Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca9-07-15536/USCOURTS-ca9-07-15536-0/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 535
Nature of Suit: Habeas Corpus - Death Penalty
Cause of Action: 

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FOR PUBLICATION

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

THEODORE WASHINGTON,

Petitioner-Appellant,

v.

CHARLES L. RYAN,

Respondent-Appellee.

Nos. 05-99009

07-15536

D.C. No.

CV-95-02460-

JAT

OPINION

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the District of Arizona

James A. Teilborg, Senior District Judge, Presiding

Argued July 11, 2013

Submitted September 8, 2014

Seattle, Washington

Filed June 17, 2015

Before: Alex Kozinski, Ronald M. Gould

and N. Randy Smith, Circuit Judges.

Opinion by Judge Gould

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2 WASHINGTON V. RYAN

SUMMARY*

Habeas Corpus/Death Penalty

The panel dismissed as untimely Arizona death row

inmate Theodore Washington’s appeal from the district

court’s judgment denying his habeas corpus petition (appeal

number 05-99009), and affirmed the district court’s denial of

Washington’s motion to vacate the judgment under Fed. R.

Civ. P. 60(b) (appeal number 07-15536).

The panel dismissed appeal number 05-99009 because

Washington’s notice of appeal was not timely filed under

Fed. R. App. P. 4(a)(1)(A), a mandatory and jurisdictional

time limit. The panel held that Washington’s motion for a

certificate of appealability cannot be construed as a motion

for an extension of time under Fed. R. App. P. 4(a)(5)(A)(i).

In appeal number 07-15537, the panel affirmed the denial

of Washington’s Rule 60(b) motion because the district court

did not abuse its discretion in holding that a Rule 60(b)

motion was not available to extend the time allowed to file a

notice of appeal on the facts here. Rejecting Washington’s

contention that his situation satisfies Rule 60(b)(1)’s

authorization for relief from judgment in a case of “excusable

neglect,” the panel held that where a party files a Rule 60(b)

motion solely to render a notice of appeal timely, and the

motion seeks relief on grounds identical to those offered by

Rule 4(a), Rule 60(b) motions may not be used to escape the

time limits for appeal. The panel also held that the district

* This summary constitutes no part of the opinion of the court. It has

been prepared by court staff for the convenience of the reader.

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WASHINGTON V. RYAN 3

court did not err in finding that Washington cannot establish

“extraordinarycircumstances” justifying relief fromjudgment

under Rule 60(b)(6), where Washington’s attorney’s

negligence leading to the late filing of the appeal did not

amount to attorney abandonment.

COUNSEL

Gilbert H. Levy (argued), Law Offices of Gilbert H. Levy,

Seattle, Washington, for Petitioner-Appellant.

Jeffrey A. Zick, Assistant Attorney General, Phoenix,

Arizona; Laura Chiasson (argued) and Nicholas Klingerman,

Assistant Attorneys General, Office of the Arizona Attorney

General, Tucson, Arizona, for Respondent-Appellee.

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4 WASHINGTON V. RYAN

OPINION

GOULD, Circuit Judge:

Theodore Washington, an Arizona death row inmate,

appeals the district court’s judgment denying his petition for

a writ of habeas corpus under 28 U.S.C. § 2254 (appeal

number 05-99009) as well as the district court’s order

denying Washington’s motion to vacate the judgment under

Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 60(b) (appeal number 07-

15536). We dismiss appeal number 05-99009 because

Washington’s notice of appeal was not timely filed under

Federal Rule of Appellate Procedure 4(a)(1)(A), a mandatory

and jurisdictional time limit. We affirm the denial of

Washington’s Rule 60(b) motion in appeal number 07-15536

because the district court did not abuse its discretion in

determining that under the circumstances here, a Rule 60(b)

motion is not available for the purpose of extending the time

allowed to file an appeal.

Because his attorney did not properly calculate a filing

deadline, Theodore Washington has lost his chance for

appellate review of his habeas petition. In his appeal, he

would have raised issues similar to those raised by one of his

co-defendants, on which another panel of our court ordered

a new penalty-phase trial. See Robinson v. Schriro, 595 F.3d

1086, 1113 (9th Cir. 2010). Because we do not have

jurisdiction to hear Washington’s appeal in appeal number

05-99009, and because the district court did not abuse its

discretion in denying Washington’s Rule 60(b) motion in

appeal number 07-15536, we do not reach the question of

whether the district court erred in denying Washington’s

habeas petition.

