Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca10-16-01455/USCOURTS-ca10-16-01455-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
William Lee Lornes
Petitioner

Document Text:

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE TENTH CIRCUIT

_________________________________

In re: WILLIAM LEE LORNES, 

 Movant.

No. 16-1455

(D.C. No. 1:14-CV-01294-LTB)

(D. Colo.)

_________________________________

ORDER

_________________________________

Before HOLMES, PHILLIPS, and McHUGH, Circuit Judges.

_________________________________

William Lee Lornes has filed a pro se motion for authorization to file a second or 

successive 28 U.S.C. § 2254 habeas application. We dismiss the motion in part and deny 

authorization in part.

Mr. Lornes is serving a sentence of life without parole in the Colorado Department 

of Corrections. He has brought numerous habeas corpus and civil rights actions that were

dismissed for failure to comply with the pleading requirements of Fed. R. Civ. P. 8 and 

failure to correct deficiencies. In light of his litigation history, in 2014 the federal district 

court imposed filing restrictions that prohibit him from filing any pro se actions unless he 

first obtains the district court’s permission. Lornes v. Hernandez, No. 14-cv-01294-LTB, 

Doc. 36 (D. Colo. Aug. 12, 2014) (unpublished). 

Now before this court is Mr. Lornes’s motion for authorization to file a second or 

successive § 2254 application. The motion is difficult to decipher. The first claim 

appears to challenge the conditions of Mr. Lornes’s confinement. As the district court 

FILED

United States Court of Appeals

Tenth Circuit

November 29, 2016

Elisabeth A. Shumaker

Clerk of Court

Appellate Case: 16-1455 Document: 01019728419 Date Filed: 11/29/2016 Page: 1 
2

has explained to Mr. Lornes, he cannot challenge his conditions of confinement in a 

§ 2254 action. See Standifer v. Ledezma, 653 F.3d 1276, 1280 (10th Cir. 2011). Because 

this claim is not a proper § 2254 claim, Mr. Lornes need not obtain this court’s 

authorization to file it.

1

 As to the first claim, therefore, we dismiss the motion for 

authorization as unnecessary. 

The second claim appears to allege some sort of due process challenge. 

Conceivably a due process challenge could be a proper § 2254 claim, but it is impossible 

to determine what conviction Mr. Lornes wants to challenge or to understand what claim 

he wants to bring. For authorization to file a second or successive § 2254 application, 

Mr. Lornes must make a prima facie showing that his claim relies either on “a new rule of 

constitutional law, made retroactive to cases on collateral review by the Supreme Court, 

that was previously unavailable,” or on new facts that “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 

[him] guilty of the underlying offense.” 28 U.S.C. § 2244(b)(2)(A), (B), (3). The

unintelligible allegations in the motion for authorization fail to make this showing. 

Accordingly, we deny authorization to file the second claim.

The motion for authorization is dismissed as to the first claim sought to be 

authorized and denied as to the second claim sought to be authorized. This denial of 

 1 To the extent that Mr. Lornes filed for authorization of this claim because of the 

district court’s filing restrictions, he has approached the wrong court. He must apply to 

the district court, not this court, for leave to file a claim regarding the conditions of his 

confinement. The district court’s order imposing the filing restrictions explains what 

Mr. Lornes must do to obtain the district court’s permission to file an action in that court.

Appellate Case: 16-1455 Document: 01019728419 Date Filed: 11/29/2016 Page: 2 
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authorization “shall not be appealable and shall not be the subject of a petition for 

rehearing or for a writ of certiorari.” Id. § 2244(b)(3)(E).

Entered for the Court

ELISABETH A. SHUMAKER, Clerk

Appellate Case: 16-1455 Document: 01019728419 Date Filed: 11/29/2016 Page: 3