Opinion ID: 613858
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: Evidentiary Hearing or Expansion of the Record

Text: In his final claim, Mr. Kirby argues that the district court erred in “prohibiting expansion of the record to include evidence discovered and/or provided after trial and denying an evidentiary hearing on the matter.” Aplt. Combined Br. at 22. The sole piece of newly discovered evidence that Mr. Kirby identifies before us in seeking a COA, 13 which he previously sought to present to 12 Mr. Kirby also argues that his sentence enhancement violated the Double Jeopardy Clause of the Fifth Amendment. However, this too is a challenge to the state court’s authority to impose the sentence enhancement; it is not an attack on the underlying conviction. Accordingly, Mr. Kirby’s sentence challenge based upon the Double Jeopardy Clause is likewise moot. 13 Although Mr. Kirby may have sought to present additional evidence to the district court in connection with his request to expand the record or obtain an evidentiary hearing, he only cites to us the GTFS in arguing that the district court erred in refusing to grant relief. Thus, he has abandoned any challenge based on those other pieces of evidence. See, e.g., Tran v. Tr. of State Colleges in Colorado, 355 F.3d 1263, 1266 (10th Cir. 2004) (“Issues not raised in the opening brief are deemed abandoned or waived.” (quoting Coleman v. B-G Maint. Mgmt. of Colo., Inc., 108 F.3d 1199, 1205 (10th Cir.1997))); cf. United States v. (continued...) 26 the district court, was a “Good-Time-Figuring-Sheet (GTFS) that was generated by the [New Mexico Department of Corrections] and obtained by [Mr. Kirby] after the sentence had been enhanced,” which he argues would have supported his “challeng[e] [to] the jurisdiction of the state court to enhance [his] sentence.” Id. at 24. That is, this newly discovered evidence was offered to support one of the sentence-enhancement challenges presented in his supplemental habeas pleading (i.e., coram nobis petition). As discussed above, however, those claims are moot. Consequently, Mr. Kirby’s challenge to the district court’s refusal to admit this newly discovered evidence is likewise moot. Even if this issue were not moot, Mr. Kirby would still not be entitled to relief. Under the Supreme Court’s recent decision in Cullen v. Pinholster, habeas “review under § 2254(d)(1) is limited to the record that was before the state court that adjudicated the claim on the merits.” 131 S. Ct. 1388, 1398 (2011). Mr. Kirby’s request to expand the record or to hold an evidentiary hearing seeks to place additional evidence before the federal district court that was not part of the record before the state court. This is no longer permitted under Cullen. Thus, Mr. Kirby is not entitled to an expansion of the record or an evidentiary hearing. See Atkins v. Clarke, 642 F.3d 47, 47 (1st Cir. 2011) (“The Supreme Court’s new 13 (...continued) Springfield, 337 F.3d 1175, 1178 (10th Cir. 2003) (concluding that the applicant waived his claim on appeal “because he failed to address that claim in either his application for a COA or his brief on appeal”). 27 decision in Cullen v. Pinholster requires that we reject this appeal from a denial of a request for an evidentiary hearing in relation to a petition for habeas corpus.” (citation omitted)); see also Champ v. Zavaras, No. 10-1308, 2011 WL 2411002, at –10 (10th Cir. June 16, 2011) (“Mr. Champ’s requests to expand the record and to hold an evidentiary hearing to further develop the record aim to place new evidence before the federal court that was not a part of the state-court record. Under Cullen, this is no longer permitted.”); cf. Pape v. Thaler, 645 F.3d 281, 288 (5th Cir. 2011) (“Under [Cullen], . . . the district court erred by conducting the evidentiary hearing and by relying on evidence from that hearing . . . . Pape’s federal habeas petition . . . must be adjudicated under § 2254(d)(1) and Pape ‘must overcome the limitation of § 2254(d)(1) on the record that was before the state court.’” (quoting Cullen, 131 S. Ct. at 1400)). Accordingly, we can discern no error in the district court’s refusal to authorize the expansion of the record or an evidentiary hearing.