UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS TENTH CIRCUIT

________________ _________________ DEANGELO GORDON, Petitioner - Appellant,

v. JIM FARRIS, Respondent - Appellee. No. 15-6004 (D.C. No. 5:13- CV-01084-R) (W.D. Okla.)

________________ _________________ ORDER AND JUDGMENT *

________________ _________________ Before GORSUCH , McKAY , and BACHARACH , Circuit Judges.

________________ _________________ After a disciplinary hearing, Oklahoma prisoner Deangelo Gordon was found guilty of violating a prison re gulation and lost 365 days of good-time credits. He appealed that ruling to the state district court and, af ter that appeal was denied, attempted a further appeal in the state judicial syst em. Under Oklahoma law, a prisoner appealing a state district cour t ruling in a good-tim e suit must file a compliant notice of appeal with the state district court with in ten days of the district court’s decision and a petition of error with the Court of Crimin al Appeals within

* After examining the briefs and appella te record, this panel has determined unanimously to grant the parties’ request for a decision on the briefs without oral argument. See Fed. R. App. P. 34(f); 10th Cir. R. 34.1(G). The case is therefore ordered submitted without oral argument. This order and judgment is not binding precedent, except under the doctr ines of law of the case, res judicata, and collateral estoppel. It may be cite d, however, for its persuasi ve value consistent with Fed. R. App. P. 32.1 and 10th Cir. R. 32.1. FILED United States Court of Appeals Tenth Circuit 

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Elisabeth A. Shumaker Clerk of Court2 thirty days of the district court’s decisi on. Okla. Stat. tit. 57, § 564.1(G); Okla. Ct. Crim. App. R. 15.3(A), 15.4(A) . Mr. Gordon did neither. Hi s notice of appeal stated that he intended to appeal to the Oklahoma Court of Civil Appeals rather than the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals. And he failed to file a petition of error within the required thirty days. Ev entually, his appeal was dism issed for being untimely and initiated with the wrong court. Having failed in state court to secure relief, Mr. Gordon next filed this 28 U.S.C. § 2241 federal habeas application. But the dist rict court found that he had failed to exhaust state remedies and di smissed his application as procedurally defaulted. We granted a cer tificate of appealability to review the question whether Mr. Gordon can satisfy the requirements necessary to invoke an exception to his procedural default, and after examining th e record we affirm the district court’s decision. Mr. Gordon admits that he failed to exhaust the state appellate remedies available to him, but argues that we should excuse any re sulting procedural default because he can show both “cause and prejudice.” See Magar v. Parker , 490 F.3d 816, 819 (10th Cir. 2007). When it comes to cause, Mr. Gordon asserts that his failure to file a compliant notice of appeal invoking th e jurisdiction of the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals was an oversight that th e state courts s hould have helped him correct. But to excuse a procedural default, a petitioner must show a cause

“ external to [himself], something that cannot fairly be attribut ed to him [that] impeded his efforts to comply with the State’s procedural rule.” Maples v. Thomas ,3 132 S. Ct. 912, 922 (2012) (b rackets, ellipsis, and intern al quotation marks omitted). And that much simply isn’t present here. Mr. Gordon does not s uggest that the state courts impeded him from filing a correct notice of appeal or misled him into filing an incorrect one. And Mr. Gordon’s own e rror cannot constitute “cause” because it was not external to him. See Klein v. Neal , 45 F.3d 1395, 1400 ( 10th Cir. 1995) (stating that pro se status and lack of le gal knowledge does not establish cause); Rodriguez v. Maynard , 948 F.2d 684, 687-88 ( 10th Cir. 1991) (same); Magar , 490 F.3d at 819-20 (finding no cause for procedural default wh en a prisoner could not prove officials impeded his ability to submit an appeal). Moreover, even if Mr. Gordon had filed a correct notice of appeal, his a ppeal would still have been dismissed because he failed to file a timely petition of error with any court. See Okla. Ct. Crim. App. R. 15.3(A) (“The filing of the petition in error is ju risdictional and failure to timely file constitutes waiver of the right to appeal.”). Given Mr. Gordon’s failure to establish cause for his procedural defa ult, we have no reason to re ach the question of prejudice as the district court did. 1

1 Mr. Gordon’s supplemental opening brief argues not only that his claim isn’t procedurally defaulted under state law, but also that Oklahoma courts do not consistently follow their own rules and so we should disregard them here. This issue is beyond the scope of the certificate of app ealability. Further, it was not raised in the district court, and “[t]he general rule is that an a ppellate court will not consider an issue raised for the first time on appeal.” Tele-Commc’ns, Inc. v. C.I.R. , 12 F.3d 1005, 1007 (10th Cir. 1993).4 Affirmed.

ENTERED FOR THE COURT

Neil M. Gorsuch Circuit Judge