BLD-217 NOT PRECEDENTIAL

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE THIRD CIRCUIT

___________

No. 15-4055

___________

CRAIG ALLEN WILLIAMS,

Appellant

v.

WARDEN ALLENWOOD USP 

____________________________________

On Appeal from the United States District Court

for the Middle District of Pennsylvania

(D.C. Civil No. 3-15-cv-01521)

District Judge: Honorable Matthew W. Brann

____________________________________

Submitted for Possible Dismissal for a Jurisdictional Defect, 

Possible Dismissal Pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1915(e)(2)(B) or

Summary Action Pursuant to Third Circuit LAR 27.4 and I.O.P. 10.6, 

or a Decision on the Issuance of a Certificate of Appealability

April 14, 2016

Before: FUENTES, KRAUSE, and SCIRICA, Circuit Judges

(Opinion filed: April 21, 2016)

___________

OPINION*

___________

PER CURIAM

 

* This disposition is not an opinion of the full Court and pursuant to I.O.P. 5.7 does not 

constitute binding precedent.
2

Craig Williams, a District of Columbia offender currently incarcerated under 

federal custody at USP-Allenwood, appeals pro se from an order of the United States 

District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania dismissing his petition for a writ of 

habeas corpus filed pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2241. For the following reasons, we decline 

to issue a certificate of appealability and will summarily affirm the District Court’s order.

On March 16, 1990, a jury in the Superior Court of the District of Columbia 

convicted Williams of first degree murder while armed, and he subsequently received a 

sentence of 20 years to life. Williams’ efforts to challenge his conviction in the District 

of Columbia courts failed, both on appeal and also in post-conviction proceedings. 

At some point, Williams was transferred from District of Columbia custody to 

federal custody pursuant to the National Capital Revitalization and Self-Government 

Improvement Act of 1997. Williams filed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus pursuant 

to 28 U.S.C. §§ 2241 and 2254 in the District Court in May 2008, albeit before a different 

district judge. The District Court construed the petition as a petition filed solely pursuant 

to 28 U.S.C. § 2254 because Williams, as a District of Columbia offender, was a state 

prisoner for purposes of habeas relief even though he was in federal custody. The 

District Court then transferred the petition to the United States District Court for the 

District of Columbia. Eventually, that court considered Williams’ claims on the merits. 

See Williams v. Martinez, 683 F. Supp. 2d 29, 32-33 (D.D.C. 2010) (concluding that 

Williams’ claims had no debatable merit and denying the issuance of a certificate of 

appealabilty to the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit). 
3

Williams returned to the Middle District and filed another § 2241 petition in 

August 2015, the dismissal of which is the subject of this appeal. In that petition, 

Williams argued that his 2008 petition was improperly construed as seeking relief under 

§ 2254 and incorrectly transferred to the District of Columbia. He also reasserted the 

same ineffective assistance of counsel claims that he had raised in his 2008 petition. The 

District Court concluded that there was no error in the prior construal and transfer of the 

2008 petition, and that Williams’ re-raised claims were second or successive claims filed 

without Court of Appeals authorization. The District Court dismissed the August 2015 

petition on October 27, 2015, and Williams filed a notice of appeal on December 23, 

2015. On appeal, the Clerk notified the parties that the appeal was subject to possible 

dismissal for the jurisdictional defect of untimeliness, possible summary affirmance, and 

a decision on the issuance of a certificate of appealability. Williams filed a jurisdictional 

response and filed a separate response opposing summary affirmance and requesting the 

appointment of counsel on appeal.

We have jurisdiction pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1291. The appeal is timely because 

one of the parties is a United States official, and Williams filed his notice of appeal 

within 60 days. See Fed. R. App. P. 4(a)(1)(B). Although Williams is a state prisoner for 

purposes of the consideration of his habeas petitions, it is still the case that a federal 

official has custody over Williams and is the proper respondent here. See Rumsfeld v. 

