In Re Cline

FILED

United States Court of Appeals

Tenth Circuit

July 9, 2008

PUBLISH Elisabeth A. Shumaker

Clerk of Court

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE TENTH CIRCUIT

In re:

TIMOTHY JAY CLINE, No. 08-3113

(D.C. Nos. 00-CR-40024-SAC-3

Movant. & 04-CV-3400-SAC)

(D. Kan.)

ORDER

Before LUCERO, HARTZ, and HOLMES, Circuit Judges.

Timothy Jay Cline, a federal prisoner appearing pro se, has filed a motion

for remand challenging the transfer to this court of a post-conviction motion he

filed in district court seeking dismissal of his indictment. We conclude that the

district court correctly ruled that the claims in his motion constituted second or

successive 28 U.S.C. § 2255 claims, for which circuit court authorization is

required in order to be filed. We deny the motion for remand, dismiss the matter,

and warn Mr. Cline that further unauthorized filings may subject him to sanctions.

Mr. Cline was convicted of multiple drug trafficking crimes in 2002, and

his conviction was affirmed on appeal. United States v. Cline, 349 F.3d 1276,

1291 (10th Cir. 2003). He filed a § 2255 motion in 2004. The district court

denied that motion, and Mr. Cline did not appeal.

Before a federal prisoner may file a second or successive motion under

§ 2255, the prisoner must first obtain an order from the appropriate court of

appeals authorizing the district court to consider the motion. 28 U.S.C.

§§ 2244(b)(3)(A), 2255(h). Section 2255(h) requires a federal prisoner seeking

authorization to demonstrate that his proposed claims either depend on “newly

discovered evidence that, if proven and viewed in light of the evidence as a

whole, would be sufficient to establish by clear and convincing evidence that no

reasonable factfinder would have found [him] guilty of the offense,” § 2255(h)(1),

or rely upon “a new rule of constitutional law, made retroactive to cases on

collateral review by the Supreme Court, that was previously unavailable,”

§ 2255(h)(2).

Mr. Cline filed two unauthorized second or successive § 2255 claims in

2007. First, he filed a Fed. R. Civ. P. 60(b)(6) motion asserting sentencing claims

under Blakely v. Washington, 542 U.S. 296 (2004), and United States v. Booker,

543 U.S. 220 (2005). The district court ruled the motion consisted of second or

successive § 2255 claims, and it transferred the matter to this court pursuant to

28 U.S.C. § 1631 to give Mr. Cline an opportunity to obtain authorization to file

it. See Coleman v. United States, 106 F.3d 339, 341 (10th Cir. 1997) (per curiam)

(permitting district courts to transfer unauthorized second or successive claims to

the circuit court under § 1631 if it is in the interest of justice to do so). We

denied authorization because Mr. Cline’s claims did not meet the authorization

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standards set forth in § 2255(h). In re Cline, No. 07-3144 (10th Cir. Aug. 7,

2007) (unpublished order).

Mr. Cline then immediately filed another Rule 60(b) motion, raising the

same claims as in his prior Rule 60(b) motion. The district court again ruled it

consisted of second or successive § 2255 claims and again transferred the matter

to this court. Mr. Cline filed a motion to remand the matter to the district court.

We denied the motion for remand and dismissed the matter. In re Cline,

No. 07-3292 (10th Cir. Dec. 3, 2007) (unpublished order).

Mr. Cline then filed the motion at issue. Asking the district court to take

judicial notice under Federal Rule of Evidence 201, Mr. Cline asserted that the

indictment leading to his 2002 conviction was defective in several respects, and,

therefore, the federal government and district court lacked subject matter

jurisdiction to convict him. The district court ruled these claims constituted

second or successive § 2255 claims, and it transferred the matter to this court

under § 1631.

Transfer Procedure. Before addressing Mr. Cline’s motion to remand, we

first wish to correct a misapprehension concerning § 1631 transfers of

unauthorized second or successive claims. It has become the general practice of

district courts in this circuit to automatically transfer all unauthorized second or

successive habeas claims to this court, rather than exercising their discretion

under § 1631 to determine whether or not it is in the interests of justice to do so.

