate

grounds for a hearing, particularly as to the ADA-related claim.

A magistrate judge prepared a report and recommendation (the MR&R) on the

§ 2254 petition. Before addressing the merits of the summary judgment motion, the

magistrate judge observed that the § 2254 petition had failed to frame the issues in the light

necessary to obtain relief under the Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of

1996 (AEDPA). This Act requires that federal courts review claims by state prisoners to

determine “whether the state court’s ruling on [the issues] is the result of unreasonable

factual findings or an unreasonable application of federal law.” Bixby v. Stirling, No. 4:17-

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cv-00954-BHH-TER, 2019 WL 8918824, at *17 (D.S.C. Jan. 11, 2019) (citing § 2254(d)).

Because state prisoners can only obtain relief upon such a showing, the magistrate judge

undertook that analysis for each of Bixby’s claims and recommended granting summary

judgment to the State and denying relief on all claims.

In response to the MR&R, Bixby’s initial § 2254 counsel filed a seventeen-page set

of objections.

The district court adopted the MR&R, granted summary judgment to the State, and

denied habeas relief. But the district court also chastised Bixby’s initial § 2254 counsel,

observing that the § 2254 “[p]etition is largely a conglomeration of” “others’ writing[s]”

and failed to discuss how to apply § 2254(d)’s standards to the issues raised. Bixby v.

Stirling, No. 4:17-cv-954-BHH, 2021 WL 783660, at *5 (D.S.C. Mar. 1, 2021). Despite

these concerns, however, the district court engaged in an extensive, § 2254-centered

analysis of the claims Bixby had raised, issuing a thorough decision before denying relief.

Bixby then filed a Rule 59(e) motion for reconsideration, which the district court

denied in part and granted in part. The limited grant related solely to the district court’s

failure to rule on whether a certificate of appealability (COA) should be issued, as required

by 28 U.S.C. § 2253. The district court then amended its order to deny Bixby a COA as to

any claim.

Bixby appealed the denial of his initial § 2254 petition and new counsel was

appointed to represent him before this Court. But we denied Bixby a COA and dismissed

his appeal. Bixby v. Stirling, No. 21-5, 2022 WL 4494130 (4th Cir. Apr. 29, 2022), cert.

denied, 143 S. Ct. 2468 (2023) (mem.).

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C.

While Bixby’s appeal from the denial of his § 2254 petition was pending before this

Court, the new counsel who had been appointed to represent him in that appeal moved to

be appointed to represent him “for any remaining actions required in the district court and

any subsequent and available post-conviction process.” Motion for Appointment of

Counsel at 2, Bixby, No. 4:17-cv-00954-BHH, ECF No. 153. The district court granted the

motion “for the limited purpose of filing in this Court a motion pursuant to Rule 60 of the

Federal Rules of Civil Procedure.” Text Order, Bixby, No. 4:17-cv-00954-BHH, ECF No.

155.

Thereafter, Bixby’s newly appointed § 2254 counsel (current counsel in this case)

filed a Rule 60(b) motion in the district court seeking relief from the final judgment denying

his § 2554 petition. Bixby argued that he did not receive “meaningful, ethical

representation,” J.A. 1826, from his initial § 2254 counsel and thus satisfied Rule

60(b)(6)’s “any other reason justifying relief” standard, J.A. 1834. 2 Specifically, he

contended that the initial § 2254 counsel had essentially abandoned him by filing a

defective § 2254 petition that failed to raise potentially meritorious direct appeal claims or

make other arguments to obtain relief under § 2554(d). Bixby asked the court to grant relief

2
Bixby’s Rule 60(b) motion also requested the district court grant relief pursuant to
Rule 60(b)(1)’s “excusable neglect” standard. On appeal, Bixby has not raised a Rule
60(b)(1) claim. Thus, he abandoned the issue. See A Helping Hand, LLC v. Baltimore Cnty.,
515 F.3d 356, 369 (4th Cir. 2008).
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so that the new § 2254 counsel could investigate and then provide new briefing to raise

“additional claims as may be appropriate.” J.A. 1851. 3

The district court denied Bixby’s motion. Looking to the text of Rule 60(b)(6),

§ 2254(d), and Supreme Court and out-of-circuit cases analyzing the interplay between the

two provisions, the court concluded that Bixby’s motion was not a true Rule 60(b) motion.

Because “[t]he motion repeatedly indicate[d] an intent to raise new grounds for habeas

relief,” the district court concluded it was a § 2254 petition “couched” in the language of

Rule 60(b) so as to get around the statutory limits on second and successive § 2254

petitions. Bixby v. Stirling, No. 4:17-cv-954-BHH, 2022 WL 2905509, at *3 (D.S.C. July

22, 2022). In the court’s view, “where the [Rule 60(b)] motion premises a right to relief

on habeas counsel’s substandard performance in advocating the § 2254 standard, it clearly

implicates, albeit indirectly, the Court’s prior adjudication of [Bixby]’s habeas claims on

the merits and seeks a second determination of those claims, along with the new claims,

after better advocacy.” Id. It concluded that although labeled as a Rule 60(b) motion,

Bixby’s motion “is in substance an unauthorized successive habeas petition over which

[the district court] lack[ed] jurisdiction” given that only this Court has the power to

authorize second or successive § 2254 petitions. Id. at *3–4. The district court then denied

Bixby’s Rule 60(b) motion and denied a COA. Id. at *4.

