Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca10-07-01373/USCOURTS-ca10-07-01373-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Patrick L. Brenner
Petitioner

Document Text:

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE TENTH CIRCUIT

In re:

PATRICK L. BRENNER,

Movant.

No. 07-1373

(D.C. No. 07-CV-1822-ZLW)

(D. Colo.)

ORDER

Filed October 11, 2007

Before HENRY, BRISCOE, and HARTZ, Circuit Judges.

Patrick L. Brenner pled guilty in 1991 to two counts of sexual assault on a

child by one in a position of trust. Mr. Brenner did not file a direct appeal. He

filed several post-conviction motions in state court. In December 2005, he filed a

28 U.S.C. § 2254 habeas corpus application challenging his 1991 convictions. 

The district court denied his application as time-barred. On appeal to this court,

we denied his request for a certificate of appealability and dismissed the appeal. 

In August 2007, Mr. Brenner filed another § 2254 habeas corpus

application challenging his 1991 convictions. The district court deemed the

application to be an attempt to file a second or successive habeas application and

transferred it to this court because Mr. Brenner had not obtained authorization

from this court to file another § 2254 application, as is required by 28 U.S.C.

§ 2244(b)(3). See Coleman v. United States, 106 F.3d 339, 341 (10th Cir. 1997)

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(per curiam) (directing district courts to transfer unauthorized second or

successive § 2254 applications to Tenth Circuit in interest of justice pursuant to

28 U.S.C. § 1631). 

Mr. Brenner has now filed the appropriate motion in this court for

authorization to file a second or successive § 2254 application. We deny his

request for authorization, however, because he has not satisfied the standards set

forth in 28 U.S.C. § 2244(b)(2). In order to file a second or successive habeas

corpus petition, the moving party must show that:

(A) . . . the claim relies on a new rule of constitutional law, made

retroactive to cases on collateral review by the Supreme Court, that

was previously unavailable; or 

(B)(i) the factual predicate for the claim could not have been

discovered previously through the exercise of due diligence; and 

(ii) the facts underlying the claim, if proven and viewed in light of

the evidence as a whole, would be sufficient to establish by clear and

convincing evidence that, but for constitutional error, no reasonable

factfinder would have found the applicant guilty of the underlying

offense.

Id.

In Mr. Brenner’s first application he alleged violations of his Fourteenth

Amendment due process rights and his Sixth Amendment right to counsel. In his

request to file a second application, he asserts for his first claim that his sentence

was unconstitutional based on the Supreme Court’s ruling in Specht v. Patterson,

386 U.S. 605 (1967). Because this decision was issued forty years ago, this does

not qualify as a new rule of constitutional law that was previously unavailable,

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see § 2244(b)(2)(A). For his second claim, he contends that there was a violation

of the “Time Limits/requirements as set fourth[sic] in new StaTE[sic] Statutory

guidelines.” Mot. at 9. He contends that this claim is based on a new rule of law

and cites to some Colorado statutes and the Supreme Court’s decision in Williams

v. Taylor, 529 U.S. 362 (2000). Because Williams is seven years old and predated

Mr. Brenner’s first § 2254 application, it does not represent a “new” rule of

constitutional law, see § 2244(b)(2)(A). In addition, changes in Colorado’s state

statutes do not satisfy the standard of a “new rule of constitutional law[] made

retroactive to cases on collateral review by the Supreme Court.” Id.

Because Mr. Brenner cannot meet the requisite conditions under § 2244,

authorization to file a second or successive § 2254 motion is DENIED and the

matter is DISMISSED. This denial of authorization is not appealable and may not

be the subject of a petition for rehearing or for a writ of certiorari. See 28 U.S.C.

§ 2244(b)(3)(E).

Entered for the Court

ELISABETH A. SHUMAKER, Clerk

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