Opinion ID: 812567
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Claims Two through Seven

Text: The district court dismissed claims two through seven for being secondary and successive after finding that the Ninth Circuit had already ruled on the same claims in Harper’s 1994 habeas petition. Harper contends that this was error because the Parole Commission’s 2009 decision qualifies as a “new judgment” consistent with the Supreme Court’s holding in Magwood v. Patterson, 130 S. Ct. 2788, 2792 (2010), which established that a prisoner’s second habeas petition is not “second and successive” when challenging a new judgment. The government argues that Magwood applies only when a new sentence was imposed as a result of a first successful habeas proceeding and is thus inapplicable here because Harper’s first petition was denied. We review the district court’s legal conclusions in dismissing a § 2241 petition de novo. Palma-Salazar v. Davis, 677 F.3d 1031, 1035 (10th Cir. 2012). At the outset, although the district court dismissed the claims for being secondary and successive, it must be clarified that the phrase “second or successive” as we have come to know it following the passage of the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (“AEDPA”) is not at issue in this case. Post-AEDPA, “second or successive” is used in reference to § 2244(a). But § 2244(a)’s structure does not apply to federal prisoners challenging execution of their sentence under § 2241; instead, “the traditional doctrines governing successive and abusive writs -4- inform our application of that subsection’s bar.” Stanko v. Davis, 617 F.3d 1262, 1272 (10th Cir. 2010). Because this is a § 2241 petition, whether claims two through seven are second or successive is evaluated according to the principles governing successive and abusive writs prior to enactment of the AEDPA. See Stanko, 617 F.3d at 1268-69. One of these principles is that a court may “decline to consider a habeas petition presenting a claim that was previously raised and adjudicated in an earlier habeas proceeding, unless the court determined that hearing the claim would serve the ends of justice.” Id. at 1269. On appeal, Harper does not dispute that claims two through seven are essentially the same challenges that he made in his earlier, already adjudicated § 2241 proceeding; rather, he relies on the application of the “new judgment” rule in Magwood to prevent his claims from being barred as successive. In Magwood, the district court conditionally granted the petitioner’s § 2254 habeas application challenging his death sentence. The state trial court then conducted a new sentencing hearing and again sentenced the petitioner to death, whereupon he brought another habeas application challenging the new sentence. The district court again conditionally granted the petitioner’s application based on a new ineffective-assistance-of-counsel argument. But the Eleventh Circuit reversed, holding that the petitioner’s challenge to his new death sentence was an unreviewable “second or successive” challenge under 28 U.S.C. § 2244(b). The court reasoned that -5- the petitioner could have brought the same claims when he challenged his original death sentence. The Supreme Court reversed, holding that the petitioner’s application challenged a new judgment and was therefore not “second or successive” under § 2244(b). Magwood, 130 S. Ct. at 2801 (“This is [petitioner’s] first application challenging that intervening judgment. The errors he alleges are new.”) (emphasis in original). Looking at the statutory context, the Court concluded that § 2254 is not a claims-focused statute but one that relies on whether the petitioner’s application challenges the same state-court judgment. Id. at 2790 (“Both § 2254(b)’s text and the relief it provides indicate that ‘second or successive’ must be interpreted with respect to the judgment challenged.”). As such, because abuse-of-the-writ rules—as modified by § 2244(b)(2)—did not apply at all to the petitioner’s application challenging the new sentence, his application could not have been “second or successive.” Here, the issue is whether the 2009 decision to deny Harper parole qualifies as a “new judgment” being challenged for the first time, and not a “second or successive” challenge of the Commission’s 1994 decision. The government argues that Harper’s claims are “second or successive” because the factual basis for the Commission’s 2009 decision was the same as its 1994 decision, which Harper has already challenged unsuccessfully. Moreover, the government cites the Fifth Circuit case In re Lampton to show that Magwood applies -6- “only when a new sentence was imposed as a result of the first habeas proceeding.” 667 F.3d 585, 589 (5th Cir. 2012). Although the majority in Magwood did not make that specific distinction, all the cases cited in support of its holding involved habeas applicants whose first petition was granted. In those cases, however, there could not have been a new judgment without a successful challenge to the original judgment. Here, on the other hand, Harper had the opportunity for a parole hearing in 1994 and, after being denied, had another opportunity for a parole hearing 15 years later in 2009. The occurrence of the 2009 parole hearing—and subsequent judgment—did not depend upon the success of Harper’s habeas petition challenging his 1994 parole denial; a new hearing and decision was scheduled to occur independent of the outcome of the 1994 proceeding. Harper thus argues that the Commission was mandated to give a full reassessment of his case without any deference to previous rulings by the Commission or the courts, making 28 U.S.C. § 2244(a) inapplicable because it is a new judgment. Harper’s argument that Magwood’s “new judgment” rule should apply to his § 2241 petition is ultimately unavailing. The Court in Magwood specifically declined to address or constrain the scope of habeas petitions challenging parole. 130 S. Ct. at 2800 n.12 (“We address only an application challenging a new state-court judgment for the first time.”). Indeed, the Court noted that its ruling does not constrain the scope of § 2254 as applied to state prisoners challenging the execution of their sentences—which are equivalent to § 2241 petitions in the Tenth Circuit—as -7- the Court has previously defined it. Id.; see also Martin v. Bartow, 628 F.3d 871, 878 (7th Cir. 2010) (noting that Magwood “left undisturbed precedent concerning the scope of habeas review for challenges to parole decisions.”). Nor has any other court applied Magwood to § 2241 petitions or § 2254 petitions challenging parole decisions. The district court did not err when it found claims two through seven second or successive.