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WASHINGTON V. RYAN 5

I

In 1987, Washington and two co-defendants, Fred

Robinson and Jimmy Lee Mathers, traveled together from

California to Arizona. Two of them entered a home, robbed

it, and shot the two inhabitants, killing one and seriously

wounding the other. The three men were convicted of first

degree murder, attempted first degree murder, aggravated

assault, residential burglary, and robbery while armed with a

deadly weapon. Following an aggravation–mitigation

hearing, the trial judge sentenced all three to death. At trial,

the prosecution argued that Mathers and Washington entered

the home, while Robinson remained outside. At sentencing,

the trial court stated that Mathers was the triggerman.

The Arizona Supreme Court affirmed the convictions of

Robinson and Washington on direct appeal in State v.

Robinson, 796 P.2d 853 (Ariz. 1990). That opinion recounts

that both victims were shot by a firearm belonging to

Robinson, and cites testimony circumstantially identifying

Washington as threatening the inhabitants with a handgun and

subsequently “ransack[ing]” the house. Id. at 857–58. In a

companion case, the Arizona Supreme Court reversed

Mathers’s conviction. State v. Mathers, 796 P.2d 866 (Ariz.

1990). It held that there was not sufficient evidence to

support the finding that Mathers was involved in the crime,

and explicitly found that Robinson and Washington had

entered the home. Id. at 873.

Robinson filed state and federal post-conviction relief

petitions, and eventually won relief in the Ninth Circuit. 

Robinson, 595 F.3d at 1090–91. Relying on the trial court’s

factual premise that Washington and Mathers entered the

home, id. at 1091–94, we held that the state trial court’s

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6 WASHINGTON V. RYAN

application of the “cruel, heinous, and depraved” aggravating

factor was arbitrary and capricious, and that Robinson

received ineffective assistance of counsel at the sentencing

phase of the joint trial, id. at 1100–12. We granted his

petition for a new penalty-phase trial. Id. at 1113.

The state trial court denied Washington’s initial postconviction relief petition. He filed a petition for a writ of

habeas corpus in the District of Arizona, which found that

some of the claims he raised in the petition were procedurally

barred and denied relief on the remainder. Washington filed

a motion to amend the judgment, which the district court

denied in an order filed June 8, 2005. Rule 4(a)’s 30-day

deadline to file a notice of appeal from that judgment expired

on Friday, July 8.

On Monday, July 11th, one business day after the 30-day

deadline, Washington filed a notice of appeal along with a

motion for a certificate of appealability (“COA”). The

district court granted a COA for three of his claims:

1) whether the trial court erred in denying Washington’s

motion to sever his trial from those of his co-defendants,

2) whether the “cruel, heinous, and depraved” sentencing

factor had been arbitrarily and capriciously applied, and

3) whether Washington received constitutionally ineffective

assistance of counsel during the penalty phase of the trial. In

response to our order to show cause why the appeal should

not be dismissed as untimely, Washington filed a motion in

the district court to vacate the district court’s judgment under

Rule 60(b), and we stayed the show-cause order until the

resolution of the 60(b) motion.

The district court denied Washington’s 60(b) motion, and

Washington timely appealed that decision. We vacated the

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WASHINGTON V. RYAN 7

district court’s order and issued a limited remand directing

the district court to replace Washington’s counsel of record

and to re-hear the 60(b) motion because the district court

lacked jurisdiction to hear the motion without a remand order

from the original untimely appeal. The district court re-heard

and again denied Washington’s 60(b) motion, and

Washington again timelyappealed. We discharged our showcause order with respect to timeliness, granted a certificate of

appealability, and this appeal followed.

We stayed proceedings in this case pending the Supreme

Court’s resolution of two potentially relevant cases: Maples

v. Thomas, 132 S. Ct. 912 (2012), and Martinez v. Ryan,

132 S. Ct. 1309 (2012). After the opinions in those two

decisions were issued, we requested and received

supplemental briefing on their impact on Washington’s

claims. Our court then issued its decision in Mackey v.