3
The motion did not specify what claims would be added, but alluded to adding
claims related to the two issues that had divided the South Carolina Supreme Court in his
direct appeal as well as unknown claims under Martinez v. Ryan, 566 U.S. 1 (2012).
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Bixby noted a timely appeal, asking this Court to grant a COA from the district

court’s denial of his Rule 60(b) motion. We issued a briefing order and calendared the case

for oral argument.

II.

The dispositive issue in this appeal is whether the district court erred in concluding

that it lacked jurisdiction to consider Bixby’s Rule 60(b) motion because he sought to

present an unauthorized second § 2254 petition. We review de novo whether the district

court properly construed Bixby’s Rule 60(b) motion as an unauthorized second habeas

petition. See United States v. McRae, 793 F.3d 392, 397 (4th Cir. 2015). But before turning

to Bixby’s specific arguments, we discuss the relevant legal context that forms the

backdrop for this case.

A.

AEDPA establishes strict requirements for state and federal prisoners seeking a

federal writ of habeas corpus. State prisoners’ claims that they are being held “in custody

in violation of the Constitution or laws or treaties of the United States” must be brought

under 28 U.S.C. § 2254. § 2254(a).

Applicants may file one timely § 2254 petition without seeking prior authorization,

but after having done so, they are barred from bringing additional claims in a “second or

successive habeas corpus application under section 2254” unless the claims meet certain

substantive requirements and the petitioner has first obtained a COA from the appropriate

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court of appeals. § 2244. 4 The rules for obtaining authorization are also rigid, and largely

irrelevant to our review. Of note, however, in addition to requiring petitioners to obtain

authorization from the appropriate court of appeals before filing a second or successive

§ 2254 petition in district court, § 2244 also makes clear that district courts must (“shall”)

dismiss any second or successive § 2254 petition or claim that the court of appeals has not

authorized. § 2244(b).

B.

While AEDPA specifically governs a prisoner’s habeas petition, Rule 60 of the

Federal Rules of Civil Procedure governs civil actions of all kinds, permitting relief from

a district court’s judgment or order under certain circumstances. Subsection (b) of that rule

delineates five specified grounds for relief ranging from mistake to fraud. See Fed. R. Civ.

P. 60(b)(1)–(5). A sixth catch-all provision permits district courts to grant relief for “any

other reason that justifies” it. Fed. R. Civ. P. 60(b)(6). Although Rule 60(b)(6) “provides

the court with a grand reservoir of equitable power to do justice in a particular case,” Reid

v. Angelone, 369 F.3d 363, 374 (4th Cir. 2004) (cleaned up), the Supreme Court has

cautioned that it requires “extraordinary circumstances [to] justify reopening” a judgment,

Kemp v. United States, 142 S. Ct. 1856, 1861 (2022) (cleaned up). Thus, despite Rule

60(b)(6)’s “open-ended language,” the Supreme Court has “firmly reined in” the

4
The substantive limits on a second or successive § 2254 petition are not at issue in
this case, nor has Bixby asserted that the claims he seeks to add would satisfy these
requirements.
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provision’s scope by requiring extraordinary circumstances to invoke it. Moses v. Joyner,

815 F.3d 163, 168 (4th Cir. 2016).

C.

Sometimes petitioners attempt to use Rule 60(b) as a means to present new claims

or arguments in favor of habeas relief that were not presented in their initial federal habeas

petition. And some petitioners can satisfy Rule 60(b)’s criteria for when a judgment can be

reopened even though they cannot satisfy § 2244’s restrictions on when a second or

successive habeas petition can be filed. Courts have grappled over this tension between

Rule 60(b) and § 2244.

In Gonzalez v. Crosby, 545 U.S. 524 (2005), the Supreme Court considered the

interplay between AEDPA’s limits on second or successive federal habeas petitions and

Rule 60(b) relief. It cautioned that Rule 60(b)(6) motions could not be used as a vehicle for

“‘circumvent[ing] the requirement[s]’ for securing relief under AEDPA.” Moses, 815 F.3d

at 168 (second alteration in original) (quoting Gonzalez, 545 U.S. at 532). The Supreme

Court therefore recognized that as between AEDPA and Rule 60(b), the balance weighs

heavily in favor of AEDPA finality. Richardson v. Thomas, 930 F.3d 587, 595 (4th Cir.

2019) (“The Gonzalez analysis of the interplay between § 2244(b) and Rule 60(b) . . .

reflects the unquestionable primacy of § 2244(b).”). 5 For this reason, the Supreme Court

5
That’s no surprise, in part, because statutes take priority over the federal rules.
Gonzalez, 545 U.S. at 529 (“Rule 60(b), like the rest of the Rules of Civil Procedure,
applies in habeas corpus proceedings under 28 U.S.C. § 2254 only ‘to the extent that [it is]
not inconsistent with’ applicable federal statutory provisions and rules. 28 U.S.C. § 2254
Rule 11; see Fed. R. Civ. P. 81(a)(2).” (alteration in original) (footnote omitted)).
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noted that Rule 60(b)(6)’s requisite “extraordinary circumstances” would “rarely occur in

the habeas context.” Gonzalez, 545 U.S. at 535. So, although the Supreme Court recognized

that Rule 60(b) motions can be brought in habeas cases, it warned that a court could only

grant such motions when doing so would not be inconsistent with AEDPA. Id. at 530–35.

