[DO NOT PUBLISH]

IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT

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No. 20-12969

Non-Argument Calendar

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D.C. Docket No. 1:05-cr-00479-RLH-1

HARRISON NORRIS, JR., 

 Petitioner-Appellant,

versus

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, 

 Respondent-Appellee.

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Appeal from the United States District Court

for the Northern District of Georgia

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(April 23, 2021)

Before WILLIAM PRYOR, Chief Judge, JILL PRYOR and LUCK, Circuit 

Judges.

PER CURIAM: 

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Harrison Norris appeals pro se the sua sponte dismissal of his motion to 

revisit an earlier judgment. The district court construed Norris’s filing as a second 

motion to vacate and denied the motion as successive. 28 U.S.C. §§ 2244(b), 

2255(h). We affirm.

Norris was convicted of 24 crimes, including conspiracy to commit an 

offense against the United States, 18 U.S.C. § 371, trafficking with respect to 

peonage and forced labor, id. § 1590, sex trafficking, id. § 1591(a), witness 

tampering, id. § 1512(b)(3), and obstructing an investigation, id. § 1581(b). We 

affirmed Norris’s convictions, but we vacated his sentence and remanded for 

resentencing. United States v. Norris, 358 F. App’x 60 (11th Cir. 2009) 

(unpublished). On remand, the district court conducted a de novo resentencing and 

sentenced Norris to 35 years of imprisonment. United States v. Norris, 453 F. 

App’x 861 (11th Cir. 2011) (unpublished).

Norris moved, without success, to vacate his sentence on the ground that his 

trial judge was mentally incompetent and racially biased against him, in violation 

of the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment. 28 U.S.C. § 2255. In Norris’s 

first appeal, we affirmed the denial of his allegation that his trial judge was 

incompetent, but we reversed and remanded for the district court to conduct an 

evidentiary hearing on Norris’s allegation of actual bias. Norris v. United States, 

820 F.3d 1261 (11th Cir. 2016). On remand, the district court found “no credible 

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evidence” that Norris’s trial judge was “biased against African-Americans in 

general or against Mr. Norris in particular,” and it issued a certificate of 

appealability for the review of its factual finding. We affirmed the denial of 

postconviction relief. Norris v. United States, 709 F. App’x 952 (11th Cir. 2017)

(unpublished).

Norris moved to revisit the earlier judgment. Norris moved to vacate his 

convictions and for release based on the same allegations he raised in his first 

postconviction motion concerning his trial judge’s bias.

The district court sua sponte dismissed Norris’s motion for lack of 

jurisdiction. The district court stated that a prisoner could challenge the denial of a 

motion to vacate under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 60(b), but Norris had not 

alleged any ground for relief under that rule. Because Norris’s motion attacked his 

underlying conviction, the district court construed the motion as a second or 

successive motion to vacate for which he had not received permission from this 

Court to file. See 28 U.S.C. § 2255(h). Alternatively, the district court ruled that 

Norris’s motion was untimely and that it lacked merit.

Norris has waived any challenge that he could have made to the dismissal of 

his motion. Norris does not dispute that he failed to identify a “reason that justifies 

relief” that would warrant treating his motion as seeking relief from a judgment. 

See Fed. R. Civ. P. 60. Because Norris’s motion attacked the denial of his first 

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motion to vacate on its merits, the district court correctly treated his second filing 

as a second or successive motion. See Gonzalez v. Crosby, 545 U.S. 524, 531–32 

(2005). Norris also does not dispute that he already had filed one motion to vacate 

and failed to obtain permission from this Court to file a successive motion. 28 

U.S.C. §§ 2244(b)(3)(A), 2255(h). The district court was required to dismiss 

Norris’s motion sua sponte because, “[w]ithout authorization, the district court 

lacks jurisdiction to consider a second or successive [motion].” Farris v. United 

States, 333 F.3d 1211, 1216 (11th Cir. 2003). Because Norris does not dispute that 

his motion is barred as successive, we deem abandoned any challenge that he could 

have made to the dismissal of his motion. See Timson v. Sampson, 518 F.3d 870, 

874 (11th Cir. 2008).

We AFFIRM the dismissal of Norris’s second motion to vacate.

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