Eaves v. Stancil

Appellate Case: 25-1062 Document: 9-1 Date Filed: 06/03/2025 Page: 1

FILED United States Court of Appeals UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS Tenth Circuit

FOR THE TENTH CIRCUIT June 3, 2025

_________________________________

Christopher M. Wolpert

Clerk of Court RODNEY DOUGLAS EAVES,

Petitioner - Appellant, v. No. 25-1062

(D.C. No. 1:24-CV-02710-LTB-RTG) MOSES “ANDRE” STANCIL, (D. Colo.)

Respondent - Appellee.

_________________________________

ORDER DENYING CERTIFICATE OF APPEALABILITY *

_________________________________ Before BACHARACH, MORITZ, and CARSON, Circuit Judges.

_________________________________ Rodney Douglas Eaves, a Colorado prisoner proceeding pro se, 1 seeks a certificate of appealability (COA) to appeal the district court’s dismissal of his 28 U.S.C. § 2241 application as an unauthorized second or successive 28 U.S.C. § 2254 habeas application. We deny a COA and dismiss this matter.

I. Background In 2016, a Colorado jury convicted Eaves of aggravated robbery, theft, menacing, and possession of a weapon by a previous offender. The state district court sentenced him to thirty years in prison, and then later held a restitution hearing. After the hearing, the court entered an order directing Eaves to pay $40,140.78 in restitution—$17,740.78 to the victim of the robbery and $22,400 to the victim’s insurer. The restitution order also provided that interest would accrue at 8% per annum from the date of entry of the order. The Colorado Court of Appeals affirmed the judgment.

In 2018, Eaves filed a § 2254 habeas application. The district court denied relief, and this court denied a COA.

Eaves then unsuccessfully sought state post-conviction relief related to the restitution order. In 2024, he filed the underlying application in federal court purportedly seeking relief under § 2241. He brought three claims: 1) the state district court lacked jurisdiction under Colorado law to order him to pay restitution to the victim’s insurer; 2) the state district court violated Colorado law by ordering him to pay restitution to the victim in an amount that exceeds the actual pecuniary loss the victim suffered; and 3) the restitution order violates Colorado law because it requires him to pay interest on restitution he owes while incarcerated. He requested the federal court correct his illegal sentence by ordering the state court to modify the restitution order.

As is relevant here, the State filed a pre-answer response, arguing the court lacked jurisdiction over the § 2241 application because it was an unauthorized second or successive § 2254 habeas application. 2 The magistrate judge agreed, explaining that a § 2241 application challenges the execution of a sentence, while a § 2254 application challenges the validity of a sentence. Because Mr. Eaves was challenging the validity of the restitution portion of his sentence, and the relief he sought was to amend or correct the restitution order, the magistrate judge determined he was not challenging the execution of his sentence.

The magistrate judge also considered Eaves’s argument that the instant action is not second or successive because claim three is premised on a July 2019 amendment to the Colorado statutes, and so the basis for the claim arose after the district court denied his first habeas application. But the magistrate judge determined that the basis for the claim existed while the first habeas application was still pending because the court did not deny that application until November 2019.

The magistrate judge therefore concluded that Eaves’s claims were properly asserted pursuant to § 2254 and were second or successive. Because he had not obtained the requisite authorization from this court to file a second or successive § 2254 application, the magistrate judge recommended dismissing the application for lack of jurisdiction. 3

Eaves filed objections to the magistrate judge’s report and recommendation. The district court overruled the objections, adopted the magistrate judge’s report and recommendation, and dismissed the application for lack of jurisdiction or in the alternative as untimely. Eaves now seeks a COA to appeal from that dismissal.

II. Discussion Eaves must obtain a COA to pursue his appeal. See 28 U.S.C. § 2253(c)(1)(A). To obtain a COA where, as here, a district court has dismissed a filing on procedural grounds, Eaves must show both “that jurists of reason would find it debatable whether the petition states a valid claim of the denial of a constitutional right and that jurists of reason would find it debatable whether the district court was correct in its procedural ruling.” Slack v. McDaniel, 529 U.S. 473, 484 (2000). “Each component of the § 2253(c) showing is part of a threshold inquiry, and a court may find that it can dispose of the application in a fair and prompt manner if it proceeds first to resolve the issue whose answer is more apparent from the record and arguments.” Id. at 485.

A prisoner may not file a second or successive § 2254 habeas application unless he first obtains an order from the circuit court authorizing the district court to consider the application. See 28 U.S.C. § 2244(b)(3)(A). Absent such authorization, a district court lacks jurisdiction to address the merits of a second or successive § 2254 habeas application. In re Cline, 531 F.3d 1249, 1251 (10th Cir. 2008).

