UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE TENTH CIRCUIT

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CAMERON JEREL HENDRICK, 

 Petitioner - Appellant,

v.

RICK WHITTEN, 

 Respondent - Appellee.

No. 22-5003

(D.C. No. 4:18-CV-00596-TCK-JFJ)

(N.D. Okla.)

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ORDER DENYING CERTIFICATE OF APPEALABILITY*

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Before PHILLIPS, McHUGH, and ROSSMAN, Circuit Judges.

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Cameron Jerel Hendrick, an Oklahoma state prisoner, seeks a certificate of 

appealability (COA) to challenge the district court’s dismissal of his 28 U.S.C. § 2254

habeas petition.1

 We deny his request for a COA and dismiss this matter.2

* This order is not binding precedent except under the doctrines of law of the case, 

res judicata, and collateral estoppel. It may be cited, however, for its persuasive value 

consistent with Fed. R. App. P. 32.1 and 10th Cir. R. 32.1.

1 We liberally construe Mr. Hendrick’s pro se application for a COA. See Hall v. 

Scott, 292 F.3d 1264, 1266 (10th Cir. 2002).

2 The district court entered judgment on December 8, 2021. Mr. Hendrick filed 

his notice of appeal on January 13, 2022, after the thirty-day deadline for doing so. See 

Fed. R. App. P. 4(a)(1). But contemporaneously with his notice of appeal, he filed a 

timely motion requesting leave to file a notice of appeal out of time. See id. R. 4(a)(5). 

For good cause shown, the district court granted the motion and extended the filing 

deadline until January 21, 2022. The notice of appeal was therefore timely, and we have 

jurisdiction to address this request for a COA.

FILED

United States Court of Appeals

Tenth Circuit

September 14, 2022

Christopher M. Wolpert

Clerk of Court

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I. BACKGROUND

A jury convicted Mr. Hendrick of first-degree murder and possessing a firearm 

after a felony conviction. The Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals (OCCA)

summarized the facts underlying his convictions as follows:

3

In February of [2015] Brittish Ratliff lived in an apartment in Tulsa 

with her son, B.S. Before Valentine’s Day in [2015], Ratliff had been 

dating Cameron Hendrick on and off for two years. On Valentine’s Day, 

however, Ratliff and Hendrick broke up. The following day, on 

February 15, [2015], Robert Singleton, B.S.’s father, stayed the night at 

Ratliff’s apartment with her and B.S. Ratliff’s cousin, fourteen year old 

B.G., and Hendrick’s younger brother, thirteen year old P.H., stayed the 

night in the apartment as well.

Ratliff woke up between 8:00 and 8:30 the following morning. She 

noticed that she had messages from Hendrick on Facebook. Ratliff 

responded to Hendrick telling him that Singleton had spent the night. 

Hendrick became angry and the two exchanged heated, insulting Facebook 

messages for about thirty minutes. During this exchange, Hendrick 

messaged Ratliff two pictures of guns and made reference to “big thangs 

[sic] popping.” He messaged her, “see me down stairs better lock yo [sic] 

door.” Ratliff tired of arguing and told Hendrick to come pick up his

younger brother.

At about 10:30 that morning, when Ratliff was walking outside 

between her apartment and her neighbor’s apartment, she saw that Hendrick 

had arrived. She yelled at P.H. to get his stuff together and she watched as 

Hendrick walked up the stairs toward her apartment. When he saw Ratliff, 

Hendrick stopped on the landing and started arguing with her as she stood 

at the top of the stairs. Singleton heard the two arguing, stepped outside, 

and joined the fray. Hendrick said, “I got something for you” and he 

walked back down the stairs and to his car. When Hendrick returned he 

had a gun in his hand. He waved at Singleton to get away from the

apartment and Singleton walked down the stairs. When Singleton got to 

the bottom of the stairs Ratliff ran down to him and grabbed him. As 

Singleton pushed Ratliff to the side, she heard Hendrick shoot the gun five 

times. Singleton was hit with three bullets. He fell to the ground and died 

3 The OCCA’s factual summary misidentified the year of the events as 2014, so 

we have corrected it to 2015.

