Court Opinion

ID: 9375313
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-02-27 16:00:40.871609+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:16:57.465369
License: Public Domain

Case: 22-70009         Document: 00516655477             Page: 1      Date Filed: 02/24/2023

              United States Court of Appeals
                   for the Fifth Circuit
                                                                               United States Court of Appeals
                                                                                        Fifth Circuit

                                        No. 22-70009
                                                                                      FILED
                                                                               February 24, 2023
                                                                                 Lyle W. Cayce
   Richard Vasquez,                                                                   Clerk

                                                                   Petitioner—Appellant,

                                             versus

   Bobby Lumpkin, Director, Texas Department of Criminal Justice,
   Correctional Institutions Division,

                                                                   Respondent—Appellee.

                  Application for Certificate of Appealability from the
                              United States District Court
                           for the Southern District of Texas
                                 USDC No. 2:05-CV-59

   Before Haynes, Engelhardt, and Wilson, Circuit Judges.
   Per Curiam:*
          Richard Vasquez moves for a certificate of appealability (“COA”) to
   seek review of the district court’s denial of his Rule 60(b) motion for relief
   from judgment in his federal habeas case.                The district court denied
   Vasquez’s motion, ruling that it was actually an unauthorized successive

          *
              This opinion is not designated for publication. See 5th Cir. R. 47.5.
Case: 22-70009        Document: 00516655477              Page: 2       Date Filed: 02/24/2023

                                         No. 22-70009

   habeas petition. We conclude that reasonable jurists would not debate this
   determination, and we therefore DENY Vasquez’s application for a COA. 1
                                              I.
           In 1999, a Texas jury convicted Vasquez of capital murder for killing
   his girlfriend’s four-year-old daughter, Miranda. During trial, the state
   prosecutors introduced testimony that Miranda: (1) was severely sexually
   assaulted before she died; (2) suffered blows to the head that were equivalent
   in force to being in a 65-mile-per-hour car accident; and (3) had cocaine levels
   in her blood that were double the lethal amount for an adult. Vasquez
   appealed his conviction and death sentence to the Texas Court of Criminal
   Appeals (“TCCA”), which affirmed. The TCCA also denied his petition
   for state habeas relief.
           In 2006, Vasquez petitioned for federal habeas relief under 28 U.S.C.
   § 2254. In 2008, the district court denied the requested relief but granted a
   COA on Vasquez’s claim that he received ineffective assistance of counsel at
   trial and on appeal. We affirmed, and the Supreme Court denied certiorari
   review. See Vasquez v. Thaler, 389 F. App’x 419, 432 (5th Cir. 2010) (per
   curiam), cert. denied, 563 U.S. 991 (2011). His petition did not directly
   challenge the aforementioned trial evidence; nor did the State specifically
   rely on that evidence in its response to Vasquez’s petition.
           In 2015, Vasquez filed a successive state habeas application
   challenging the evidence related to Miranda’s brain injury and the reports of
   cocaine in her system. He argued that recent developments in forensic

           1
            Vasquez subsequently filed a motion for authorization to file a successive petition
   pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2244(b)(3)(A). In re Vasquez, No. 23-40079 (5th Cir. 2023). That
   motion remains pending, and this opinion addresses only the request for a COA in this case
   regarding the district court’s denial of Vasquez’s Rule 60(b) motion.

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                                         No. 22-70009

   science had cast doubt on the validity of that evidence. The TCCA disagreed
   that relief was warranted and denied Vasquez’s application.                     Ex parte
   Vasquez, No. WR-59,201-03, 2021 WL 3746008, at *1 (Tex. Crim. App. Aug.
   25, 2021).
           In 2022—a decade after the conclusion of his federal habeas case—
   Vasquez returned to federal court and filed a motion for relief under Rule
   60(b) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. He urged the district court to
   reconsider his habeas petition, asserting that the initial judgment was
   procured through fraud. The district court disagreed. By order entered on
   July 11, 2022, the district court denied Vasquez’s motion, concluding that it
   lacked jurisdiction because the motion was, in substance, an unauthorized
   successive habeas petition. The court ruled, in the alternative, that Vasquez
   failed to show extraordinary circumstances warranting Rule 60(b) relief.
   After the district court denied Vasquez a COA, Vasquez moved for a COA
   from this court. 2
                                             II.
           A COA is generally required to appeal a district court’s denial of a
   Rule 60(b) motion for relief from a federal habeas judgment. See Hernandez
   v. Thaler, 630 F.3d 420, 428 (5th Cir. 2011) (per curiam). To obtain a COA,
   a movant must make “a substantial showing of the denial of a constitutional
   right.” 28 U.S.C. § 2253(c)(2); see Slack v. McDaniel, 529 U.S. 473, 483–84
   (2000). A movant can satisfy this standard by “demonstrating that jurists of
   reason could disagree with the district court’s resolution of his constitutional

           2
             Around the same time as this appeal, Vasquez appealed the district court’s July
   8, 2022, dismissal of his claim under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 alleging that he had been denied due
   process. Vasquez v. Collier, No. 22-70008 (5th Cir. 2022). Vasquez moved to voluntarily
   dismiss that appeal before any decision by this court; the dismissal has been granted.