Throughout Gonzalez, the Supreme Court remained alert to the expectation that

artfully worded Rule 60(b) motions would require courts to look behind both the title and

the text to the motion’s objective to determine whether it aimed to end-run AEDPA. For

that reason, the Court instructed that a district court’s first task when presented with a Rule

60(b) motion in a habeas case must be to consider whether the filing “is in substance a

successive habeas petition and [thus] should be treated accordingly.” Id. at 531.

To aid in this process, the Supreme Court provided multiple examples of when a

filing labeled as a “Rule 60(b) motion” would substantively be a “habeas corpus

application” or “at least similar enough that failing to subject it to the same requirements

would be ‘inconsistent with’” AEDPA. Id. The Court observed that some Rule 60(b)

motions may attack the district court’s prior reasoning or attempt to add “one or more

‘claims.’” Id. at 530–31. Or they might indirectly attempt to do the same by asserting that

due to an attorney or party’s “excusable neglect,” the initial “habeas petition had omitted a

claim of constitutional error, and seek leave to present that claim.” Id. at 531. Likewise,

Rule 60(b) movants may argue that a post-judgment change in law warrants relief so as to

present that newly available claim. Id. In each of these scenarios, the Supreme Court

recognized that the motions sounded substantively in habeas because they “attack[ed] the

federal court’s previous resolution of a claim on the merits, since alleging that the court

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erred in denying habeas relief on the merits is effectively indistinguishable from alleging

that the movant is, under the substantive provisions of the statutes, entitled to habeas

relief.” Id. at 532 (footnote omitted). The Supreme Court instructed that filings of this ilk

cannot proceed under the mantle of a Rule 60(b) motion and instead must be subjected to

AEDPA’s requirements. Id.

The Supreme Court contrasted disguised habeas petitions from “true” Rule 60(b)

motions in the habeas context. A “true” Rule 60(b) motion would not attack the resolution

of a prior § 2254 petition on the merits. Instead, a “true” Rule 60(b) motion would challenge

“some defect in the integrity of the federal habeas proceedings.” Id. at 532. As examples,

the Court cited a motion that asserts that “a previous ruling which precluded a merits

determination was in error” such as a district court’s denial of habeas relief for “failure to

exhaust, procedural default, or statute-of-limitations bar,” id. at 532 n.4, or “fraud,” id. at

532 n.5. It observed that “true” Rule 60(b) motions would not “assert, or reassert, claims

of error in the movant’s state conviction,” and that a motion “challeng[ing] only the District

Court’s failure to reach the merits” could be considered without running afoul of AEDPA.

Id. at 538. In further parsing this distinction, the Supreme Court observed that “an attack

based on the movant’s own conduct[] or his habeas counsel’s omissions ordinarily does

not go to the integrity of the proceedings, but in effect asks for a second chance to have the

merits determined favorably.” Id. at 532 n.5 (internal citation omitted).

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D.

1.

With these governing principles firmly in mind, we turn to Bixby’s argument that

the district court erred in concluding that it lacked jurisdiction to consider his Rule 60(b)

motion because the motion sought to reargue and add claims for § 2254 relief. Bixby

contends that the district court should not have focused so extensively on whether his Rule

60(b) motion sought a “re-do” of his initial habeas petition because all Rule 60(b) motions

seek to reopen and reconsider the court’s judgment in some form. He further avers that

whatever rules customarily forbid Rule 60(b) relief based on a federal habeas counsel’s

conduct do not preclude relief here because of the extent and nature of his initial § 2254

counsel’s errors. As support for this argument, Bixby emphasizes that Gonzalez merely

cautioned that “ordinarily” claims based on attorney deficiencies would not attack the

integrity of the initial habeas proceedings, thus leaving the door open for particularly

egregious mistakes to do so, and thus present a “true” Rule 60(b) motion. Cf. Gonzalez,

545 U.S. at 531 n.5. He also points to out-of-circuit cases recognizing that Rule 60(b) relief

remains available when federal habeas counsel abandons a client.

Bixby maintains that his case falls within Gonzalez’s “ordinarily” caveat and this

out-of-circuit precedent because his initial § 2254 counsel omitted claims with potential

merit and submitted largely copied-and-pasted material without addressing the key legal

issues under AEDPA’s framework. Thus, he argues that his initial § 2254 counsel’s failings

constitute a procedural defect in the original proceedings because they prevented the

district court from reaching the merits of a claim for relief. As such, he maintains that his

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motion is a “true” Rule 60(b) motion attacking the integrity of the federal habeas

proceeding, that the district court thus had jurisdiction to consider his Rule 60(b) motion,

and that this Court should vacate the district court’s order and remand for the district court

to decide whether his Rule 60(b) motion should be granted on the merits of whether it

presents “extraordinary circumstances” warranting relief from the initial judgment denying

his § 2254 petition.

2.

Under Gonzalez, the type of attorney-error argument Bixby makes in his Rule 60(b)

motion “ordinarily” would be treated as a second or successive habeas petition over which

the district court lacked jurisdiction. As a threshold observation, the district court’s

judgment denying the initial § 2254 petition resolved each of Bixby’s claims on the merits,

thus making it all the more likely that any Rule 60(b) motion seeking to revisit that

judgment would be in tension with AEDPA’s limits on second or successive habeas

petitions. See Gonzalez, 545 U.S. at 533 (observing that “[i]f neither the motion itself nor

the federal judgment from which it seeks relief substantively addresses federal grounds for

setting aside the movant’s state conviction, allowing the motion to proceed as denominated

creates no inconsistency with the habeas statute or rules” (emphasis added)); Franqui v.