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within moments from multiple gunshot wounds. Hendrick left the scene 

but was apprehended by the police several hours later.

Hendrick v. Oklahoma, No. F-2016-295 (Okla. Crim. App. Aug. 10, 2017) (per curiam) 

(unpublished), R., Vol. 1 at 353-54.

The OCCA affirmed Mr. Hendrick’s judgment and sentence. See id. at 360. He 

then filed an application for post-conviction relief, which the state district court denied. 

See id. at 78-87. The OCCA affirmed the denial of post-conviction relief. See id. at 216-

24. Mr. Hendrick then filed this federal application for a writ of habeas corpus. The 

district court denied his application and denied a COA, and Mr. Hendrick appealed. 

II. DISCUSSION

We lack jurisdiction to consider Mr. Hendrick’s appeal unless a COA is issued. 

See 28 U.S.C. § 2253(c)(1); Miller-El v. Cockrell, 537 U.S. 322, 335-36 (2003). To 

obtain a COA, he must make “a substantial showing of the denial of a constitutional 

right,” § 2253(c)(2). To make that showing, he must demonstrate that “reasonable jurists 

could debate whether (or, for that matter, agree that) the petition should have been 

resolved in a different manner or that the issues presented were adequate to deserve 

encouragement to proceed further.” Slack v. McDaniel, 529 U.S. 473, 484 (2000)

(internal quotation marks omitted). This means that to the extent the district court 

rejected Mr. Hendrick’s claims on the merits, he must show “that reasonable jurists 

would find the district court’s assessment of the constitutional claims debatable or 

wrong.” Id. And to the extent the district court denied the application on procedural 

grounds, he must show that reasonable jurists could debate both “whether the petition 

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states a valid claim of the denial of a constitutional right” and “whether the district court 

was correct in its procedural ruling.” Id. 

A. Request to File Amended Reply Brief

Mr. Hendrick filed his habeas application in November 2018. The State filed a 

response in February 2019, and Mr. Hendrick filed an optional reply brief in March 2019. 

Two years later, Mr. Hendrick filed a “Motion to Seek Leave to File an Amended Brief in 

Support.” R., Vol. 1 at 667-69. In his motion he explained that his previous reply brief 

had been “prepared by a yard attorney” who had “duped” him and prepared a “frivolous” 

pleading full of “meaningless accusations” and “bald assertions that were not supported 

by facts or evidence, or governing legal authority.” Id. at 667-68 (spelling corrected). 

He requested leave to amend his reply “to properly challenge each substantive claim 

opposed by the Respondent.” Id. at 668. 

The State opposed Mr. Hendrick’s motion, and the district court denied it. The 

district court reasoned that Mr. Hendrick “ably set forth his claims for habeas corpus 

relief in his initial petition” and that his attempt to file an amended reply after two years 

was untimely. Id. at 676. Noting that it had previously set a thirty-day deadline for filing 

a reply, it concluded that Mr. Hendrick’s bare statement that lockdowns and COVID-19 

quarantine had prevented him from determining the inadequacy of the previously filed 

reply did not justify the two-year delay. 

We review the district court’s determination whether to permit an untimely,

supplemental filing for an abuse of discretion. See, e.g., Teigen v. Renfrow, 511 F.3d 

1072, 1077 n.2 (10th Cir. 2007) (concluding district court did not abuse its discretion in

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denying extension of time to file response and in striking supplemental response that it 

concluded operated as an attempt to file an untimely response brief). A district court 

abuses its discretion when its decision is “arbitrary, capricious, whimsical, or manifestly 

unreasonable.” Att’y Gen. of Okla. v. Tyson Foods, Inc., 565 F.3d 769, 776 (10th Cir. 

2009) (internal quotation marks omitted).