Hoffman, 682 F.3d 1247 (9th Cir. 2012), which relied on

Maples to hold that attorney abandonment could constitute an

extraordinary circumstance justifying post-judgment relief

under Rule 60(b)(6). We heard argument1and then requested

and received supplemental briefing addressing a potential

intra-circuit conflict between Mackey and In re Stein,

197 F.3d 421 (9th Cir. 2000).

We issued a limited remand order for the district court to

determine whether the late filing of the notice of appeal was

attorney abandonment such that relief would be available

under Mackey’s limited exception. The district court

1 This case was originally assigned to a panel of Judge Betty Fletcher,

Judge Harry Pregerson, and Judge Sidney Thomas, which handled all preargument motions. After the death of Judge Betty Fletcher, the case was

reassigned to the current panel.

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8 WASHINGTON V. RYAN

determined that the late filing was due to a miscalculation of

the filing deadline by a legal secretary in the office of the

Federal Public Defender. It held that this miscalculation was

mere negligence, not the kind of abandonment necessary to

sever the agency relationship between attorney and client and

allow for relief under Mackey. The district court then

returned the case to us.

II

Federal Rule of Appellate Procedure 4(a)(1)(A) requires

parties in civil cases to file a notice of appeal within 30 days

of the entry of judgment, a time limit that was codified in the

habeas statutes at 28 U.S.C. § 2107(a). Because it is a

statutory deadline, failure to meet it “deprive[s] the Court of

Appeals of jurisdiction.” Bowles v. Russell, 551 U.S. 205,

213 (2007).2

2 We have previously commented on the repercussions of the

jurisdictional nature of Rule 4(a)’s statutory deadlines. In United States

ex rel. Haight v. Catholic Healthcare West, 602 F.3d 949 (9th Cir. 2010),

we faced a case where “our circuit precedent gave . . . 60 days to file a

notice of appeal. Relying on [that precedent], Plaintiffs filed their notice

of appeal 51 days after the entry of judgment. At that time, we would

have deemed their appeal timely. But while this appeal was pending, the

Supreme Court held that . . . plaintiffs in such cases have only 30 days to

appeal.” Id. at 952–53 (citing United States ex rel. Eisenstein v. City of

New York, 556 U.S. 928, 936–37 (2009)). We dismissed the appeal for

lack of jurisdiction, noting that, because the Supreme Court had

“expressly refused to limit its decision to prospective application,”

recognized that potential for “harsh consequences,” and denied the

possibility of equitable relief, we were bound to apply its holding. Id. at

953. However, we felt compelled to note that “[i]t is a serious

understatement to call this result ‘inequitable.’” Id. (quoting Bowles,

551 U.S. at 214).

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WASHINGTON V. RYAN 9

Washington concedes that his notice of appeal was filed

one day late, which generally would end the inquiry. 

However, Rule 4(a)(5)(A) permits the district court to

“extend the time to file a notice of appeal if: (i) a party so

moves no later than 30 days after the time prescribed by this

Rule 4(a) expires; and (ii) . . . that party shows excusable

neglect or good cause.” Washington contends that his motion

for a COA should be construed as a motion for an extension

of time under Rule 4(a)(5). Because the motion for a COA

was filed less than 30 days after the expiration of the period

for filing a notice of appeal in Rule 4(a)(1), it would meet

Rule 4(a)(5)(A)(i)’s timing requirement if it were so

construed.

We decline to do so.3 We agree that, particularly in cases

involving the death penalty or pro se litigants, “[a]ny

submission signed by a party that may fairly be read as a

request to the district court to exercise its discretionary

powers to permit a late appeal should suffice.” Campos v.

LeFevre, 825 F.2d 671, 676 (2d Cir. 1987). But even that low

bar is not met here. Our precedent follows the general rule

that an untimely notice of appeal may not be construed as a

motion for an extension of time. Pettibone v. Cupp, 666 F.2d

333, 335 (9th Cir. 1981); see also Campbell v. White,

721 F.2d 644, 646 & n.3 (8th Cir. 1983) (gathering extracircuit cases for the same proposition). We see no logical

reason to treat motions for a COA as an exception to this

well-established rule, and no circuit case to date has done so.

3 Because we hold that Washington’s motion for a COA cannot be

construed as a motion for an extension of time, we need not and do not

reach the question of whether the miscalculation of the filing deadline was

“excusable neglect or good cause” under Rule 4(a)(5)(A)(ii).

