Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca10-92-06165/USCOURTS-ca10-92-06165-0/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 

TENTH CIRCUIT FILL .u 

United Stata Court of Appeal, Tenth Circuit 

BUFORD E. SHOWN, 

Petitioner-Appellant, 

v. 

STEPHEN KAISER; ATTORNEY GENERAL 

OF THE STATE OF OKLAHOMA, 

Respondents-Appellees. 

ORDER AND JUDGMENT* 

DECO 4 1992 

ROBERT L. HOECKER 

Clerk 

No. 92-6165 

(D.C. No. 92-CV-175) 

(W.D. Oklahoma) 

Before LOGAN, BARRETT and EBEL, Circuit Judges. 

After examining the briefs and appellate record, this panel 

has determined unanimously that oral argument would not materially 

assist the determination of this appeal. See Fed. R. App. P. 

34(a); 10th Cir. R. 34.1.9. The case is therefore ordered submitted without oral argument. 

Petitioner Buford E. Shown seeks to appeal a district court 

order dismissing without prejudice his petition for a writ of 

habeas corpus, filed pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2254, for failure to 

exhaust his available state remedies and failure to allege or show 

* This order and judgment has no precedential value and shall not 

be cited, or used by any court within the Tenth Circuit, except 

for purposes of establishing the doctrines of the law of the case, 

res judicata, or collateral estoppel. 10th Cir. R. 36.3. 

Appellate Case: 92-6165 Document: 010110149235 Date Filed: 12/04/1992 Page: 1 
that the exhaustion would be futile or that his petition comes 

within any other exception to the exhaustion requirement. We 

grant leave to proceed on appeal without prepayment of costs and 

fees, and also the application for a certificate of probable 

cause, so that we may consider subsequent developments. 

Petitioner's habeas corpus action in federal district court 

was filed during the pendency of his direct appeal of his conviction in the Oklahoma state court system. At the time the district 

court acted petitioner's direct appeal had not been decided. The 

federal petition apparently followed two prior state court petitions in which petitioner challenged the sufficiency of the evidence, alleged newly discovered evidence, and argued the incompetency of his counsel on the direct appeal in state court. His 

petitions in state court were denied as premature, and the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals declined to assume jurisdiction. 

Considering the circumstances, the federal district court determined that petitioner had failed to exhaust his state remedies and 

hence dismissed the petition, although without prejudice. 

Petitioner has now filed a copy of the decision of the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals handed down after the district 

court's order of dismissal of March 31, 1992. The opinion affirms 

defendant's conviction. Based upon that development, petitioner 

asserts that he has cured any default and that this court should 

deal with the merits of his claims. We grant petitioner's motion 

to take notice of that decision; we are entitled to take judicial 

notice of the opinion even in the absence of such a motion. We 

hold, however, that the state court opinion does not change the 

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Appellate Case: 92-6165 Document: 010110149235 Date Filed: 12/04/1992 Page: 2 
... 

posture of this case, except to make it now possible for the petitioner to raise his claims properly in state court postconviction 

proceedings. As the magistrate's Report and Recommendation properly noted: 

[E]ven if Petitioner's conviction is affirmed on direct 

appeal, Petitioner may still raise the claims he asserts 

here in state court pursuant to the Oklahoma PostConviction Procedure Act, Okla. Stat. tit. 22, § 1080 et 

seq. The Oklahoma courts have not indicated that they 

will apply a procedural bar to Petitioner's arguments, 

but rather they have simply declined to consider the 

merits of his arguments at this time, as he has a pending direct appeal. In fact, the Oklahoma Court of 

Criminal Appeals expressly found the Petitioner's prior 

applications "premature." To the extent that the Petitioner wishes to challenge the effectiveness of his 

appellate counsel, for example, the Petitioner could 

raise this in a subsequent post-conviction application 

after his appeal is decided. 

Report and Recommendation of the Magistrate Judge of March 11, 

1992. We agree, and further note that such a decision benefits 

petitioner in that recent decisions of the United States Supreme 

Court indicate that all possible claims of constitutional error 

should be raised in a single postconviction proceeding to avoid 

procedural bar. See Coleman v. Thompson, 111 S. Ct. 2546 (1991); 

Mccleskey v. Zant, 111 S. Ct. 1454 (1991). The district court's 

dismissal without prejudice for failure to exhaust state remedies 

is AFFIRMED. 

The mandate shall issue forthwith. 

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Entered for the Court 

James K. Logan 

Circuit Judge 

Appellate Case: 92-6165 Document: 010110149235 Date Filed: 12/04/1992 Page: 3