Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca10-20-08008/USCOURTS-ca10-20-08008-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Derrick R. Parkhurst
Petitioner

Document Text:

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE TENTH CIRCUIT

_________________________________

In re: DERRICK R. PARKHURST, 

 Movant.

No. 20-8008

(D.C. No. 2:12-CV-00066-ABJ)

(D. Wyo.)

_________________________________

ORDER

_________________________________

Before BRISCOE, MATHESON, and EID, Circuit Judges.

_________________________________

Derrick R. Parkhurst, a Wyoming state prisoner proceeding pro se, moves for 

authorization to file a second or successive 28 U.S.C. § 2254 habeas petition. We 

deny authorization.

A jury convicted Parkhurst of first degree murder and assault with a deadly 

weapon and he was sentenced to life in prison. The Wyoming Supreme Court 

affirmed the convictions on direct appeal. Parkhurst v. State, 628 P.2d 1369, 1382 

(Wyo. 1981). Since then, Parkhurst has filed numerous unsuccessful post-conviction 

and habeas challenges to his convictions and sentence in both state and federal court. 

He filed his first § 2254 petition in 1994, claiming he received ineffective 

assistance of appellate counsel. The district court dismissed the petition, concluding 

that it was procedurally defaulted because it was time-barred under Wyoming law, 

and we affirmed. Parkhurst v. Shillinger, 128 F.3d 1366, 1366-68 (10th Cir. 1997). 

Parkhurst filed another § 2254 petition in 2011, which the district court 

dismissed as an unauthorized second or successive application. Instead of seeking a 

FILED

United States Court of Appeals

Tenth Circuit

March 2, 2020

Christopher M. Wolpert

Clerk of Court

Appellate Case: 20-8008 Document: 010110311740 Date Filed: 03/02/2020 Page: 1
2

certificate of appealability (COA), Parkhurst filed a petition for a writ of mandamus 

with this court, asking us to require the district court to vacate its dismissal of the 

underlying petition. We denied the petition.

He filed a third § 2254 petition in 2012, claiming his trial counsel was 

ineffective both because he had a conflict of interest and for failing to request a jury 

instruction on heat of passion as a mitigating factor for the murder charge. The 

district court dismissed the petition as unauthorized, untimely, and meritless. 

Because we concluded that the disposition of the first petition was on the merits and 

that no reasonable jurist could debate the district court’s dismissal of the third 

petition on procedural grounds, see Slack v. McDaniel, 529 U.S. 473, 484-85 (2000), 

we denied his application for a COA and dismissed his appeal. Parkhurst v. Wilson, 

525 F. App’x 736, 737-38 (10th Cir. 2013). 

In December 2019, Parkhurst filed a motion for authorization to file a § 2254

petition raising two claims of ineffective assistance of counsel: the conflict of 

interest claim he raised in his 2012 petition and a claim that counsel should have 

requested a jury instruction that a killing committed out of fear constitutes 

manslaughter, not first degree murder. He sought authorization under 28 U.S.C.

§ 2244(b)(2)(A), which requires an authorization-applicant to show that his proposed 

successive claims rely on “a new rule of constitutional law, made retroactive to cases 

on collateral review by the Supreme Court, that was previously unavailable.” 

Specifically, relying on Trevino v. Thaler, 569 U.S. 413 (2013), Parkhurst maintained 

that his proposed claims fell within the procedural-bar exception announced in 

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Martinez v. Ryan, 566 U.S. 1 (2012).

1

 We denied authorization, concluding that 

Parkhurst failed to establish that Trevino announced a new rule of constitutional law. 

See In re Parkhurst, No. 19-8084, Order at 3 (10th Cir. Jan. 24, 2020). 

Parkhurst filed the motion at issue here less than a month after we denied the

last one, this time seeking authorization to file a § 2254 petition raising the same 

ineffective assistance of counsel claims he raised and sought authorization to raise 

before, as well as a new claim of prosecutorial misconduct “and/or prosecutorial 

concealment of evidence,” Mot. at 9, 12, which he says he “forgot to even mention” 

in his previous motion for authorization because of his failing “memory . . . or logic,” 

id. at 11.

2

 Like his 2019 motion, Parkhurst’s current motion seeks authorization 

based on Trevino, which he characterizes as a “new rule interpreting” the

pre-AEDPA “cause and prejudice standard” for excusing a petitioner’s failure to raise 

1 Martinez held that a habeas petitioner’s procedural default would not bar a 

federal habeas court from hearing a substantial claim of ineffective assistance of trial 

counsel if in a state initial review collateral proceeding the petitioner either had no 

counsel or his collateral-review counsel was ineffective. See 566 U.S. at 17. Trevino

applied the Martinez exception to cases in which the “state procedural framework, by 

reason of its design and operation, makes it highly unlikely in a typical case that a 

defendant will have a meaningful opportunity to raise a claim of ineffective 

assistance of trial counsel on direct appeal.” 569 U.S. at 416-17, 429.

2 Parkhurst does not explain the basis for his proposed prosecutorial 

misconduct/prosecutorial concealment of evidence claim, and he does not suggest 

that it meets the standards for authorization in § 2244(b)(2)(B) (requiring applicant to 

present facts that were previously undiscoverable through the exercise of due 

diligence that “would be sufficient to establish by clear and convincing evidence that, 

but for constitutional error, no reasonable factfinder would have found [him] guilty 

of the underlying offense.”).

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claims earlier, Mot. at 27 (internal quotation marks omitted). But regardless of how 

he frames its holding, Trevino does not establish a new rule of constitutional law. 

Martinez did not establish a new constitutional rule—the Court expressly indicated 

that it was recognizing a “narrow,” “equitable” exception to the procedural default 

doctrine, not deciding a constitutional issue. 566 U.S. at 9, 16.

3

 And because it 

merely extended the Martinez rule, Trevino also did not establish a new rule of 

constitutional law.4

 Thus, Parkhurst has failed to meet the standard for authorization 

in § 2244(b)(2)(A), and we deny his motion. 

This denial of authorization “shall not be appealable and shall not be the 

subject of a petition for rehearing or for a writ of certiorari.” 28 U.S.C. 

§ 2244(b)(3)(E).

Entered for the Court

CHRISTOPHER M. WOLPERT, Clerk

3 See Chavez v. Sec’y, Fla. Dep’t of Corr., 742 F.3d 940, 945-46 (11th Cir. 

2014); Págan-San Miguel v. United States, 736 F.3d 44, 45 (1st Cir. 2013) (per 

curiam); Adams v. Thaler, 679 F.3d 312, 322 n.6 (5th Cir. 2012). 

4 See Clark v. Davis, 850 F.3d 770, 784 (5th Cir. 2017); Moreland v. Robinson, 

813 F.3d 315, 326 (6th Cir. 2016); Págan-San Miguel, 736 F.3d at 45-46.

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