Padilla, 542 U.S. 426, 434-35 (2004).
4

To the extent a certificate of appealability is required, Williams must show “that 

jurists of reason would find it debatable whether [his] petition states a valid claim of the 

denial of a constitutional right, and that jurists of reason would find it debatable whether 

the district court was correct in its procedural ruling.” Slack v. McDaniel, 529 U.S. 473, 

484 (2000). Otherwise, we may summarily affirm the District Court’s order if there is no 

substantial question presented on appeal. 3d Cir. L.A.R. 27.4; 3d Cir. I.O.P. 10.6. 

Williams’ Ground One and Ground Two are not habeas claims at their core, as 

they challenge procedural determinations in his first set of proceedings on habeas review

before a different judge in the United States District Court for the Middle District of 

Pennsylvania, rather than his conviction and sentence. Or, to put it another way, 

Williams’ claims as set out in Ground One and Ground Two are not cognizable to the 

extent that they seek to use § 2241 to expand the scope of habeas review beyond § 2254

in cases like his. 

In any event, those claims are inarguably meritless. “We have held that a state 

prisoner challenging the validity or execution of his state court sentence must rely on the 

more specific provisions of § 2254 rather than § 2241.” See Washington v. Sobina, 509 

F.3d 613, 618 n.5 (3d Cir. 2007) (citing Coady v. Vaughn, 251 F.3d 480, 485 (3d Cir. 

2001)). As a District of Columbia offender, Williams is a state prisoner for purposes of 

habeas review. See Wilson v. U.S. Parole Comm’n, 652 F.3d 348, 352 (3d Cir. 2011). 

Precedent therefore forecloses Williams’ argument that the District Court should not have 

construed his original habeas petition filed in May 2008 as filed pursuant to § 2254. 
5

Furthermore, Williams has not provided any even arguable basis for the contention that 

his petition should have not have been transferred to the District of Columbia as the more 

convenient and appropriate forum. Thus, the District Court here indisputably did not err 

in dismissing Ground One and Ground Two in Williams’ August 2015 petition.

Ground Three, for its part, merely re-raises the ineffectiveness claims that were 

found to lack any arguable merit before the federal courts in the District of Columbia. 

The appeal from the dismissal of Ground Three requires a certificate of appealability. 

See Coady, 251 F.3d at 486; accord Williams v. Martinez, 586 F.3d 995, 1002 (D.C. Cir. 

2009) (noting, in Williams’ appeal from the dismissal of his May 2008 habeas petition in 

the United States District Court for the District of Columbia, that a certificate of 

appealability was required because Williams is a state prisoner for purposes of habeas 

review). A certificate of appealability should not issue from the dismissal of Ground 

Three because the merits of the underlying ineffectiveness claim were already determined 

in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia, see 28 U.S.C. § 2244(a); 

cf. also Queen v. Miner, 530 F.3d 253, 255 (3d Cir. 2008) (per curiam) (holding that 

§ 2241 petitioner could not raise issues that “either had been, or could have been, decided 

in his previous habeas action”), and because Ground Three is a second or successive 

petition filed without the required Court of Appeals authorization, see 28 U.S.C. 

§ 2244(b). Consequently, the District Court correctly recognized that it lacked 

jurisdiction to hear Ground Three. See Burton v. Stewart, 549 U.S. 147, 152-53 (2007).
6

For the foregoing reasons, jurists of reason would not dispute that a certificate of 

appealability should not issue on those questions for which one is required. See 28 

U.S.C. § 2253(c); Slack, 529 U.S. at 484. On any issue where a certificate of 

appealability is arguably not required, the appeal presents no substantial question, and we 

will summarily affirm the District Court’s order. See 3d Cir. L.A.R. 27.4; 3d Cir. I.O.P. 

10.6. Williams’ motion for the appointment of counsel on appeal is denied. See 18 

U.S.C. § 3006A(a)(2)(B).