Court Opinion

ID: 9368938
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-02-07 16:00:27.354687+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:16:11.814302
License: Public Domain

Appellate Case: 22-6186      Document: 010110809313          Date Filed: 02/07/2023      Page: 1
                                                                                        FILED
                                                                            United States Court of Appeals
                        UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS                              Tenth Circuit

                              FOR THE TENTH CIRCUIT                               February 7, 2023
                          _________________________________
                                                                                Christopher M. Wolpert
                                                                                    Clerk of Court
  UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

        Plaintiff - Appellee,

  v.                                                             No. 22-6186
                                                        (D.C. Nos. 5:19-CV-00939-D &
  KEN EJIMOFOR EZEAH,                                        5:16-CR-00029-D-1)
                                                                 (W.D. Okla.)
        Defendant - Appellant.
                       _________________________________

             ORDER DENYING CERTIFICATE OF APPEALABILITY*
                    _________________________________

 Before BACHARACH, PHILLIPS, and EID, Circuit Judges.
                  _________________________________

        Ken Ejimofor Ezeah, a federal prisoner proceeding pro se, seeks a certificate of

 appealability (COA) to appeal the district court’s dismissal of his motion for relief

 pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 60(b). The district court concluded that the

 motion was in substance an unauthorized second or successive 28 U.S.C. § 2255 motion

 and dismissed it for lack of jurisdiction. See In re Cline, 531 F.3d 1249, 1251 (10th Cir.

 2008) (absent circuit court authorization, a district court lacks jurisdiction to consider a

 second or successive § 2255 motion). Exercising jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. §§ 1291

 and 2253, we deny a COA and dismiss this matter.

        *
          This order is not binding precedent except under the doctrines of law of the case,
 res judicata, and collateral estoppel. It may be cited, however, for its persuasive value
 consistent with Fed. R. App. P. 32.1 and 10th Cir. R. 32.1.
Appellate Case: 22-6186       Document: 010110809313         Date Filed: 02/07/2023      Page: 2

                                         Background

        The factual and procedural background of Mr. Ezeah’s conviction, appeal, and

 original § 2255 proceeding are described in our two prior decisions. See United States v.

 Ezeah, 738 F. App’x 591, 592-95 (10th Cir. 2018) (Ezeah I); United States v. Ezeah, No.

 21-6165, 2022 WL 2374294, at *1-3 (10th Cir. June 30, 2022) (Ezeah II). We do not

 repeat that background information here, other than to provide context for our analysis of

 his application for a COA.

        We issued our decision in Ezeah II in June 2022. In July, Mr. Ezeah filed what he

 captioned as a Rule 60(b) motion asserting that the § 2255 judgment was void because of

 defects “that compromised the integrity of his original [§] 2255 habeas proceedings.” R.,

 vol. III at 114. On September 14, 2022, the district court dismissed the motion for lack of

 jurisdiction, concluding it was an unauthorized second or successive § 2255 motion.

        On September 26, Mr. Ezeah filed another motion captioned as a Rule 60(b)

 motion alleging defects in the § 2255 proceedings.1 Specifically, he claimed the district

 court failed “to articulate its consideration” of his evidence, including his and his

 brother’s affidavits, and to explain “the relevance or irrelevance of that . . . evidence.” Id.

 at 129. He said the court failed to give him an opportunity to “develop the record with

 facts . . . outside the record,” and he took issue with the court having based its ruling

 solely on the record evidence, arguing that it should have obtained affidavits from the

        1
           In October 2022, Mr. Ezeah filed a motion that appears to be identical to the one
 he filed in September 2022. Compare R., vol. III at 129-30, with id. at 137-38. The
 district court did not separately rule on the October motion and we find no error in its
 failure to do so.
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 prosecutor and defense counsel about their knowledge of any additional agreements

 between the parties. Id. Finally, he asserted that the court “overlook[ed] the fact that

 [his] ineffective assistance of counsel [claim] was based on a conflict of interest between

 himself and his trial attorney,” so did not require a showing of prejudice. Id.

        On October 12, the district court dismissed the September 26 motion for lack of

 jurisdiction, concluding it was an unauthorized second or successive § 2255 motion

 because it attacked the court’s previous merits determination. The court denied a COA in

 a separate order.

        Mr. Ezeah seeks a COA as to the October 12, 2022, order. He does not seek a

 COA as to the September 14, 2022, order.

                                         Discussion

        The threshold question is whether Mr. Ezeah’s September 26 motion is a Rule

 60(b) motion or a successive § 2255 motion. We agree with the district court that it

 is a successive § 2255 motion.

        “It is the relief sought, not [the] pleading’s title, that determines whether the

 pleading is a § 2255 motion.” United States v. Nelson, 465 F.3d 1145, 1149

 (10th Cir. 2006). “[A] 60(b) motion is a second or successive petition if it in

 substance or effect asserts or reasserts a federal basis for relief from the petitioner’s

 underlying conviction.” Spitznas v. Boone, 464 F.3d 1213, 1215 (10th Cir. 2006). It

 is not a second or successive § 2255 motion “if it . . . challenges a defect in the

 integrity of the federal habeas proceeding, provided that such a challenge does not itself

                                              3
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 lead inextricably to a merits-based attack on the disposition of a prior habeas petition.”