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10 WASHINGTON V. RYAN

But even if we were to consider such a possibility,

Washington’s motion for a COA here did not indicate that it

was intended to serve as a motion for an extension of time. 

See Bordallo v. Reyes, 763 F.2d 1098, 1101–02 (9th Cir.

1985) (holding that “a court must construe whether a motion,

however styled, is appropriate for the relief requested”). The

motion for a COA does not mention timeliness and does not

imply a need for additional time for any reason. Nor could it

reasonably be so construed: when Washington’s motion for

a COA was filed, Washington’s counsel believed that the

notice of appeal was timely filed and did not think that there

was need for an extension of time.

Because Washington’s motion for a COA cannot be

construed as a motion for an extension of time, his notice of

appeal does not meet the mandatory and jurisdictional time

limits in Rule 4(a), and we are without jurisdiction to

consider his appeal of the district court’s denial of his petition

for habeas corpus. We therefore dismiss appeal number 05-

99009.

III

Washington’s 60(b) motion requested that the district

court “vacate the judgment it entered on June 8, 2005

[denying Washington’s petition for a writ of habeas corpus],

and reenter that judgment nunc pro tunc as of June 9, 2005,”

thereby making timely Washington’s notice of appeal. 

Washington articulates two grounds for such relief. First, he

argues that his situation satisfies Rule 60(b)(1)’s

authorization for relief from judgment in cases of “mistake,

inadvertence, surprise, or excusable neglect.” Fed. R. Civ. P.

60(b)(1). Second, he argues that his untimely filing resulted

from “extraordinary circumstances” that fall into Rule

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WASHINGTON V. RYAN 11

60(b)(6)’s catch-all provision. See Gonzalez v. Crosby,

545 U.S. 524, 535 (2005). We affirm the district court’s

denial of Washington’s 60(b) motion. See Stein, 197 F.3d at

424 (“We review the district court’s denial of [a Rule 60(b)

motion] for abuse of discretion.”).

A

Washington argues in his Rule 60(b) motion that the

circumstances here meet the requirements of Rule 60(b)(1). 

However, even if the situation is in fact a case of “excusable

neglect,” that prong of Rule 60(b)(1) is not an avenue by

which a party can extend the time periods allowed for filing

a notice of appeal, so we must affirm the denial of

Washington’s Rule 60(b) motion. See Stein, 197 F.3d at 424.

Stein involved a group of creditors in a bankruptcy case

who did not file a timely notice of appeal from a judgment of

the district court in favor of the debtor. Id. at 423. The

creditors alleged that they had not been given notice of the

entry of judgment until after the 30-day deadline for the filing

of a notice of appeal had passed. Id. We discussed the ways

in which Rule 4 permits parties to extend the time for filing

a notice of appeal, including Rule 4(a)(5)’s option to file a

motion for extension of time within an additional 30-day

period, and Rule 4(a)(6)’s “outer limit” which gives the

district court the option to reopen the time to file a notice of

appeal if a party did not receive notice of the judgment

against it. Id. at 424–25. We held that, “on the facts of this

case relief was not available under Rule 60(b) because the

exclusive remedies for a failure to file a timely notice of

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12 WASHINGTON V. RYAN

appeal due to a lack of notice of entry of the judgment or

order were contained in Rule 4(a).” Id. at 424.4

We reach the same result here. Though Stein explicitly

addressed only situations in which a lack of notice of

judgment was the ground for the Rule 60(b) motion, the

case’s logic and the language of Rule 4(a) and Rule 60(b)

support the same conclusion that Stein reached. As we

discussed above, Rule 4(a)(5)(A) permits the district court to

“extend the time to file a notice of appeal if: (i) a party so

moves no later than 30 days after the time prescribed by this

Rule 4(a) expires; and (ii) . . . that party shows excusable

neglect or good cause.” Fed. R. App. P. 4(a)(5)(A). Rule 60

also provides for relief from judgment for “excusable

neglect,” Fed. R. Civ. P. 60(b)(1), but permits such motions

to be filed up to a year after entry of the judgment from which

relief is sought, id. R. 60(c)(1). As the Third Circuit has

persuasively explained:

Rule 4(a) is a specific procedural rule,

governing appellate practice, based on a

statutory declaration, 28 U.S.C. § 2107,

prescribing the time within which an appeal

from a district court order must be taken. 

