Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca11-19-12127/USCOURTS-ca11-19-12127-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Attorney General, State of Alabama
Appellee
Freddie B. Walker
Appellant
Warden
Appellee

Document Text:

[DO NOT PUBLISH]

IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT

________________________

No. 19-12127

Non-Argument Calendar

________________________

D.C. Docket No. 1:19-cv-00252-WHA-CSC

FREDDIE B. WALKER, 

 Petitioner - Appellant,

versus

WARDEN, 

ATTORNEY GENERAL, STATE OF ALABAMA, 

 Respondents - Appellees.

________________________

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the Middle District of Alabama

________________________

(February 12, 2020)

Before ED CARNES, Chief Judge, JORDAN, and NEWSOM, Circuit Judges.

PER CURIAM:

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Freddie Walker, an Alabama inmate proceeding pro se, appeals the district 

court’s dismissal of his 28 U.S.C. § 2254 petition as successive. Walker argues 

that his petition is not successive because he was deprived of a direct appeal by a 

threat that he would be sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of 

parole if he appealed. We affirm. 

We review de novo a district court’s dismissal of a § 2254 petition as 

successive. Bowles v. Sec’y, Fla. Dep’t of Corr., 935 F.3d 1176, 1180 (11th Cir. 

2019). Before a petitioner may file a second or successive habeas petition, he must 

obtain authorization from the court of appeals. 28 U.S.C. § 2244(b)(3)(A). 

Without such authorization, the district court lacks jurisdiction to consider a 

second or successive habeas petition. Lambrix v. Sec’y, Dep’t of Corr., 872 F.3d 

1170, 1180 (11th Cir. 2017). 

The term “second or successive” does not necessarily include “all habeas 

applications filed second or successively in time.” Stewart v. United States, 646 

F.3d 856, 859 (11th Cir. 2011). It does not bar a challenge to a different judgment 

than was challenged in the first § 2254 petition. See Magwood v. Patterson, 561 

U.S. 320, 332–34 (2010). It does, however, bar “successive motions raising 

habeas claims that could have been raised in earlier motions where there was no 

legitimate excuse for failure to do so.” Stewart, 646 F.3d at 859.

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In 2012 Walker filed his first § 2254 petition, which challenged the same 

convictions he challenges in this petition. That petition was dismissed with 

prejudice as barred by the statute of limitations. The claims Walker asserts in his 

petition could have been raised in his 2012 petition, and he gives no legitimate 

excuse for failing to do so. Walker’s current § 2254 petition is therefore second or 

successive within the meaning of § 2244(b)(3)(A), and the district court properly 

dismissed it. 

AFFIRMED.

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