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See Peach v. United States, 468 F.3d 1269, 1271 n.1 (10th Cir. 2006) (“The

district courts in this circuit routinely follow this [transfer] practice when a

defendant files any pleading that the court construes as a second or successive

habeas petition or § 2255 motion.”). Some courts believe our court mandated

such transfers in Coleman, 106 F.3d at 341. Here, for example, the district

court stated in its transfer order that it “must” transfer the unauthorized second

or successive claims to this court under § 1631. United States v. Cline,

No. 00-40024-03, slip op. at 6 (D. Kan. Apr. 23, 2008). That is not so.

Section 1631 states that if a district court determines that it lacks

jurisdiction over a civil action, it “shall, if it is in the interest of justice, transfer

such action or appeal to any other such court in which the action or appeal could

have been brought.” (emphasis added). “Although . . . § 1631 contain[s] the word

‘shall,’ we have interpreted the phrase ‘if it is in the interest of justice’ to grant

the district court discretion in making a decision to transfer an action or instead to

dismiss the action without prejudice.” Trujillo v. Williams, 465 F.3d 1210,

1222-23 (10th Cir. 2006). Factors considered in deciding whether a transfer is in

the interest of justice include whether the claims would be time barred if filed

anew in the proper forum, whether the claims alleged are likely to have merit, and

whether the claims were filed in good faith or if, on the other hand, it was clear at

the time of filing that the court lacked the requisite jurisdiction. Id. at 1223 n.16.

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A district court does not have jurisdiction to address the merits of a second

or successive § 2255 or 28 U.S.C. § 2254 claim until this court has granted the

required authorization. United States v. Nelson, 465 F.3d 1145, 1148 (10th Cir.

2006). Shortly after the second or successive authorization requirements were

adopted as part of the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act (AEDPA),

this court held in Coleman that:

when a second or successive petition for habeas corpus relief under

§ 2254 or a § 2255 motion is filed in the district court without the

required authorization by this court, the district court should transfer

the petition or motion to this court in the interest of justice pursuant

to § 1631.

106 F.3d at 341.

The statement in Coleman that district courts “should” transfer an

unauthorized successive claim to this court in the interest of justice was not,

however, intended as a mandatory transfer rule. Coleman considered the

traditional interest-of-justice factors. It expressed concern that prisoners would

be unaware of the new successive authorization requirements contained in

AEDPA, concluding that an unauthorized successive filing in the district court

“would almost invariably reflect ignorance of the new procedural requirements of

[AEDPA].” Twelve years later, however, the second or successive authorization

requirements are no longer new, and it is by now well-established that under the

plain language of §§ 2255(h) and 2244(b)(3), prisoners must first obtain

circuit-court authorization before filing a second or successive habeas claim in

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district court. In Mr. Cline’s case, courts have repeatedly explained to him the

statutory authorization requirements of §§ 2255(h) and 2244(b); thus, a district

court might well conclude that his most recent unauthorized filing was not made

in good faith. See Trujillo, 465 F.3d at 1223 n.16 (suggesting it is not in the

interest of justice to transfer under § 1631 when a “plaintiff either realized or

should have realized that the forum in which he or she filed was improper”).

Coleman also expressed concern that a prisoner who failed to first obtain

circuit court authorization might, as a result, have difficulty complying with the

one-year statute of limitations for successive petitions unless the district court

transferred the matter. The transferred motion in this case, however, as with

many of the successive matters transferred to this court, fails on its face to satisfy

any of the authorization standards of § 2255(h). Where there is no risk that a

meritorious successive claim will be lost absent a § 1631 transfer, a district court

does not abuse its discretion if it concludes it is not in the interest of justice to

transfer the matter to this court for authorization. See Phillips v. Seiter, 173 F.3d

609, 610 (7th Cir. 1999) (noting that it is a waste of judicial resources to require

the transfer of frivolous, time-barred cases).