 Id. at 1216.2

        In his combined opening brief and application for a COA, Mr. Ezeah insists

 that his motion was a Rule 60(b) motion and relies on Blackledge v. Allison, 431 U.S.

 63 (1977), to support his procedural-defect claims. But Blackledge does not support

 his argument.

        Like this case, Blackledge involved a habeas petitioner seeking reconsideration

 of the denial of a claim alleging that his plea agreement was induced by an unkept

 promise. See id. at 67-70. But the similarity ends there. Blackledge was decided

 when plea bargaining was not well established as a “visible practice,” id. at 76, in a

 state where courts made very little record of guilty plea proceedings, see id. at 76-78.

 The petitioner’s claims were based entirely on events that occurred outside the

 courtroom and nothing in the existing record refuted them. See id. at 77. In those

 circumstances, the Court held that “before dismissing facially adequate allegations

 short of an evidentiary hearing, ordinarily a district judge should seek as a minimum

 to obtain affidavits from all persons likely to have firsthand knowledge of the

 existence of any plea agreement.” Id. at 82 n.25. The Court recognized, however,

 that “the representations of the defendant, his lawyer, and the prosecutor at [a plea]

 hearing, as well as any findings made by the judge accepting the plea, constitute a

        2
         Although Spitznas involved the interplay between 28 U.S.C. § 2254 and
 Rule 60(b), we explained that the “same mode of analysis applies” to § 2255 cases and
 possible successive motions. Nelson, 465 F.3d at 1147 (applying Spitznas analysis to
 case involving “§ 2255 and a motion ostensibly under Fed. R. Civ. P. 15”).
                                               4
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 formidable barrier in any subsequent collateral proceedings.” Id. at 73-74. And it

 explained that because “[s]olemn declarations in open court carry a strong

 presumption of verity,” a habeas petitioner’s “contentions that in the face of the

 record are wholly incredible” are “subject to summary dismissal.” Id. at 74; see also

 Lasiter v. Thomas, 89 F.3d 699, 703 (10th Cir. 1996) (recognizing that Blackledge

 permits “summary disposition of habeas corpus petitions based on claims of unkept

 promises and misunderstanding when the court record refutes the claims”).

       In denying Mr. Ezeah’s § 2255 motion, the district court concluded that his

 allegations and supporting evidence about an additional verbal agreement were

 insufficient to overcome the record evidence that the parties’ agreement was limited

 to what was in the written plea agreement. In denying a COA, we outlined the

 evidence supporting that determination, including (1) Mr. Ezeah’s assurance to the

 court at the change-of-plea hearing “that he had reviewed the terms of the [written]

 plea agreement with his attorney . . . and that [it] encompassed the full scope of his

 arrangement with the government”; (2) his acknowledgment, both in his motion for a

 downward variance and at the sentencing hearing, that his cooperation with the

 prosecution was voluntary and was not required by the plea agreement or “for

 sentencing reasons”; and (3) the government’s response to his motion to withdraw his

 plea advising the court that “it had promised only to recommend a three-level

 reduction for acceptance of responsibility.” Ezeah II, 2022 WL 2374294, at *1

 (internal quotation marks omitted); see also Ezeah I, 738 F. App’x at 594 (holding that

 “the government was not obligated to move for the reduction [he] claimed” and that

                                            5
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 his “post hoc statements cannot overcome the plain language of the plea agreement

 and the remainder of the record evidence regarding the government’s plea

 obligations”). We thus concluded that the district court did not abuse its discretion by

 summarily denying his § 2255 motion. See Ezeah II, 2022 WL 2374294, at *3. And we

 expressly noted that the circumstances that might warrant reconsideration under

 Blackledge “aren’t present here.” Id. at *3 n.3.

        Mr. Ezeah’s September 26 motion challenged the evidentiary support for the

 district court’s ruling, took issue with its weighing of conflicting evidence, suggested

 its failure to mention specific evidence means it did not consider that evidence,

 maintained that the court overlooked aspects of his claim, and argued that the court

 erred by deciding the motion based on the existing record. These arguments may

 well allege “defect[s] in the integrity of [his] federal habeas proceeding,” Spitznas,

 464 F.3d at 1216, but they boil down to nothing more than “a merits-based attack on”

 the district court’s rejection of his ineffective assistance of counsel claim and resultant

 dismissal of his § 2255 motion. Thus, the district court correctly treated his motion as

 a second or successive § 2255 motion and dismissed it for lack of jurisdiction.3 See

 id.

        3
          The district court indicated in the October 12 order that Mr. Ezeah’s September
 26 motion sought to set aside the court’s September 14 order dismissing for lack of
 jurisdiction his previous motion to set aside the § 2255 judgment. It is unclear whether
 the September 26 motion attacked the September 14 order or the order denying the
 original § 2255 motion on the merits. Either way, however, the district court correctly
 dismissed the motion for lack of jurisdiction.
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                                        Conclusion

       We deny Mr. Ezeah’s request for a COA and dismiss this matter.

                                          Entered for the Court

                                          CHRISTOPHER M. WOLPERT, Clerk

                                          7