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                                      No. 22-70009

   claims or that jurists could conclude the issues presented are adequate to
   deserve encouragement to proceed further.” Miller-El v. Cockrell, 537 U.S.
   322, 327 (2003); see Slack, 529 U.S. at 484.
          In this context, Vasquez must establish that reasonable jurists could
   debate whether the district court correctly construed his Rule 60(b) motion
   as a successive habeas petition. The Antiterrorism and Effective Death
   Penalty Act (“AEDPA”) imposes strict limitations on successive habeas
   petitions. As a result of the difficulty in being able to file those petitions, state
   prisoners occasionally “use Rule 60(b) motions to evade AEDPA’s
   limitations on successive habeas petitions.” Jackson v. Lumpkin, 25 F.4th
   339, 340 (5th Cir. 2022). So, Rule 60(b) motions that actually present habeas
   “claims” must be “treated as successive habeas petitions subject to the
   strictures of” 28 U.S.C. § 2244(b). Id. Otherwise, “use of Rule 60(b) would
   impermissibly circumvent the requirement that a successive habeas petition
   be precertified by the court of appeals as falling within an exception to the
   successive-petition bar.” Gonzalez v. Crosby, 545 U.S. 524, 532 (2005).
          Based on these concerns, the Supreme Court has guided that a federal
   district court only has jurisdiction to consider a Rule 60(b) motion in habeas
   proceedings if the motion attacks “some defect in the integrity of the federal
   habeas proceedings,” and “not the substance of the federal court’s
   resolution of a claim on the merits.” Id. One example of such a defect is
   “[f]raud on the federal habeas court.” Id. at 532 n.5. On the other hand, if a
   Rule 60(b) motion advances a new claim or attempts to attack the federal
   court’s previous resolution of a claim on the merits, then the motion will be
   treated as a successive habeas petition. Id. at 532–33.
                                         III.
          Vasquez urges that his Rule 60(b) motion was not a disguised
   successive habeas petition because it attacked a defect in the federal

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                                      No. 22-70009

   proceedings. He relies on a “fraud on the court” theory. To support this
   theory, Vasquez contends that the state trial prosecutors relied on “false
   evidence”—i.e., the purportedly scientifically invalid evidence of Miranda’s
   brain injuries and high levels of cocaine in her system—to procure his
   conviction. Per Vasquez, that evidence has since been invalidated by recent
   developments in forensic science.            So, Vasquez argues that the State
   committed fraud on the court when it relied on that evidence here in
   responding to his federal habeas petition. He urges that the fraud impaired
   the district court’s ability to fairly adjudicate his ineffective assistance of
   counsel claim. Thus, he reasons that this “fraud” moves his challenge into
   the proper scope of a Rule 60(b) motion. The district court rejected
   Vasquez’s theory, and we conclude that jurists of reason would not disagree
   on or debate this contention.
          To start, fraud on the federal court is a very difficult standard to meet.
   Generally, a petitioner must “show an unconscionable plan or scheme which
   is designed to improperly influence the court in its discretion.” Fierro v.
   Johnson, 197 F.3d 147, 154 (5th Cir. 1999) (quotation omitted). We’ve
   instructed then, that fraud on the court is limited to claims of “only the most
   egregious misconduct.” Id. (quotation omitted). Examples include “bribery
   of a judge or members of a jury, or the fabrication of evidence by a party in
   which an attorney is implicated.” Id. (quotation omitted). Conversely, less
   egregious misconduct, such as nondisclosure, generally will not suffice. See
   id.; see also First Nat’l Bank of Louisville v. Lustig, 96 F.3d 1554, 1573 (5th Cir.
   1996). Importantly, though, we are only concerned with conduct of the
   parties in the federal proceedings. Fierro, 197 F.3d at 153–54.
          Here, Vasquez’s fraud theory centers entirely on purportedly false
   evidence used by the prosecution at the state trial. His contentions here are
   that the State’s continued reliance on that evidence constituted fraud on the
   federal court. But we have long held that “alleged fraud by the state trial

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                                    No. 22-70009

   prosecutor” is insufficient to “establish fraud on the federal court.” See Lave
   v. Davis, 655 F. App’x 255, 259 (5th Cir. 2016) (per curiam) (emphasis
   added); see also Fierro, 197 F.3d at 153–54 (“[I]t is important to keep in mind
   that in reviewing the district court’s denial of the motion to vacate, we deal
   only with allegations of fraud on the federal courts, not any fraud that may
   have been perpetrated upon the state courts.”). As a result, jurists of reason
   thus could not debate that the federal proceedings did not involve fraud.
          In sum, we conclude that reasonable jurists would not debate that
   Vasquez failed to establish fraud on the federal court.         Consequently,
   reasonable jurists would not debate the propriety of the district court’s ruling
   that Vasquez’s Rule 60(b) motion was an unauthorized successive habeas
   petition.
          Accordingly, IT IS ORDERED that the motion for a COA is
   DENIED.

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