Opinion ID: 71523
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Williams's Prior Appeal Before the Fifth Circuit

Text: Pursuant to the district court's issuance of a COA as to Williams's Atkins claim, Williams filed an appeal with us. See Williams, 293 Fed.Appx. at 298. We conducted a thorough review of Williams's Atkins claim, and found that according to the definition of mental retardation adopted by Texas state courts, [3] Williams had failed to demonstrate mental retardation and thus ineligibility for the death penalty. See id. at 314, 122 S.Ct. 2242. We therefore affirmed the district court's denial of his petition for a writ of habeas corpus. Williams also appealed the district court's denial of his Rule 59(e) and Rule 60(b) post-judgment motions. Williams, however, had not sought a COA on these claims, and the district court had not granted a COA sua sponte as it had done with his Atkins claim. Although we have, in the past, construed notices of appeals as requests for COAs, we found that we had no jurisdiction to consider that request because Williams had not requested a COA from the district court first. Id. at 315, 122 S.Ct. 2242 (citing Sonnier v. Johnson, 161 F.3d 941, 945-46 (5th Cir. 1998)). We therefore remanded for consideration of Williams's request for a COA on the district court's denial of his Rule 59(e) and 60(b) motions back to the district court.