House v. Long

Appellate Case: 26-1061 Document: 19-1 Date Filed: 08/04/2026 Page: 1

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

FOR THE TENTH CIRCUIT August 4, 2026

_________________________________

Christopher M. Wolpert

Clerk of Court DESHAWN DEMARCUS HOUSE,

Petitioner - Appellant, v. No. 26-1061

(D.C. No. 1:25-CV-03246-LTB-RTG) JEFF LONG; PHIL WEISER, Attorney (D. Colo.) General of the State of Colorado,

Respondents - Appellees.

_________________________________

ORDER DENYING CERTIFICATE OF APPEALABILITY *

_________________________________ Before PHILLIPS, MORITZ, and ROSSMAN, Circuit Judges.

_________________________________ In 2022, a Colorado court convicted Deshawn Demarcus House of several crimes and sentenced him to prison; the Colorado Court of Appeals affirmed the convictions on appeal. In 2023, he challenged the judgment in a 28 U.S.C. § 2254 habeas application. The district court denied the application in May 2025. In October 2025, Mr. House filed another § 2254 application. Concluding that the latest application was an unauthorized second or successive one, the district court dismissed it for lack of jurisdiction.

Appellate Case: 26-1061 Document: 19-1 Date Filed: 08/04/2026 Page: 2 Mr. House wishes to appeal the dismissal, 1 but he can appeal only if we grant a certificate of appealability (COA). See 28 U.S.C. § 2253(c)(1)(A).

The district court resolved Mr. House’s motion on procedural grounds. And so Mr. House can obtain a COA only if he shows that reasonable jurists could debate both whether he stated a valid constitutional claim and whether the district court’s procedural rulings were correct. See Slack v. McDaniel, 529 U.S. 473, 484 (2000). We need only consider the district court’s procedural rulings. See id. at 485.

Mr. House’s § 2254 application asserted several constitutional challenges against his convictions, including speedy trial violations, due process violations related to prosecutorial misconduct, ineffective assistance of counsel, and First Amendment and self-representation violations. The district court correctly treated these arguments as unauthorized second or successive habeas claims. See Gonzalez v. Crosby, 545 U.S. 524, 538 (2005). The court’s decision to dismiss those arguments for lack of jurisdiction is beyond debate. See In re Cline, 531 F.3d 1249, 1251 (10th Cir. 2008).

Mr. House does not directly challenge the district court’s procedural ruling, though he does state that his district court challenges were to the integrity of his first habeas proceeding, implying that his application was properly characterized as a motion under Fed. R. Civ. P. 60(b). Despite his belief, the substance and effect of his district court filing is to assert or reassert “a federal basis for relief from his underlying conviction,” and, as such, the district court was correct to treat it as an unauthorized

Mr. House represents himself, so we construe his filings liberally. See Hall v. Appellate Case: 26-1061 Document: 19-1 Date Filed: 08/04/2026 Page: 3 second or successive habeas application. Spitznas v. Boone, 464 F.3d 1213, 1215 (10th Cir. 2006) (citing Gonzalez, 545 U.S. at 538).

We deny Mr. House’s application for a COA. We grant his motion to proceed without prepayment of costs or fees, and we deny all other pending motions (Dkt. Nos. 5, 15 & 16). We dismiss this matter.

Entered for the Court

Per Curiam