Florida, 638 F.3d 1368, 1371 (11th Cir. 2011) (understanding Gonzalez to establish that

“[w]hen . . . a federal habeas court has already reached and resolved the merits of a habeas

petitioner’s earlier asserted claims, we look at a [Rule] 60(b) motion challenging that

decision with particular skepticism”).

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The substance of Bixby’s Rule 60(b) motion confirms that he “seeks to revisit the

federal court’s denial on the merits of a claim for relief,” something that Gonzalez

repeatedly states “should be treated as a successive habeas petition.” 545 U.S. at 534. As

Gonzalez recognized, “[u]sing Rule 60(b) to present new claims for relief from a state

court’s judgment of conviction—even claims couched in the language of a true Rule 60(b)

motion—circumvents AEDPA’s requirement that a new claim be dismissed unless it relies

on either a new rule of constitutional law or newly discovered facts” and “[t]he same is

true” of a Rule 60(b) motion that attempts to raise new arguments in support of prior claims.

Id. at 531 (citation omitted). In both circumstances, the movant wants a district court that

has already denied relief on the merits to take another look at whether to grant relief on the

merits. Bixby’s Rule 60(b) motion, which ultimately seeks that very reconsideration, falls

squarely within Gonzalez’s heartland as a motion that is subjected to AEDPA’s restrictions.

This is so even though Bixby’s Rule 60(b) motion does not directly present new

arguments or claims in favor of § 2254 relief. The Supreme Court’s concern about

circumventing AEDPA is no less present when a petitioner uses Rule 60(b) as the means

for future filings that would circumvent AEDPA than when the motion itself does so. The

end result is the same, and impermissible in either case. Gonzalez observed how claims

“couched in the language of a true Rule 60(b) motion” nonetheless sought the district

court’s permission to consider new arguments or claims in support of federal habeas relief.

Id. The inconsistency with AEDPA is the core problem, and the “couch[ing]” to create

distance between the Rule 60(b) motion’s grounds and how it runs afoul of § 2244’s limits

is merely an effort to obfuscate that inconsistency. See id. at 531–32. Other circuit courts

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applying Gonzalez have recognized the same: “Potential inconsistency with AEDPA looms

even where . . . a Rule 60(b) motion does not itself raise new claims for habeas relief, but

rather seeks permission to do so in further proceedings.” Franqui, 638 F.3d at 1371. Under

either scenario, “Gonzalez tells us that, even though such a motion may not directly assert

errors in the petitioner’s underlying conviction, it still must be treated as a second or

successive petition.” Id. at 1371–72; accord Edwards v. Davis, 865 F.3d 197, 204–05 (5th

Cir. 2017) (per curiam) (holding that a Rule 60(b) motion, which claimed that federal

habeas counsel abandoned his client by failing to bring additional claims in a § 2254

petition that was denied on the merits, was not a true Rule 60(b) motion because it sought

“to re-open the proceedings for the purpose of adding new claims,” which “is the definition

of a successive claim”); Post v. Bradshaw, 422 F.3d 419, 424 (6th Cir. 2005) (“It makes

no difference that the motion itself . . . purports to raise a defect in the integrity of the

habeas proceedings, namely his [federal habeas] counsel’s failure—after obtaining leave

to pursue discovery—actually to undertake that discovery; all that matters is that

[petitioner] is ‘seek[ing] vindication of’ or ‘advanc[ing]’ a claim by taking steps that lead

inexorably to a merits-based attack on the prior dismissal of his habeas petition.”

(alterations in original)). 6

6
It seems likely that Bixby’s proposed Rule 60(b) motion runs afoul of AEDPA in
another way as well. AEDPA states that “[t]he ineffectiveness or incompetence of counsel
during Federal or State collateral post-conviction proceedings shall not be a ground for
relief in a proceeding arising under section 2254.” § 2254(i); see also 28 U.S.C. § 2261(e)
(prohibiting the same in the case of prisoners in state custody subject to a capital sentence
who have been appointed counsel during their federal habeas petitions). Thus, “a
freestanding claim of ineffective assistance of [federal or] state habeas counsel . . . is not a
(Continued)
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3.

None of Bixby’s arguments to the contrary are convincing. At the outset, he argues

that this Court should not even reach the question of whether his Rule 60(b) motion is

cognizable, and instead should hold only that the district court erred in concluding that it

lacked jurisdiction to consider a claim of attorney abandonment. That argument fails

because it assumes that the question of the district court’s jurisdiction to consider Bixby’s

Rule 60(b) motion can be untethered from ascertaining whether his particular argument is

properly characterized as a “true” Rule 60(b) motion or an unauthorized second or

successive federal habeas petition. Because Gonzalez instructs that a district court must

