Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca6-07-05942/USCOURTS-ca6-07-05942-0/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 550
Nature of Suit: Prisoner - Civil Rights (U.S. defendant)
Cause of Action: 

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The Honorable Frederick P. Stamp, Jr., United States District Judge for the Northern District of West Virginia,

sitting by designation.

RECOMMENDED FOR FULL-TEXT PUBLICATION

Pursuant to Sixth Circuit Rule 206

File Name: 08a0114p.06

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE SIXTH CIRCUIT _________________

JOHN E. CARTER,

Plaintiff-Appellant,

v.

LEON C. BURNS, JR., Criminal Court Judge, 13th

Judicial District of Tennessee, et al.

Defendants-Appellees.

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No. 07-5942

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the Middle District of Tennessee at Nashville.

No. 07-00597—Aleta Arthur Trauger, District Judge.

Submitted: February 15, 2008

Decided and Filed: March 18, 2008 

Before: MARTIN and NORRIS, Circuit Judges; STAMP, District Judge.*

_________________

COUNSEL

ON BRIEF: John E. Carter, Mountain City, Tennessee, pro se. 

_________________

OPINION _________________

BOYCE F. MARTIN, Circuit Judge. John E. Carter, a Tennessee prisoner proceeding pro

se, appeals a district court judgment dismissing his civil rights action filed under 42 U.S.C. § 1983.

This case has been referred to a panel of the court pursuant to Rule 34(j)(1), Rules of the Sixth

Circuit. Upon examination, this panel unanimously agrees that oral argument is not needed. Fed.

R. App. P. 34(a). 

Carter brought this § 1983 action against fourteen judges and justices of the Tennessee

Criminal Court, Tennessee Court of Criminal Appeals, and Tennessee Supreme Court in their

official capacities. Carter sought a declaratory order that the State of Tennessee is constitutionally

mandated to provide him with an adequate corrective process to bring a constitutional challenge to

his convictions following the clarification of the “premeditation” and “deliberation” elements of

first-degree murder in State v. Brown, 836 S.W.2d 530, 537-43 (Tenn. 1992). Since the Brown

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No. 07-5942 Carter v. Burns Page 2

clarification, Carter has filed numerous habeas corpus and other post-conviction challenges to his

convictions in state court, in which his Brown-based constitutional claims have been rejected as not

cognizable in the type of proceeding in which he brought them or as barred by the statute of

limitations. According to Carter, the Tennessee statutes governing collateral review, Tenn. Code

Ann. §§ 29-21-107, 40-26-105, 40-30-107, and 40-30-117, “facially and/or as enforced and

applied,” are unconstitutional under the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments because these statutes

deprive him of all opportunity for judicial review and redress of his Brown-based constitutional

claims. 

Upon initial screening, the district court concluded that it lacked jurisdiction to review the

state-court determinations under the Rooker-Feldman doctrine and dismissed Carter’s complaint for

failure to state a claim upon which relief may be granted under 28 U.S.C. § 1915A(b). Pursuant to

Federal Rules of Civil Procedure 52(b) and 59, Carter filed a motion for reconsideration, which was

denied by the district court. This timely appeal followed. 

Given that it is a matter of law, we review de novo the district court’s dismissal based on

Rooker-Feldman grounds. McCormick v. Braverman, 451 F.3d 382, 389 (6th Cir. 2006), cert.

denied, 128 S. Ct. 41 (2007). Under Rooker-Feldman, we lack jurisdiction to review state-court

judgments except in certain cases not appropriate here. D.C. Ct. Of App. v. Feldman, 460 U.S. 462,

476 (1983); Rooker v. Fid. Trust Co., 263 U.S. 413, 415-16 (1923). The Rooker-Feldman doctrine

denies federal jurisdiction to “cases brought by state-court losers complaining of injuries caused

by state-court judgments rendered before the district court proceedings commenced and inviting

district court review and rejection of those judgments.” Exxon Mobil Corp. v. Saudi Basic Indus.

Corp., 544 U.S. 280, 284 (2005). This circuit has interpreted that limitation to mean that the

Rooker-Feldman doctrine applies only when a plaintiff complains of injury from the state-court

judgment itself. Coles v. Granville, 448 F.3d 853, 858 (6th Cir. 2006), and thus we deny

jurisdiction.

The Rooker-Feldman doctrine “does not prohibit federal district courts from exercising

jurisdiction where the plaintiff’s claim is merely a general challenge to the constitutionality of the

state law applied in the state action, rather than a challenge to the law’s application in a particular

state case.” Hood v. Keller, 341 F.3d 593, 597 (6th Cir. 2003) (internal quotation marks omitted).

Carter alleged that the Tennessee statutes governing collateral review, “facially and/or as enforced

and applied,” are unconstitutional. Specifically, Carter alleged that Tenn. Code Ann. § 29-21-107,

the statute governing petitions for a writ of habeas corpus, and Tenn. Code Ann. § 40-30-117, the

statute governing motions to reopen a post-conviction petition, violate the Eighth and Fourteenth

Amendments in that a constitutional claim of factual innocence based on the clarification of

substantive law is not cognizable under those statutes. Carter likewise alleged that Tenn. Code Ann.

§ 40-26-105, the statute governing petitions for a writ of error coram nobis, violates the Eighth and

Fourteenth Amendments in that a constitutional claim of factual innocence based on the clarification

of substantive law can be barred by the one-year statute of limitations. The Rooker-Feldman

doctrine does not apply to Carter’s facial challenge to the constitutionality of these Tennessee

collateral review statutes, Tenn. Code Ann. §§ 29-21-107, 40-26-105, and 40-30-117. See Howard

v. Whitbeck, 382 F.3d 633, 640 (6th Cir. 2004). The district court thus erred in summarily

dismissing Carter’s facial challenge to the Tennessee statutes.

The district court however correctly dismissed Carter’s as-applied challenge to the

constitutionality of the Tennessee collateral review statutes as barred by the Rooker-Feldman

doctrine. Carter’s alleged injury – that the Tennessee courts deprived him of judicial review and

redress for his constitutional claims – is an injury from the prior state-court determinations that his

constitutional claims were not cognizable or were otherwise barred. See Raymond v. Moyer, 501

F.3d 548, 551-52 (6th Cir. 2007). Accordingly, the district court lacked jurisdiction over Carter’s

as-applied constitutional challenge under the Rooker-Feldman doctrine. 

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No. 07-5942 Carter v. Burns Page 3

Thus, the district court’s opinion is affirmed in part and vacated in part, and this case is

remanded for further proceedings. 

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