Mr. Hendrick argues the district court erred by failing to consider that his motion 

was timely under 28 U.S.C. § 2244(d)(1)(D)—that is, based on “the date on which the 

factual predicate of the claim or claims presented could have been discovered through the 

exercise of due diligence,” id. But that is a standard for determining the timeliness of a 

habeas application, not for filing a brief. Nor has Mr. Hendrick shown that the district 

court’s refusal to accept an untimely supplemental filing denied him due process or 

fundamental fairness by unfairly resolving his habeas application on a defective 

procedural ground, as he claims.4

 Rather, the district court permissibly enforced a 

4 Mr. Hendrick also claims that his motion “asserted that new, relevant and 

exculpatory information was available and necessary for inclusion within his Habeas 

Petition.” COA Appl. at 4. He states that this new information would establish his actual 

innocence. But his motion to file an amended brief did not include these additional 

justifications. Instead, he asked the district court in general terms to permit him to bolster 

his reply to the State’s response to his existing claims. Our review is limited to whether 

the district court abused its discretion in denying the motion Mr. Hendrick made under 

the supporting facts available to it at the time. See, e.g., Frey v. Town of Jackson, 41 

F.4th 1223, 1242 (10th Cir. 2022) (stating a district court’s exercise of discretion is 

measured by “the bounds of the rationally available choices before the district court given 

the facts and the applicable law in the case” (internal quotation marks omitted)); cf.

United States v. Nelson, 868 F.3d 885, 891 (10th Cir. 2017) (declining to consider 

argument raised for first time on appeal, where the district court had not made the 

necessary factual findings that would permit review). We therefore decline to consider 

his new arguments. 

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procedural requirement for filing a reply, then eventually adjudicated the habeas claims it 

concluded Mr. Hendrick had adequately presented. See Garrett v. Selby Connor Maddux 

& Janer, 425 F.3d 836, 840 (10th Cir. 2005) (Although pro se pleadings are held to a less 

stringent standard than those drafted by lawyers, a pro se litigant must “follow the same 

rules of procedure that govern other litigants.” (internal quotation marks omitted)). On 

these facts, Mr. Hendrick is not entitled to a COA because reasonable jurists would not 

debate the district court’s procedural ruling in denying his untimely request to file an 

amended brief.5

B. Prosecutorial Misconduct

Mr. Hendrick argues he is entitled to a COA concerning Ground One of his 

Application. In that ground, he asserted that prosecutorial misconduct deprived him of a 

fair trial. Mr. Hendrick claimed that the prosecutor committed misconduct by arguing to 

the jury during the third, sentencing stage of proceedings that “[t]here are consequences 

for carrying a firearm when you know you’re not supposed to. And make no mistake, he 

knows he’s not supposed to. He knows that. And despite being told that over and over 

and over and over and over again, he just has apparently not cared.” R., Vol. 1 at 692

(emphasis added). Mr. Hendrick argued that no evidence was presented at trial that he 

had been told numerous times that he could not carry a firearm. Therefore, he contended, 

5 Even if a COA were not required concerning this issue, see Harbison v. Bell, 

556 U.S. 180, 183 (2009) (stating the COA requirement applies to “final orders that 

dispose of the merits of a habeas corpus proceeding”), for the reasons we have stated 

Mr. Hendrick failed to establish that the district court reversibly erred by denying his 

motion.

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the prosecutor’s argument was based on facts not in evidence and deprived him of a fair 

trial. 

Because Mr. Hendrick’s counsel did not object to the prosecutor’s remark, the 

OCCA reviewed this claim for plain error. It stated that relief could only be granted if 

“the prosecutor’s flagrant misconduct so infected the defendant’s trial that it rendered the 

trial fundamentally unfair.” Id. at 355. The OCCA concluded that there was no error, 

plain or otherwise. It noted that the argument at issue was made after the jury had 

already found Mr. Hendrick guilty at a previous stage of possession of a firearm after a 

felony conviction. In addition, evidence had been presented that he had several felony 

convictions dating back to 2007. The jury therefore could reasonably have inferred that 

he had been advised and knew as a convicted felon that he could not legally possess a 

firearm.