“first” assure itself of jurisdiction, 545 U.S. at 530, and it does so by assessing the substance

of the petitioner’s motion, that inquiry necessarily rests on the specific nature of Bixby’s

arguments. In short, whether Bixby’s Rule 60(b) motion is cognizable as such is part and

parcel of determining whether the district court correctly determined it lacked jurisdiction

over his motion. See Richardson, 930 F.3d at 597 (“[U]ntil the district court determines

permissible avenue of relief in a federal habeas petition.” Samples v. Ballard, 860 F.3d
266, 275 (4th Cir. 2017) (citation omitted). Although Bixby does not present a freestanding
claim that he is entitled to § 2254 relief on the basis of his initial § 2254 counsel’s
performance, he does argue that he is entitled to “other relief in” his § 2254 proceedings
(i.e., grant of a Rule 60(b) motion to reopen the judgment denying his § 2254 petition) on
that basis. And where AEDPA’s limits on available forms of “relief” conflicts with Rule
60(b), Gonzalez reiterates that AEDPA controls. This provision bolsters our conclusion
that Bixby’s Rule 60(b) motion does not present a “true” Rule 60(b) motion. See Post, 422
F.3d at 422–24 (citing § 2254(i) and Gonzalez’s primacy-of-AEDPA holding as a basis for
concluding that “AEDPA denies the federal courts the power to entertain” a petitioner’s
Rule 60(b) motion predicated on the ineffectiveness or incompetence of federal habeas
counsel). Because we dispose of Bixby’s claims under other AEDPA provisions, we need
not further consider this potential independent bar.
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whether the Rule 60(b) motion filed by the habeas petitioner is in actuality a disguised

§ 2244 motion [i.e., a request for authorization to bring a second or successive § 2254

petition], it cannot determine whether it has jurisdiction to . . . decide whether the motion

satisfies Rule 60(b)’s requirements of timeliness and extraordinary circumstances.”).

Bixby also argues that it’s wrong to consider that his motion would cause the district

court to reexamine its initial judgment because every Rule 60(b) motion ultimately seeks

to “reopen” or “reconsider” an earlier judgment. That may be. But however Rule 60(b)

operates as a general matter, Gonzalez unquestionably restricts the circumstances in which

it can be invoked in the habeas context to those motions attacking “some defect in the

integrity of the federal habeas proceedings.” 545 U.S. at 532. The examples the Court

provided overwhelmingly involved circumstances where the district court did not reach a

merits determination on the original § 2254 petition and instead relied on some procedural

defect or alternative basis for denying relief. See id. at 533 & n.6. For example, the Supreme

Court pointed to Rule 60(b) motions seeking to “relieve parties from the effect of a default

judgment mistakenly entered against them” or “to obtain vacatur of a judgment that is void

for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction.” Id. at 534. Similarly, the Court observed that the

Rule 60(b) motion at issue before it “allege[d] that the federal courts misapplied the federal

statute of limitations,” a determination that had precluded merits adjudication of the § 2254

petition. Id. at 533. In each of these examples, although the Rule 60(b) motion sought to

reopen a judgment, the basis for doing so was unrelated to the substantive claims in the

original habeas petition as both the original judgment and the Rule 60(b) motion addressed

other matters. A true Rule 60(b) motion in the habeas context will not ask for a second

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adjudication on the initial claims or a first adjudication of new substantive claims, but

rather will ask the court to remove barriers that had earlier precluded an adjudication on

the merits of the initial claims. See id. at 534.

In Gonzalez, the Supreme Court speculated as a theoretical matter that Rule 60(b)

may be available in the habeas context in a very rare set of undefined circumstances when

the district court had previously reached a merits determination. For example, the Supreme

Court recognized fraud as a potential defect in the integrity of the federal habeas

proceedings. Id. at 532 n.5. Specifically, it discussed a scenario where a witness puts forth

a fraudulent basis for refusing to appear at the federal habeas proceeding, and the district

court enters an initial judgment on the merits then presented to it. So, granting the Rule

60(b) motion upon a showing of fraud would result in a new, but permissible, merits

determination, but it would not implicate § 2244’s limits on second or successive habeas

petitions. First, the motion itself would relate to a “nonmerits aspect of the first habeas

proceeding” and, second, the relief sought would be “confine[d] . . . to [reopening] the first

federal habeas petition” for a new merits determination absent the fraud rather than altering

the substantive claims that the district court was asked to consider as part of its review. See

id. at 534.

Fatally for Bixby, this necessary consistency with AEDPA does not exist here,

where Bixby alleges that sub-par representation in his initial § 2254 habeas petition poses

a cognizable flaw in the integrity of the federal habeas proceeding. Bixby’s argument about

the poor quality of his initial § 2254 counsel’s performance cannot be untethered from his

core objective of changing the contents of his first federal habeas petition (by bolstering

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arguments and adding new claims) and ultimately seeking a different disposition on the

merits determination from that of the first habeas petition. As such, the substance of his

motion squarely implicates § 2244’s limits on second or successive habeas petitions in a

way that Gonzalez’s conception of a “true” Rule 60(b) motion does not. 7 Gonzalez

recognized that Rule 60(b) motions like Bixby’s, which ultimately are based on “habeas

counsel’s omissions” in the original § 2254 proceedings, “ordinarily do[] not go to the

integrity of the proceedings, but in effect ask[] for a second chance to have the merits

determined favorably.” Id. at 532 n.5 (citation omitted); see also Coleman v. Stephens, 768

F.3d 367, 371–72 (5th Cir. 2014) (per curiam) (distinguishing a Rule 60(b) motion

argument that counsel was ineffective in failing to find and present evidence to support