Rule 60(b) is a general procedural rule, of

applicability to district courts, allowing for

relief from judgments. It is a fundamental

4 This is the majority rule in our sister circuits. See 16A Charles Alan

Wright, Arthur R. Miller & Edward H. Cooper, Federal Practice &

Procedure 3950.3 at nn.37–47 (4th ed. 2014) (citing cases for the

proposition that the tactic of bringing a Rule 60(b) motion “for no purpose

but to induce the district court to vacate and re-enter the underlying

judgment and thereby re-start the time to appeal” is “clearly forbidden in

all Circuits, save perhaps, the Sixth.” (internal quotation marks omitted)).

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WASHINGTON V. RYAN 13

principle of statutory construction that the

specific language controls over general

language. Under this principle, Rule 4(a), and

not Rule 60(b), controls the time within which

an appeal must be taken. Also, to allow a

party to rely on Rule 60(b) as an alternative to

the time constraints of Rule 4(a) would have

the substantive effect of nullifying the

provisions of Rule 4(a)(5). Competing

statutes should not, if at all possible, be

interpreted so that the provisions of one will

abrogate the provisions of another.

West v. Keve, 721 F.2d 91, 96 (3d Cir. 1983) (internal

citations omitted); see also Dunn v. Cockrell, 302 F.3d 491,

491–93 (5th Cir. 2002) (per curiam) (holding that motions

under Rule 60(b)(1) may not be used to evade the time limits

of Rule 4(a) in a case with a procedural posture similar to

Washington’s).

If we permitted Washington to gain relief under Rule

60(b)(1), it would render the escape hatch already included in

Rule 4(a)(5) almost unnecessary, and would also evade the

time limits in that rule, because excusable neglect could allow

an exemption from the Rule 4(a) time limits up to a year after

judgment, far beyond the 30 day extension of the time to

appeal that Rule 4(a)(5) allows in cases of excusable neglect. 

We do not read the law to permit this, and conclude that

where a party files a Rule 60(b) motion solely to render a

notice of appeal timely, and the motion seeks relief on

grounds identical to those offered by Rule 4(a), Rule 60(b)

motions may not be used to escape the time limits for appeal. 

As discussed in Part II above, Washington did not file a

motion that can be construed as a motion for extension of

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14 WASHINGTON V. RYAN

time under Rule 4(a)(5), and he does not allege that he did not

receive notice of the judgment against him, so Rule 4(a)(6)

does not apply to his situation. The district court did not

abuse its discretion when it rejected Washington’s Rule

60(b)(1) motion that had tried to avoid the consequences of

an untimely notice of appeal.

B

Although a showing of excusable neglect under Rule

60(b)(1) cannot be used to render a notice of appeal timely,

we have not entirely foreclosed using Rule 60(b) for that

purpose. We have held that 60(b)(6) can be used to remedy

an untimely notice of appeal on a showing of “extraordinary

circumstances.” See Mackey, 682 F.3d at 1251. However,

we conclude that the district court did not err in finding that

Washington cannot establish extraordinary circumstances

here, so the district court did not abuse its discretion in

denying Washington’s motion.

In Mackey, we faced the problem of a habeas petitioner

whose attorney filed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus in

federal court under 28 U.S.C. § 2254 but stopped litigating

the case because Mackey’s parents did not pay his legal fees. 

Id. at 1248–50. Because the attorney neither filed an appeal

of the district court’s denial of the habeas petition nor alerted

Mackey to the fact that judgment had been entered against

him, Mackey forfeited his opportunity to appeal. Id. A new

attorney sought to revive this lost chance by filing a motion

under Rule 60(b) to re-enter the denial of the habeas petition

and restart the time allowed for an appeal under Rule 4(a). 

Id. The district court held that Stein deprived it of discretion

to consider a Rule 60(b) motion filed only to remedy an

untimely appeal. Id. at 1250.

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WASHINGTON V. RYAN 15

We reversed. Id. at 1254. We noted that Stein’s holding

was based on the “tessellated scheme” of Rule 4(a) and

Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 77(d), regarding notice of

judgment. Id. at 1252 (quoting Stein, 197 F.3d at 426). 