It is undisputed that Eaves did not obtain authorization to file a second or successive § 2254 habeas application. But Eaves argues that he properly filed a § 2241 application because it challenges the procedure to collect his restitution interest. Specifically, he states “[t]he relevant procedure applied in this case is that ‘interest on an order for restitution does not accrue while: Eaves is serving a sentence in a correctional facility operated by or under contract within the department of corrections located within the state . . . [.’]” COA Appl. at 9 4 (brackets omitted) (quoting Colo. Rev. Stat. § 18-1.3-603(4)(b.5)(I)(A)). He also argues that his “restitution claim” was not ripe when he filed his initial habeas application because that application was filed before Colorado changed its law concerning interest on restitution orders. Id. at 5. He asserts the “Weathersby exception” to a claim being second or successive applies when the “‘claim was not ripe when he filed his initial’ petition.” Id. at 5 (quoting United States v. McGee, 760 F. App’x 610, 612 n.2 (10th Cir. 2019)) (underline and boldface omitted). 5 He contends his restitution claim did not become ripe until he exhausted all his state and administrative remedies, which did not happen until March 2024. 6

We first observe that in his COA application Eaves does not address claims one and two related to the amount of restitution to be paid to the victim and the victim’s insurer. Although there were three claims in his § 2241 application, his COA arguments address only a single “restitution claim,” which is his claim related to the accrual of interest (claim three). Given these circumstances, he has arguably waived any argument as to the district court’s dismissal of claims one and two for lack of jurisdiction. 7 See United States v. Springfield, 337 F.3d 1175, 1178 (10th Cir. 2003) (holding prisoner waived his challenge to a claim because he failed to address it in his COA application).

In any event, Eaves has not shown reasonable jurists could debate the district court’s procedural ruling as to these claims. In claims one and two, he challenged the validity of the restitution order, arguing the state court exceeded its jurisdiction in ordering him to pay restitution to the insurer and to pay an amount to the victim that did not account for proceeds that had been recovered from the robbery. He also explained that he objected to these amounts at his restitution hearing in 2017, before he filed his first habeas application in 2018. These claims challenge the validity of his sentence, not its execution, and were ripe before he filed his first habeas application. Reasonable jurists would therefore not debate the district court’s determination that these claims were unauthorized second or successive § 2254 claims that should be dismissed for lack of jurisdiction.

We next turn to claim three. Although Eaves’s COA application primarily challenges the district court’s procedural ruling, we conclude it would be more appropriate to address whether claim three of the § 2241 application states a valid claim of the denial of a constitutional right because the answer to that question “is more apparent from the record,” Slack, 529 U.S. at 485. Eaves must meet both parts of the Slack test, and we need not address both components of the Slack test if he fails to satisfy either one of them. See id. In determining whether jurists of reason would find it debatable whether the application states a valid claim of the denial of a constitutional right, we “simply take a quick look at the face of the complaint to determine whether the petitioner has facially alleged the denial of a constitutional right.” Paredes v. Atherton, 224 F.3d 1160, 1161 (10th Cir. 2000) (brackets and internal quotation marks omitted).

After taking a quick look at Eaves’s claim three, we conclude he has not facially alleged the denial of a constitutional right. That claim is titled: “Fourteenth Amendment—Illegal Sentence Inconsistent With Statutory Scheme.” R. at 14 (boldface omitted). Eaves alleges in claim three that he is being charged interest on his restitution order while incarcerated in violation of a Colorado statute. But “[f]ederal habeas relief is not available to correct state law errors.” Leatherwood v. Allbaugh, 861 F.3d 1034, 1043 (10th Cir. 2017). And “[a] habeas applicant cannot transform a state law claim into a federal one merely by attaching a due process label.” Id. “Rather, the habeas applicant should include reference to a specific federal constitutional guarantee, as well as a statement of the facts that entitle him to relief.” Id. (brackets and internal quotation marks omitted).

Eaves’s claim three alleges a violation of state law. He references the “Fourteenth Amendment” only once in the title, and he says nothing more about it in the text of the claim. See R. at 14-15. He does not reference any specific federal constitutional guarantee in this claim tied to a statement of facts entitling him to relief. 8 See id. Accordingly, we conclude reasonable jurists would not debate that claim three does not facially allege the denial of a constitutional right.

III. Conclusion For the foregoing reasons, we deny a COA and dismiss this matter.

Entered for the Court CHRISTOPHER M. WOLPERT, Clerk