7
Our holding in Cavalieri v. Virginia, No. 20-6287, 2022 WL 1153247 (4th Cir.
Apr. 19, 2022) (per curiam), highlights the difference Gonzalez deems essential. There,
federal habeas counsel submitted a § 2254 petition that—“for reasons that remain[ed]
unknown”—was missing more than half its pages when filed on the district court’s docket.
Id. at *1. The district court dismissed the petition, and Cavalieri moved under Rule 60(b)
to reopen, arguing “that the district court erred by not addressing all the arguments in his
§ 2254 petition” on the merits, observing “that some of the pages appeared to have been
misplaced by the court because he had mailed in a complete petition,” and attaching “to his
motion a complete copy of his § 2254 petition.” Id. Although the district court denied the
motion, we reversed and “remand[ed] with instructions to grant the motion and permit
Cavalieri to refile his § 2254 petition with the missing pages.” Id. at *3.
In holding that Rule 60(b) relief should have been granted, we observed that the
motion was a “true Rule 60(b) motion” because it challenged a “defect in the integrity of
the federal habeas proceedings” that had precluded the district court from deciding the
§ 2254 petition on the merits. Id. at *1–2 (citation omitted). Important to our conclusion
was the reflection in the record that the § 2254 petition Cavalieri wanted the district court
to consider on the merits in the first instance was “the same petition” he’d originally filed—
“the only substantive difference being the addition of the missing pages.” Id. at *1; see id.
at *3 (noting that the record made clear “that the complete version of the § 2254 petition is
a copy of the same document (with the missing pages included) and not a new petition that
Cavalieri drafted in an attempt to present more claims”).
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claims in an initial habeas petition (which would “sound[] in substance” and thus not be a

true Rule 60(b) motion) from an argument that “the court or prosecution prevented

[counsel] from presenting such evidence” (which might present a procedural claim

cognizable in a Rule 60(b) motion)).

Bixby’s basis for seeking Rule 60(b) relief does not fall outside this “ordinar[]y”

rule. Neither the Supreme Court nor we have had occasion to flesh out when an attack on

federal habeas counsel’s conduct might fall within this limited, undefined, and theoretical

caveat. But no court of appeals has interpreted “ordinarily” to mean that movants can use

Rule 60(b) to reopen habeas proceedings based on arguments about the quality of federal

habeas counsel’s conduct when the initial federal habeas petition resulted in a merits denial.

And, at bottom, that’s the basis on which Bixby seeks relief.

Bixby relies heavily on the Second Circuit’s decision in Harris v. United States, 367

F.3d 74 (2d Cir. 2004), to argue that his claim is cognizable, but this pre-Gonzalez decision

does not support his ability to obtain relief in a post-Gonzalez world.

In Harris, federal habeas counsel had filed a § 2255 motion and obtained an

unfavorable merits determination. The petition omitted several claims that the petitioner

argued had potential merit, including two sentencing issues that the sentencing judge had

conceded were “debatable” and “would probably be grounds for appeal.” Id. at 78. In

addition, initial federal habeas counsel submitted a declaration as part of the Rule 60(b)

motion in which he “confess[ed] his ineffectiveness” in handling the initial § 2255

proceeding. Id. at 82. Although recognizing that complete abandonment by counsel could

serve as a proper basis for relief under Rule 60(b) without running afoul of AEDPA’s limits

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on second or successive habeas petitions—and, again, without the benefit of Gonzalez—

the Second Circuit nonetheless affirmed the denial of Rule 60(b) relief. Id. In its view,

“nothing in the record or in [counsel’s] declaration suggests that his performance

approached a level of deficiency that could remotely be deemed ‘abandonment’ and

therefore an ‘extraordinary circumstance’” under Rule 60(b)(6). Id.

Whatever broader principle Harris may have stood for before Gonzalez, in

Gonzalez, the Supreme Court cited Harris as an example of a case in which the petitioner

brought a Rule 60(b) motion that, “although labeled a Rule 60(b) motion, is in substance a

successive habeas petition and should be treated accordingly,” 545 U.S. at 531, because it

“s[ought] to add a new ground for relief,” id. at 532. Harris, therefore, offers Bixby no

refuge in light of Gonzalez. 8

What’s more, even if we were to accept that actual abandonment could be a proper

basis for Rule 60(b) relief—something that we do not decide today—that is not what Bixby

8
The Eleventh Circuit has cited Harris favorably as a theoretical basis for
permitting an attorney-abandonment-based Rule 60(b) motion post-Gonzalez, but it has not
to date concluded that any claim asserting abandonment has actually shown abandonment.
For example, in Franqui, the court rejected a petitioner’s argument that he presented a true
Rule 60(b) motion by arguing that initial federal habeas counsel had repeatedly promised
to include a certain claim in the initial habeas petition but had not only failed to do so, but
also failed to inform his client about that omission in subsequent conversations about the
petition. 638 F.3d at 1372. In so holding, the Eleventh Circuit observed, “Gonzalez does
not allow us to take so broad a view [as petitioner asserts] of what constitutes a defect in
the integrity of federal habeas proceedings” and “[w]e do not consider Petitioner’s
allegations to be out of the ordinary” given that he does not allege “that the actual omission
of the . . . claim was, in fact, intentional.” Id. Franqui thus supports our conclusion that
even if Gonzalez carves out potential room for claims of attorney abandonment to present
a claim attacking the integrity of the federal habeas proceedings, “abandonment” is strictly
understood as something other than an attack on the quality of representation. Omitted
claims and poor arguments are not enough. See id.
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alleges. Bixby’s initial § 2254 counsel filed a § 2254 petition identifying numerous claims

challenging the constitutionality of Bixby’s continued detention. Counsel pursued the

action through several pleadings and briefs and obtained a merits determination analyzing

(and rejecting) those claims under AEDPA. While Bixby now argues that counsel could

have presented these claims better and differently, and that counsel could have pursued

additional claims too, none of those arguments reflect that his initial § 2254 counsel

“abandoned” Bixby. In short, Bixby’s arguments go to the quality rather than the non-

existence of representation during his initial § 2254 proceeding. And that makes all the

difference under Gonzalez.

