Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca10-16-03240/USCOURTS-ca10-16-03240-0/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 530
Nature of Suit: Prisoner Petitions - Habeas Corpus
Cause of Action: 

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UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS 

FOR THE TENTH CIRCUIT 

_________________________________ 

SIDNEY J. CLARK, JR., 

 Petitioner - Appellant, 

v. 

SAM CLINE, Warden; D. SCHMIDT, 

Attorney General of the State of Kansas, 

 Respondents - Appellees. 

No. 16-3240 

(D.C. No. 5:15-CV-03199-SAC-DJW) 

(D. Kan.) 

_________________________________ 

ORDER DENYING CERTIFICATE OF APPEALABILITY*

_________________________________ 

Before LUCERO, MATHESON, and BACHARACH, Circuit Judges. 

_________________________________ 

 Sidney Clark, a state prisoner appearing pro se, seeks a certificate of appealability 

(“COA”) to challenge the dismissal of his 28 U.S.C. § 2254 petition. We deny a COA 

and dismiss the appeal. 

I 

Clark was convicted of rape and aggravated burglary in Kansas state court in 

1984. He was sentenced to concurrent prison sentences of 45 years to life, and 15 to 60 

years. His conviction and sentence were affirmed by the Kansas Supreme Court in 1985. 

On March 26, 1997, Clark filed a motion for relief in Kansas state court, which was 

 *

 This order is not binding precedent, except under the doctrines of law of the 

case, res judicata, and collateral estoppel. It may be cited, however, for its 

persuasive value consistent with Fed. R. App. P. 32.1 and 10th Cir. R. 32.1. 

FILED 

United States Court of Appeals

Tenth Circuit 

December 6, 2016

Elisabeth A. Shumaker 

Clerk of Court

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denied on April 4, 1997. He then filed a motion to alter judgment on April 22, 1997. 

That motion was dismissed on March 9, 1998. The evidence in the record indicates that 

Clark sought no further relief until 2013. 

 In August 2015, Clark filed a § 2254 habeas petition in the U.S. District Court for 

the District of Kansas, asserting that new DNA testing cleared him of the rape charge. 

He also appeared to challenge the constitutionality of certain conduct during the trial, 

including the use of a prior rape conviction from Texas as evidence against him. The 

district court dismissed Clark’s petition as time-barred and denied a COA. Clark filed a 

timely application for a COA with this court. 

II 

A petitioner may not appeal the denial of habeas relief under § 2254 without a 

COA. § 2253(c)(1). If a habeas petition is disposed of on procedural grounds, we 

will issue a COA only if the petitioner shows both “that jurists of reason would find 

it debatable whether the petition states a valid claim of the denial of a constitutional 

right and that jurists of reason would find it debatable whether the district court was 

correct in its procedural ruling.” Slack v. McDaniel, 529 U.S. 473, 484 (2000). 

Under the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act (“AEDPA”), § 2254 

petitions must generally be filed within one year from the date a conviction becomes 

final. See § 2244(d)(1)(A). However, Clark’s conviction became final before the 

passage of AEDPA; thus, he had one year from AEDPA’s effective date—April 24, 

1996—to file a federal habeas petition, exclusive of any time tolled during the pendency 

of state post-conviction proceedings. Hoggro v. Boone, 150 F.3d 1223, 1225-26 (10th 

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Cir. 1998); § 2244(d)(2). Even assuming Clark’s 1997 state court motions tolled the 

limitations period until March 1998, his 2015 habeas petition was clearly time-barred. 

Although the petition was untimely, “a sufficiently supported claim of actual 

innocence creates an exception to procedural barriers for bringing constitutional claims, 

regardless of whether the petitioner demonstrated cause for the failure to bring these 

claims forward earlier.” Lopez v. Trani, 628 F.3d 1228, 1230-31 (10th Cir. 2010). A 

petitioner claiming actual innocence must “support his allegations of constitutional error 

with new reliable evidence—whether it be exculpatory scientific evidence, trustworthy 

eyewitness accounts, or critical physical evidence—that was not presented at trial.” 

Schlup v. Delo, 513 U.S. 298, 324 (1995). In light of this evidence, the petitioner “must 

show that it is more likely than not that no reasonable juror would have found petitioner 

guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.” Id. at 327. 

The district court correctly concluded that the new DNA evidence presented by 

Clark fails to clear this high hurdle. The only evidence in the record of DNA testing is a 

January 2010 report from the DNA Diagnostics Center, which analyzed a sample of 

Clark’s DNA against three samples presumably taken as evidence in the rape case. No 

male DNA was obtained from two of the samples tested, and only a partial DNA profile 

was obtained from the third. That profile was “consistent with the DNA profile obtained 

from Sidney Clark.” Thus, the Diagnostics Center concluded: 

Sidney Clark (item 04.A.1) cannot be excluded as a contributor to the 

partial DNA profile obtained from item 01.B.1s (section of swab from 

vaginal smear-sperm fraction). The probability of selecting an unrelated 

individual at random from the population having a DNA profile matching 

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the partial DNA profile obtained from item 01.B.1s . . . is approximately 1 

in 1,070,000 individuals. 

These results do not support the conclusion that Clark is actually innocent. Accordingly, 

the district court properly dismissed his habeas petition as time-barred. 

III 

For the foregoing reasons we DENY a COA and DISMISS the appeal. 

Entered for the Court 

Carlos F. Lucero 

Circuit Judge 

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