The district court denied relief because it determined the OCCA’s adjudication of 

this claim was not contrary to clearly established federal law and did not rest on an 

unreasonable determination of the facts. See 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d). It first determined that 

the OCCA had correctly identified the controlling legal principle that in assessing 

prosecutorial misconduct, “[t]he relevant question is whether the prosecutors’ comments 

so infected the trial with unfairness as to make the resulting conviction a denial of due 

process.” R., Vol. 1 at 692 (quoting Darden v. Wainwright, 477 U.S. 168, 181 (1986)). 

It noted that the OCCA had reasoned that a prosecutor is granted “a reasonable amount of 

latitude in drawing inferences from the evidence during closing summation.” Id. at 694

(quoting Duvall v. Reynolds, 139 F.3d 768, 795 (10th Cir. 1998)). It then determined that 

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the OCCA had not unreasonably applied the federal due-process test and had not 

unreasonably determined the facts, so Mr. Hendrick was not entitled to habeas relief 

concerning this claim.

Mr. Hendrick argues that he “clearly stated a substantial claim of a constitutional 

violation.” COA Appl. at 8. This conclusory statement fails to explain why the district 

court’s analysis was debatable. We therefore deny a COA concerning this claim. 

C. Ineffective Assistance of Appellate Counsel

Finally, Mr. Hendrick contends that his fourth claim, concerning ineffective 

assistance of counsel, warrants a COA, as evidenced by the district court’s own statement 

that reasonable jurists would not debate most of claim four. Mr. Hendrick argues that 

this means “a reasonable jurist would debate some of claim four.” COA Appl. at 8.

Mr. Hendrick misperceives the district court’s reasoning. In context, the district 

court stated:

[T]he Court concludes that Hendrick has not shown that his custody under 

the challenged judgment and sentence violates the Constitution or other 

federal law. The Court therefore denies his petition for writ of habeas 

corpus. 28 U.S.C. § 2254(a). Further, because reasonable jurists would not 

debate this Court’s assessment of claims one, two, three and four, or debate 

this Court’s determination that Hendrick procedurally defaulted claims five, 

six and seven, and most of claim four, the Court declines to issue a 

certificate of appealability.

R., Vol. 1 at 710 (emphasis added). 

Plainly, the district court determined that nothing in its assessment of Claim Four 

warranted a COA. It further reiterated that most of Claim Four was procedurally 

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defaulted. The district court did not state that some of its reasoning concerning Claim 

Four was debatable. 

Nor has Mr. Hendrick shown that the district court’s reasoning was debatable. 

Claim Four asserted numerous instances of ineffective assistance of appellate counsel. 

The district court determined that most of these assertions were unexhausted and had 

been procedurally defaulted. See id. at 701 n.14. The only portion of Claim Four that 

was not procedurally defaulted was Mr. Hendrick’s claim that appellate counsel was 

ineffective for failing to argue that trial counsel was ineffective for failing to introduce 

jail calls to impeach witness Brittish Ratliff’s testimony. Concerning that sub-claim, the 

district court determined that “it was objectively reasonable for the OCCA to conclude 

that trial counsel did not perform deficiently by failing to present the recordings of jail 

calls to impeach Ratliff’s testimony. As a result, it was objectively reasonable for the 

OCCA to further conclude that appellate counsel did not perform deficiently by failing to 

challenge trial counsel’s effectiveness as to this issue.” Id. at 704 (citations omitted). 

Mr. Hendrick has failed to mount an effective challenge to the district court’s reasoning 

concerning this claim. We therefore deny a COA concerning Claim Four. 

III. CONCLUSION

We deny Mr. Hendrick’s request for a COA and dismiss this matter. 

Entered for the Court

Gregory A. Phillips

Circuit Judge

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