To recap, Bixby asks us to hold that his claim falls within the narrow exception

implied by Gonzalez’s use of the word “ordinarily” in which inept briefing by counsel

would be the basis to attack the integrity of the proceedings in such a way as to be a true

Rule 60(b) motion. We decline this invitation, however, because Bixby’s motion relies on

Rule 60(b) to do something he could not do under AEDPA—challenge the quality of his

initial § 2254 counsel’s representation to get a district court to take a second look at merits

of his § 2254 petition, which he also seeks to modify. Given the direct conflict between

AEDPA and Rule 60(b) principles governing that question, Gonzalez instructs that AEDPA

prevails. Therefore, the district court correctly determined it lacked jurisdiction to consider

Bixby’s Rule 60(b) motion, which it properly construed to be an unauthorized second or

successive § 2254 petition.

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III.

A.

Having determined that the district court correctly recognized that Bixby did not

bring a true Rule 60(b) motion and that his motion was properly subjected to AEDPA’s

limits on a second or successive habeas petition, we turn to the question of the proper

disposition. Given that Bixby’s motion actually sought permission to raise new and revised

claims in a second or successive § 2254 petition, § 2244 and our case law reflect that the

district court should have dismissed—not denied—the motion. 9

We begin with the text of § 2244, which circumscribes which claims may be raised

in a second or successive § 2254 petition and prescribes the mechanism for raising those

claims. In short, before filing a second or successive § 2254 petition, a petitioner must

obtain authorization to do so from the appropriate court of appeals. § 2244(b)(3). And a

court of appeals can only authorize a second or successive § 2254 petition if the claims

meet the statutory criteria. § 2244(b)(2). Most important for our purposes, AEDPA

demands that district courts presented with an unauthorized second or successive § 2254

petition “shall . . . dismiss[]” that petition, regardless of whether the petition restates prior

claims, § 2244(b)(1), or raises new claims, § 2244(b)(2). We thus know that the district

9
We note that not all procedural bars to proceeding under Rule 60(b) require
dismissal; we are speaking solely to the issue presented here, where there’s a jurisdictional
bar under AEDPA to the district court’s consideration of the motion on the merits. See,
e.g., Moses, 815 F.3d at 164–69 (affirming denial of a Rule 60(b) motion on the grounds
that it was untimely under Rule 60(c) and that a change of law did not constitute
“exceptional circumstances” warranting reopening under Rule 60(b)(6)).
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court would have been required to dismiss—not deny—an unauthorized second or

successive § 2254 petition.

Here, of course, Bixby did not formally file a second or successive § 2254 petition,

but the district court properly determined that his Rule 60(b) motion was, in substance, just

that. What’s more, the court properly recognized that under the above-cited provisions of

§ 2244, it lacked jurisdiction to consider an unauthorized second or successive § 2254

petition. We have previously recognized that if a filing labeled as a Rule 60(b) motion is

“tantamount to” an application for habeas corpus, then “the court must either dismiss the

motion for lack of jurisdiction or transfer it to this court so that we may perform our

gatekeeping function under § 2244(b)(3).” United States v. Winestock, 340 F.3d 200, 207

(4th Cir. 2003), abrogated in part on other grounds by McRae, 793 F.3d 392; cf.

Richardson, 930 F.3d at 589, 597–98 (concluding that a Rule 60(b) motion was the

“functional equivalent of a [second or successive] § 2254 petition,” which meant the

district court was “required to either dismiss the motion or transfer it to this court so that

we could consider it under our gatekeeping function”); Franqui, 638 F.3d at 1370–71, 1375

(observing that the district court’s denial of Rule 60(b) relief was erroneous under Gonzalez

because he “did not qualify to seek Rule 60(b) relief” given that his motion arguing that

federal habeas counsel’s gross negligence or abandonment led to the omission of a viable

claim was properly understood as an attempt to bring an unauthorized second or successive

§ 2254 petition, and vacating the judgment and remanding “with instructions to dismiss

Petitioner’s motion for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction”).

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Given the nature and scope of Bixby’s motion, the district court should have

dismissed the motion. Therefore, we vacate the district court’s order denying relief and

remand the case with instructions to dismiss for lack of subject matter jurisdiction.

B.

We conclude by addressing a matter that would ordinarily be a threshold inquiry—

whether we were required to grant Bixby a COA before considering his appeal. 10 The

parties disagree on this threshold determination for establishing our own jurisdiction, and

we acknowledge that applying the district court’s order to our existing case law encounters

some ambiguity. This is so because we have held that an appeal from the denial of a Rule

60(b) motion in the habeas corpus context requires issuance of a COA. Reid, 369 F.3d at

369. But this Court has also held that two Supreme Court cases issued after Reid, combined

with the difference between a denial and a dismissal, meant that a COA is not required to

review a district court’s order dismissing a Rule 60(b) motion for lack of jurisdiction when,

under Gonzalez, the district court concludes the motion improperly seeks to circumvent

AEDPA. McRae, 793 F.3d at 400.