Because Mackey’s appeal was untimely not for lack of notice,

but because his counsel had failed to continue representing

him in court—a scenario for which no rule parallel to Rule 77

exists—we concluded that the Federal Rules were not so

comprehensive as to leave no room for Rule 60(b)(6).

We recognized that “[a] federal habeas petitioner—who

as such does not have a Sixth Amendment right to counsel—

is ordinarily bound by his attorney’s negligence.” Id. at 1253

(quoting Towery v. Ryan, 673 F.3d 933, 941 (9th Cir. 2012)). 

However, we then reasoned from Maples, 132 S. Ct. at

923–24 (holding that attorney abandonment constitutes an

extraordinary circumstance that allows a federal court to

disregard the state procedural bar to hearing a habeas

petition), and Community Dental Services v. Tani, 282 F.3d

1164, 1169–71 (9th Cir. 2002) (holding that a defendant had

shown extraordinary circumstances where his attorney

disregarded his instructions and purposefully deceived him

about the progress of the proceedings), that “when a federal

habeas petitioner has been inexcusably and grossly neglected

by his counsel in a manner amounting to attorney

abandonment,” the petitioner may get relief through a motion

filed under Rule 60(b)(6), Mackey, 682 F.3d at 1253.

The Mackey panel remanded to the district court to

determine whether such abandonment had occurred, and our

panel did the same with Washington’s claims. On remand,

the district court reviewed the facts—including that

Washington’s attorney filed an untimely notice of appeal,

waited until (what he incorrectly believed to be) the final day

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16 WASHINGTON V. RYAN

to file that notice of appeal, had logged 260.9 hours that

month, relied on an assistant to calculate the filing deadline,

and was uncertain about the filing requirements. D. Ct. Dkt.

No. 167, at 4, Washington v. Ryan, No. CV-95-2460 (D. Ariz.

2013). It relied on Towery, 673 F.3d at 938, to find that “the

facts alleged here suggest mere negligence, not

abandonment,” because none of the allegations were so

serious as to constitute the kind of “inexcusable or gross

neglect” found in Mackey and Maples. D. Ct. Dkt. No. 167,

at 7–9.

We cannot conclude that the district court erred in finding

that Washington’s attorney did not abandon him. Unlike

counsel in Maples and Mackey, Washington’s attorney

worked diligently throughout the proceedings, and diligently

attempted to remedy the error he made once the untimely

filing was discovered. Further, the error, while serious in

consequence, is exactly the kind of behavior that has been

described as mere negligence in other situations, including

death penalty cases. See, e.g., Lawrence v. Florida, 549 U.S.

327, 336–37 (2007) (“Attorney miscalculation is simply not

sufficient to warrant equitable tolling, particularly in the postconviction context where prisoners have no constitutional

right to counsel.”).

Mackey holds that relief can be warranted as an

extraordinary circumstance under Rule 60(b)(6) when there

has been attorney abandonment, but the district court here on

limited remand found that there was no attorney

abandonment, and we agree. Attorney negligence leading to

late filing of an appeal is not the type of extraordinary

circumstance that warrants relief under Rule 60(b)(6). Nor

has Washington presented any other facts that would

constitute “extraordinarycircumstances” under 60(b)(6). We

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WASHINGTON V. RYAN 17

affirm the denial of Washington’s Rule 60(b) motion. We

stress that our analysis applies only to Rule 60(b) motions

filed for the sole purpose of vacating and reentering a

judgment to remedy an untimely notice of appeal.

IV

We dismiss Washington’s appeal in case number 05-

99009 because we do not have jurisdiction to entertain an

untimely notice of appeal and because Washington’s motion

for a COA cannot be construed as a motion for an extension

of time. We affirm the denial of Washington’s 60(b) motion

in case number 07-15536 because the district court did not

abuse its discretion in holding that a 60(b) motion was not

available to extend the time allowed to file a notice of appeal

on the facts here.5

DISMISSED IN PART, AFFIRMED IN PART.

5 We understand that Washington is foreclosed by his lawyer’s

negligence, under circumstances where a similarly situated co-defendant

received federal habeas corpus relief that prevented the death penalty

absent a corrected sentencing process. But our conclusion is required

under the Supreme Court’s precedent making the time limits for appeal

mandatory and jurisdictional, and our conclusion that Rule 60(b) cannot

be used to render a notice of appeal timely where Rule 4(a)(5) offers an

identical avenue for relief.

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