Court Opinion

ID: 9798633
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 05:14:23.956737+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:08:29.163538
License: Public Domain

PATRICK E. HIGGINBOTHAM, Circuit Judge,
concurring:
I concur but only in affirming the decision of the district court for the reasons it gave. I would affirm the district court’s rejection of the Rule 60 submission as untimely. I would not reach the question of whether a claim of exemption from the death penalty — actual innocence — with its override of finality interests is only a change in decisional law that under Rule 60 is outweighed by finality interests. Ta-mayo was forced onto a successive petition track with its narrowed acceptance of his claim to be exempt from a death sentence by rulings later found to be in error. To foreclose access here as a first filed petition with its unchecked treatment of a claim of innocence is to these eyes passing strange. At the least we ought not do so when it is unnecessary.