The dilemma in applying this precedent here stems directly from the district court’s

correct recognition that it could not consider the Rule 60(b) motion on the merits because

it lacked jurisdiction to consider what amounted to an unauthorized second or successive

10
Under § 2253(c)(1)(A), a COA is required for a habeas applicant to obtain
appellate review of “the final order in a habeas corpus proceeding in which the detention
complained of arises out of process issued by a State court.” Where it applies, the COA
requirement is jurisdictional. Miller-El v. Cockrell, 537 U.S. 322, 336 (2003) (“[U]ntil a
COA has been issued federal courts of appeals lack jurisdiction to rule on the merits of
appeals from habeas petitioners.”).
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habeas petition combined with its incorrect choice to deny rather than dismiss the motion.

Thus, while the basis for the district court’s decision indicates that McRae should control

whether a COA is required, its bottom-line disposition leaves some room for arguing that

Reid controls.

For several reasons, we conclude that we need not issue a COA to consider Bixby’s

appeal. To start, except for the designation to deny the motion, the order at issue in this

case is substantively unlike the order at issue in Reid, and nearly identical to the order at

issue in McRae. In Reid, the district “court denied the purported Rule 60(b) motion on the

merits, and this Court raised the jurisdictional issue sua sponte after granting a COA.”

McRae, 793 F.3d at 400 n.7. Read in context, Reid’s discussion of why a COA was required

to consider an order denying a Rule 60(b) motion referred specifically to an order denying

the motion on the merits, and the relationship that such an order has to an underlying § 2254

petition and the COA requirements. See Reid, 369 F.3d at 367–70. In contrast, and as was

true in McRae, the appeal in this case challenges a different “type” of order—one that does

not reach the merits of whether Rule 60(b) relief is appropriate based on the presence or

absence of “extraordinary circumstances,” but instead concluded both that the district court

“lack[ed] jurisdiction” to do so, Bixby, 2022 WL 2905509, at *3, and specifically

“construed [the motion] as an unauthorized successive habeas petition,” id. at *4. Accord

McRae, 793 F.3d at 396. The substance of the order here is on all fours with the substance

of the order at issue in McRae. In all practical respects, the reason why a COA was required

in Reid holds no applicability here, while the reason why a COA was not required in McRae

seems to apply with equal force here. See id. at 399–40. This observation does not discount

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the genuine difference between a denial and a dismissal generally speaking; it only notes

that in this case, the district court’s “denial” was not what it appeared to be at first glance.

See id. (“When a district court denies a Rule 60(b) motion on the merits, it necessarily

considers the merits of the underlying habeas petition. . . . The same cannot be said about

a dismissal of a Rule 60(b) motion on jurisdictional grounds. No one can say right now

whether McRae’s habeas proceeding was with merit or without based on the district court’s

dismissal.”).

As noted, given that the district court properly characterized the Rule 60(b) motion

as an unauthorized second § 2254 petition and it correctly determined that it lacked

jurisdiction as a result, it was obliged to dismiss Bixby’s motion or transfer it to this Court

for us to perform our gatekeeping function for requests for authorization to file a second or

successive petition. See infra Section III.A. Had the district court followed our precedent

on the disposition that necessarily followed from its conclusion that it lacked jurisdiction,

this case would have squarely fallen under McRae’s holding that a COA is not required,

and thus avoided any subsequent confusion about whether a COA was required for us to

consider Bixby’s appeal. See 793 F.3d at 400 (“[W]e need not issue a COA before

determining whether the district court erred in dismissing [a] purported Rule 60(b) motion

as an unauthorized successive habeas petition.”).

Lastly, we observe that McRae followed from two Supreme Court cases—including

Gonzalez—which had been issued after Reid. Just as McRae recognized that these two

decisions narrowly abrogated Reid in the context of a jurisdictional dismissal of a Rule

60(b) motion, id. at 400 n.7, the same two decisions abrogate Reid in the current slightly

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different context as well. In McRae, this Court explained how the two Supreme Court cases

clarified the interplay between AEDPA’s COA requirement and orders deciding Rule 60(b)

motions, and that analysis would apply equally to the circumstances presented here. See id.

at 399 (“Gonzalez mandates that we treat true Rule 60(b) motions differently from

successive habeas petitions, and Harbison [v. Bell, 556 U.S. 180 (2009),] holds that only

final orders with a sufficient nexus to the merits of a habeas petition trigger the COA

requirement. In other words, Gonzalez reveals the importance of distinguishing between

Rule 60(b) motions and successive petitions, and Harbison opens the door for us to ensure

that the district court does so properly.”); see also id. at 400 n.7.

We therefore conclude that it was not necessary for us to grant a COA before

deciding Bixby’s appeal.

IV.

For these reasons, the district court properly construed Bixby’s Rule 60(b) motion

to be an unauthorized second or successive § 2254 petition over which it lacked

jurisdiction. Because the court should have dismissed Bixby’s motion, we vacate its order

and remand with instructions to dismiss for lack of subject matter jurisdiction.

VACATED AND REMANDED
WITH INSTRUCTIONS

31