In short, Coleman should not be read to limit the traditional discretion

given to district courts under § 1631. When a second or successive § 2254 or

§ 2255 claim is filed in the district court without the required authorization from

this court, the district court may transfer the matter to this court if it determines it

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is in the interest of justice to do so under § 1631, or it may dismiss the motion or

petition for lack of jurisdiction. See Spitznas v. Boone, 464 F.3d 1213, 1227

(10th Cir. 2006) (“Since the claim was successive . . . the district court . . . could

only dismiss the petition or transfer it to us for certification.”); see also Jones v.

Braxton, 392 F.3d 683, 691 (4th Cir. 2004) (declining to adopt mandatory transfer

rule because § 1631 gives district courts discretion over transfers); Robinson v.

Johnson, 313 F.3d 128, 139 (3d Cir. 2002) (noting that district courts have the

option to dismiss an unauthorized successive petition for lack of jurisdiction or

transfer it to the circuit court pursuant to § 1631); United States v. Barrett,

178 F.3d 34, 41 n.1 (1st Cir. 1999) (expressly declining to adopt a mandatory

transfer policy, but noting that transfer might be appropriate in order to deal with

statute of limitation issues); Guenther v. Holt, 173 F.3d 1328, 1330-31 (11th Cir.

1999) (holding that interest of justice does not warrant a § 1631 transfer of an

unauthorized successive petition if the limitations period has not yet expired and

the petitioner has ample time to seek authorization from the circuit court).

Motion for Remand. In his motion for remand, Mr. Cline asserts that a

jurisdictional claim can be raised at any time, and he asks that his motion to

dismiss be construed as a Rule 60(b)(4) claim, pursuant to which a court may

relieve a party from a final judgment if the judgment was void. He asks that the

matter be remanded to the district court for resolution in the first instance.

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In Gonzalez v. Crosby, 545 U.S. 524 (2005), the Supreme Court held that a

claim nominally filed under Rule 60(b) in a habeas proceeding is, in substance, a

successive habeas claim if it asserts or reasserts a substantive challenge to the

validity of the conviction or sentence. Id. at 532. “It is the relief sought, not

[the] pleading’s title, that determines whether the pleading is a § 2255 motion.”

Nelson, 465 F.3d at 1148. This has been explained to Mr. Cline on the two prior

occasions he attempted to evade the authorization requirements by filing nominal

Rule 60(b) motions.

“A § 2255 motion is one claiming the right to be released upon the ground

that the sentence was imposed in violation of the Constitution or laws of the

United States, or that the court was without jurisdiction to impose such sentence,

or that the sentence was in excess of the maximum authorized by law, or is

otherwise subject to collateral attack.” Id. (quotation omitted). In the motion

Mr. Cline filed in district court, he claimed that the district court lacked

jurisdiction to convict or sentence him because the indictment did not describe a

“locus in quo” where the alleged violation occurred, did not allege a violation of

the Commerce Clause, and did not show that the federal codes and statutes he was

alleged to have violated were enacted by Congress, and, further because Kansas

never ceded to the federal government the land on which the crimes occurred.

The district court properly treated these post-conviction claims as unauthorized

second or successive § 2255 claims because they all substantively challenge the

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constitutionality of his conviction and detention, and are “effectively

indistinguishable” from habeas claims. See Gonzalez, 545 U.S. at 532; Nelson,

465 F.3d at 1148.

Mr. Cline has not sought authorization, nor does he assert that his claims

meet the authorization standards set forth in § 2255(h). He is therefore prohibited

from pursuing his claims in district court. Nelson, 465 F.3d at 1148. Thus, there

is no basis for remanding the matter to the district court.

Accordingly, the motion for remand is DENIED, and the matter is

TERMINATED. We warn Mr. Cline that any further attempt by him to begin a

collateral attack on his 2002 convictions without first satisfying all of the

authorization requirements set forth in § 2255(h), including first moving in this

court for authorization, could lead to the imposition of sanctions.

Entered for the Court

ELISABETH A. SHUMAKER, Clerk

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